AU President Neil Kerwin does not plan to sign the Amethyst Initiative, a proposal by a group of 121 college presidents who are lobbying to lower the legal drinking age to 18.
The proposal's supporters claim that the current drinking age of 21 has resulted in dangerous habits of binge drinking and that alcohol abstinence education is not working.
Kerwin said he remains skeptical of the proposal.
"I am interested in the policy debate underway and the arguments and alternatives," he said. "At this time, however, I have not seen compelling evidence to suggest that dropping the drinking age will deter the epidemic of destructive behavior prompted by alcohol abuse that we've seen on our own campus."
Kerwin said that although he believes the underlying concern about binge drinking is an important issue, he said he does not see a reason to sign the initiative.
The proposal recently went before the Maryland House of Delegates' Special Committee on Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Members of the committee heard testimony from researchers and safety experts about lowering the drinking age during the hearing. Currently, any state that lowers the drinking age below 21 will lose 10 percent of its federal highway funding, according to The Washington Post.
James Fell, a senior program director at Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, told the committee that instead of lowering the drinking age, they should increase penalties for underage drinking, including taking away underage drinkers' driver's licenses, and tougher penalties for people who use fake identification cards to try and purchase alcohol. Nearly all of the researchers criticized the proposal, citing a study that showed that 900 lives are saved each year because of drinking-age laws prevent under-aged drinkers from drunken driving, according to the Post.
Some AU students remain optimistic about the proposal's chances.
Sharon Raya, a junior in School of Public Affairs and president of AU Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, said she thinks that the Amethyst Initiative demonstrates a forward-thinking mindset by university presidents who support the initiative.
"The presidents of universities [who support the initiative] trust and respect their students to make responsible decisions regarding the possession and consumption of alcohol," she said.
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