Penn State's Office of Judicial Affairs will deal firmly with those students found guilty of crimes associated with the riot, and the district attorney is pressing forward with criminal charges against the participants. Two years ago, I began a campaign at Penn State to reduce excessive alcohol consumption by our students. I said then, and believe even more firmly now, that there is no challenge facing America's colleges that is greater than underage and binge drinking and the behaviors that surround it. The magnitude of the problem is much greater than most people realize. Surveys have demonstrated that excessive alcohol consumption has become normative among America's college and university students.
More recent studies confirm the scope of the problem.
About half of these binge drinkers, or about one in five students overall, were frequent binge drinkers, drinking heavily three or more times in two weeks. About two in five students drank without binging. There are unmistakable consequences of such behavioral patterns. Among the Harvard study respondents, frequent binge drinkers were 25 times more likely than non-binge drinkers to report having had five or more problems such as doing something they regretted, missing a class, forgetting where they were, getting behind in school work, arguing with friends, engaging in unplanned sexual activity, getting hurt, damaging property and so on. More than a fourth said they'd been insulted or humiliated.