This is not about fraternities.
Alcohol is one constant in the anecdotal record of youthful tragedy.
The higher education media regularly headlines it in articles often bearing contradictory messages. Clearly, the educational community is ambivalent on the topic. And not a little frustrated. The same journal, in 1995, reported the voluntary ban on alcohol by fraternities at the University of Colorado in Boulder, a measure that a year later it reported, in the assessment of CU's president, an abject failure. A study by the Center for Disease Control reports that 34 percent of students interviewed binged at least once in the previous 30 days, a binge being at least five drinks at a sitting.