Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention

The Rights and Responsibilities of the Modern University: Who Assumes the Risks of College Life? By Robert D. Bickel and Peter F. Lake (Carolina Academic Press, 1999).

There is an important new book out by Robert Bickel and Peter Lake, law professors at the Stetson University College of Law. The book, The Rights and Responsibilities of the Modern University: Who Assumes the Risks of College Life?, considers the evolving legal nature of the American university in the final decade of the 20th Century.

In the book, based on a detailed analysis of legal decisions from dozens of tort cases involving colleges and universities, Professors Bickel and Lake describe the emerging judicial view of "university as facilitator," where higher education officials help students navigate their way toward full independence and individual responsibility. The doctrine of in loco parentis is dead, but the alternative of being a passive bystander as students die or do themselves and others serious harm through unchecked [and often illegal] behavior is equally untenable. Bickel and Lakes' work describes the evolution of the university/student relationship in a style that is scholarly yet easily understood by lay readers.

Thanks to their thoughtful law review articles over the years in the Journal of College and University Law, Bickel and Lake are already household names among college and university attorneys. With this compelling book their names and work are sure to become just as well known among non-lawyer college presidents, deans, directors of student health services, parents, and others professionally or personally interested in the way the courts have tended to treat institutions of higher education in cases involving tortious and sometimes criminal behavior. The authors' lively writing style and useful case illustrations have made accessible what through no fault of the subject has too often been seen as material fit only for lawyers.

In particular, Bickel and Lake are to be credited for taking on the all too common misperception that college student drinking is uncontrollable. Their strategy: address the problems of alcohol danger and disorder directly; anticipate displacement to the surrounding community following a campus clamp down on underage and problem drinking and work with the community to minimize the effects. To quote Bickel and Lake, "Strict community enforcement of underage drinking standards, with college involvement, can facilitate reducing the problem. And, the college is in the position to assess and discipline its problem drinkers, even those who drink off campus." At the same time however, the university should avoid dictating policy or restrictions to students. "Students," explain the authors, "will need to be involved in solutions to alcohol risks and in discussions and policy making with regard to the problems."

Bickel and Lake's fresh discussion of the challenge of balancing rights and responsibilities on campus is a welcome departure from the way the writing of too many legal scholars confounds lay readers with the use of inadequately explained legal jargon and concepts. Given the many ways in which the legal environment impacts the relationship between students and schools and town and gown the reader comes away from the book better informed and ready to more fully participate in the discussion over what a school's drug and alcohol policy should look like; how schools should respond to underage drinking; what schools and communities can and are legally required to do to address campus crime and disorder; and, how schools can protect themselves from liability for injuries occasioned by fraternity hazing activities and underage drinking an drug use.

Indeed the authors present a model closely wedded to the U.S. Department of Education's Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention's environmental management approach. As such, the book is a must read for every college and university administrator struggling with how to tackle the problems of high-risk student drinking and the disorder it creates. University legal counsel, deans of students, campus police, residence hall advisors, policy scholars, parents, and law students as well will find the book a refreshing, informative, and provocative view of the university/student relationship.

With the high-profile deaths of students at Louisiana State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and many other schools, the field of higher education is mobilized as never before to address the problem of student drinking and other drug use. This book offers a timely and viable guide for positive action that can change the environment in which students make decisions about their alcohol and other drug use. Bickel and Lake's facilitator model is both an adaptable social vision for modern universities and a legal model for the courts and college administrators to work with. For the non-attorney or campus administrator, the book offers something just as valuable, a clear lens through which to view the sometimes murky issue of university/student relations.