The Brown & White

The Student Senate unanimously passed a resolution March 24 encouraging President Alice Gast to sign the Amethyst Initiative on behalf of the student body.

The resolution was suggested by Jeffrey Boyarsky, '09, and seconded by Avi Lessner, '10, as part of the Student Advocacy and Safety Committee.

According to its Web site, the Amethyst Initiative is a movement to support "an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age."

Gast addressed this topic last fall in a letter posted on Lehigh's Web site Sept. 29.

The letter was also printed in The Brown and White.

In that letter, Gast said she does not believe she needs to sign a petition to support intellectual discussion on this movement and that doing so would only signal support for lowering the drinking age.

"I encourage open debate and discussion about drinking and alcohol abuse. I encourage our students to engage in responsible behavior and to make good decisions, which is part of our students' education," Gast stated in her letter. "But I remain unconvinced that lowering the drinking age, or signing the Amethyst Initiative, will help us achieve these goals."

Boyarsky and the Student Advocacy and Safety Committee of the Student Senate disagree with Gast.

"As representatives of the Lehigh Undergraduate student body, we don't necessarily promote the lowering of the minimum legal drinking age, as much as we support solidifying Lehigh's place in the intellectual conversation to reconsider the minimum legal drinking age and all of its implications and consequences," Boyarsky said in an e-mail. "Binge drinking is clearly a problem on college campuses nationwide, but lowering the drinking age may not necessarily reach the desired consequence of rectifying the situation."

Boyarsky's goal is to get 1,000 signatures on a petition to give to Gast before the school year ends.

Boyarsky, along with Student Senate President Divya Nayar, '10, said the goal of the petition is to show that Lehigh students are unifying together for a cause they believe in as a student body.

Eight hundred signatures have been collected so far, Boyarsky said in a Senate meeting Tuesday.

"As the brainchild of Jeff Boyarsky and the Student Safety and Advocacy committee, this is an issue that undergraduates face regularly at Lehigh," Nayar said. "The use and abuse of alcohol on campus is certainly prevalent and widely known. A petition will help in that it allows us to present a collective and unified document that supports a resolution urging President Gast to reconsider signing the Amethyst Initiative."

Lee Kaplan, '09, said she thinks it is a good idea to have intellectual conversations about this topic, so students can make informed decisions and spread awareness about underage binge drinking.

"This is something everyone at Lehigh does," Kaplan said. "Having this discussion would help the student body in at least understanding the consequence of underage and binge drinking."

The drinking age is currently set at 21 because of an act that was passed in Congress in 1984.

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act imposed a penalty of 10 percent of a state's federal highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age lower than 21.

Boyarsky believes it may take time for Gast to reverse her decision on the topic.

He said he believes this petition can be the beginning of that process.

Check online at thebrownandwhite.com for more information on the Senate's support on the Amethyst Initiative and details from the last Senate meeting of the semester.