GORDIE AND 100 COLLEGE PRESIDENTS

GORDIE AND 100 COLLEGE PRESIDENTS

By Andrew Malekoff©

On September 17, 2004, Gordie Bailey, then an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Colorado, died of alcohol poisoning as a result of a fraternity initiation for pledges.
Now is the time of year that fraternities begin “rushing” or recruiting pledges. This begins with a phase of goodwill and backslapping. As each desirable prospect that is offered, accepts a formal invitation to become a part of a pledge class, a new group is formed that then enters a stage of initiation. I went through this as an undergraduate student at Rutgers College.

Fraternity Initiation and Hazing

Initiation activities and ceremonies in fraternities differ from fraternity house to fraternity house. They include a combination of learning about fraternity tradition, performing community service and, in some cases, being subjected to ritualistic harassment, abuse, or persecution, also known as hazing. Sometimes the latter involves excessive and binge drinking.

I was subjected to fairly benign and sophomoric hazing and mild humiliation such as standing on my head while pancake syrup was poured down my pant leg. I was ordered to do pushups when couldn’t recall a fraternity brother’s hometown or if I flubbed a fraternity song.
No one ever demanded that I consume any amount of alcohol as a part of the initiation ceremony. I am not sure what I would have done, had this been demanded of me. At the time the drinking age in New Jersey was 18, so legal implications were not a consideration.

One Hundred College Presidents

Just weeks before the fourth anniversary of Gordie’s death, a news report stated that over 100 presidents and chancellors from some of the nation’s leading universities are advocating for a reduction in the drinking age from 21 to 18, believing that this will reduce binge drinking. Not all agree.
University of Miami (Ohio) president David Hodge refused to sign on with this group, known as the Amethyst Initiative (www.amethystinitiative.org). In a September 5, 2008 interview with his school’s newspaper, President Hodge repudiated his colleagues asserting that more than half of the students entering college have already begun drinking illegally and he fears that lowering the drinking age to 18 would increase alcohol abuse in high schools.

Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, states that “Every year on college campuses 700,000 students are injured due to alcohol abuse, 1700 die as a result of alcohol abuse, and 22% meet the medical diagnostic criteria for alcohol or drug abuse or addiction.” What this means is that we have a major public health crisis on college campuses across the nation.
Is the answer to reduce the drinking age? I think not.

Missing the Boat

The one hundred-plus leaders of higher education who subscribe to the Amethyst Initiative are missing the boat. It is simply not enough for them to recite the hackneyed logic found on their website that says that if “adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military [they should be entitled] to have a beer.” This level of analysis will only contribute to increased profits for the alcohol industry at the expense of young people’s well being.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has analyzed numerous studies in states where the drinking age was boosted from 18 to 21 and found that increasing the drinking age significantly lessened harm and death among young people.

The Gordie Foundation

Since Gordie Bailey’s death, his family created the Gordie Foundation to provide young people with the skills to navigate the dangers of alcohol, binge drinking, peer pressure and hazing. The foundation’s website (http://www.gordie.org/) contains a video trailer for a motion picture entitled HAZE that is intended to confront this national health crisis that affects just about every campus in America.

If you have a child in college and particularly one who is a fraternity member or prospective pledge, tell them to go to this website and to watch the trailer, after you have viewed it yourself. It will only take five minutes. If you are a guidance counselor, preparing students for college, take a look. Then talk it over.

And, while you’re at it, drop an email or letter to the president or chancellor of your child’s school and send them the link.

This column was originally published in the Anton chain of Long Island, New York newspapers in September 2008