CONGRESS VOTES TO LET COLLEGES TELL ON STUDENTS

Parents Could Be Notified Of Alcohol, Drug Abuses

Congress has approved legislation that would allow colleges to notify
parents when students younger than 21 commit an alcohol or drug violation,
a measure sparked by a string of five alcohol-related deaths on Virginia
campuses last fall.

The bill, which passed the Senate yesterday and the House on Monday, needs
only President Clinton's signature to become law. Clinton said he is likely
to sign the measure.

Current federal law prohibits universities from disclosing their records on
students 18 and older, and most schools interpreted that to mean that they
could not notify parents about a student's drug and alcohol use.

A Virginia task force on college drinking, led by state Attorney General
Mark L. Earley (R), recommended in July that Congress exempt drug and
alcohol records from the privacy requirement. Advocates of the change
argued that many parents have no idea their children are abusing drugs or
alcohol and thus can't intervene to help them. Some advocates also said
that students might think twice about such behavior if they knew that their
parents would be told.

Officials at most Washington area colleges said yesterday that they would
have to study the issue carefully before deciding whether to change their
policies in response to the new legislation.

Under the measure passed by Congress, colleges would be allowed to tell
parents not only about student violations of alcohol and drug laws, but
also about violations of the schools' own rules against drinking and drug use.

Some privacy advocates criticized the legislation, saying that it strips
young adults of their rights.

"It's a ridiculous amendment," said David Banisar, the policy director of
the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Even drug and alcohol
violations shouldn't override an adult's right to privacy. An adult student
for better or worse is still an adult. . . . This amendment would basically
be turning the university into a babysitter for them."

But Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who sponsored the amendment at Earley's
request, argued that some restrictions on privacy rights are appropriate.

"I just felt we had to make an exception, as much as I believe in personal
freedom," he said. "These situations not only jeopardize the health of the
person who consumes too much alcohol, but that individual in turn can do
harm to others. Why shouldn't a parent be brought in?"

Warner and Earley both said they will encourage Virginia's state colleges
and universities to implement the new policy as soon as the bill becomes law.

Officials at several universities said they now will have to study whether
they want to establish a parental notification rule -- and which students
and which kinds of drug and drinking violations should be covered by such a
rule.

"We clearly will be looking at it and trying to figure out when this might
be an appropriate thing to do," said Louise Dudley, director of university
relations at the University of Virginia.

Officials at Radford University, however, did not wait for the federal
okay. This fall they approved a policy of full parental notification, based
on the state task force's recommendation. Virginia Tech considered doing
the same, but decided to wait for congressional action.

"We wanted to ensure that if we put in place a policy that said we would do
that, we would not be in violation of federal law," said Virginia Tech
spokesman Larry Hincker.

In the meantime, new students at the Blacksburg, Va., school were asked to
sign a waiver allowing the school to notify their parents of a drug or
alcohol offense. Now the school will consider toughening that policy.

Officials at the University of Maryland at College Park already were
discussing such a change at the request of several parents, but they said
they have not made a decision.

"We've heard from parents that they would like to be informed in situations
like this," said Andrea Goodwin, coordinator for rights and
responsibilities in the university's department of residence life. "The
students will probably be concerned about it, especially because it would
be a change from our past procedures."

David Z. Rose, 20, a third-year student at U-Va., called the new
legislation a "ridiculous" encroachment on students' rights but said it
will have little or no impact on student behavior.

"No matter what the government does, college students are going to be
college students," he said.

But Darren Freeman, 19, a sophomore at U-Md. at College Park, said the bill
is a change for the better. Freeman, who said he doesn't drink, believes
that a parental notification policy at his campus would affect what
students do.

"I definitely think that -- just the fear of having parents know that
you're breaking a rule or law is certainly a means of controlling," he said.

Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski