Federal Law Addressing Campus Drinking Practices

Since 1989, an effectively written federal law has required colleges and universities to seriously address underage and excessive alcohol use on campus.  The circumstances behind  Kristine Guest's tragic death in 2005 proved to be the first time that the US Department of Education (ED) has directly considered a college's compliance with the law in 2007.   A questionable finding of compliance by  ED lead to a Congressional request for ED's Inspector  General to review ED's enforcement of the statute.  IG's report dated March 14, 2012 found virtually complete lack of any effective enforcement efforts and established requirements for correcting this failure.

The first two columns contain links which describe the law and applicable regulations as well as explores reasons why the law has not resulted in effective change.  The third column provide the tragic consequences on one small campus, 5 student deaths in two years, that resulted from lax enforcement of the statute.