The Mukasey Rules: Schools not to send your children to
The traditional annual list of Party Schools now has a jump-start. In no particular order, except the way CNN listed them:
- Duke
Dartmouth
Ohio State
Syracuse
Tufts
Colgate
Kenyon
Morehouse
Middlebury College
Rhodes College
The reasoning is such that Only the Current Attorney General could love:
“This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. “It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.”
“Is routinely evaded” is College President-speak for “The system is broken, so I’m not responsible.”
Since this reasoning also applies to most recreational drug consumption, including but not limited to marijuana, crack, cocaine, and Ecstasy, I expect the Amethyst Initiative to move on to those areas next.
It falls to a former Clinton Administration official to tell the truth and shame the Devil,* in around the 16th or 17th graf:
But some other college administrators sharply disagree that lowering the drinking age would help. University of Miami President Donna Shalala, who served as secretary of health and human services under President Clinton, declined to sign.
“I remember college campuses when we had 18-year-old drinking ages, and I honestly believe we’ve made some progress,” Shalala said in a telephone interview. “To just shift it back down to the high schools makes no sense at all.”
And it is even later in the piece that they point out that the researcher whose work the Amethyst Initiative cites not only disagrees, but sees through the facade:
McCardell cites the work of Alexander Wagenaar, a University of Florida epidemiologist and expert on how changes in the drinking age affect safety. But Wagenaar himself sides with MADD in the debate.
The college presidents “see a problem of drinking on college campuses, and they don’t want to deal with it,” Wagenaar said in a telephone interview. “It’s really unfortunate, but the science is very clear.”
To coin a phrase, “Why, oh why, can’t we have a better press corps?”
*Yes, I have been reading and re-reading Stephen King recently. Why do you ask?