A new study found that nearly a third of college students say they engage in practices typically called “drunkorexia,” a pattern of behavior that involves fasting or purging to compensate for the amount of calories consumed during binge drinking. Among heavy drinkers, those who binge-drink at least once a month, eight out of 10 said they engage in drunkorexic behaviors.
Following a controversy three years ago in which a University of Alabama Tuscaloosa student accused her sorority’s chapter of denying membership to another student because she was black, the university said it was working on a plan to help students in the Greek system embrace diversity. This month, the institution announced an action plan to deal with discrimination, which listed requirements for fraternities and sororities that include participating in annual training on discrimination policies, and submitting individual chapter diversity plans.
Former University of Mississippi student Austin Reed Edenfield was sentenced last week to a year’s probation and 50 hours of community service for placing a noose on the statue of the school’s first black student. He was also ordered to obtain substance abuse and mental health treatment.
At the request of the White House sexual-assault task force, the National Center for Campus Public Safety developed a new curriculum for college officials and police officers on conducting “trauma informed” sexual-assault investigations. The center unveiled the curriculum at its first conference, which gave Title IX officers and administrators an opportunity to connect with others who investigate and work to prevent sexual assault.
The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights opened a new sexual violence investigation at University of Virginia last Friday. It is the second Title IX investigation to occur at UVA in the past five years.
Pepperdine University President Andrew K. Benton sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights withdrawing their exemption from certain Title IX provisions, which was granted in 1976. In calling attention to the letter, Shane L. Windmeyer, director of Campus Pride, an advocacy group for LGBT students, wrote in the Huffington Post, “Sounds like they don’t want to be associated with these other anti-LGBT campuses any longer? Maybe Pepperdine wants to be on the right side of history.” Pepperdine is affiliated with the Churches of Christ.
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, then-Governor and current Vice President candidate Tim Kaine signed a series of bills into law. Measures in those laws included requirements that public colleges establish threat assessment teams and emergency plans, that public and private colleges be allowed to request complete mental health records held on their students from their time at previous institutions, and that public colleges establish procedures for notifying parents of students who receive mental health treatment at the institution’s student health or counseling center if the student poses a direct threat to themselves or others.
The controversial Texas campus-carry law allowing concealed guns in university buildings is scheduled to take effect on August 1, the 50th anniversary of the University of Texas tower shootings, the first mass murder on a U.S. college campus, which left 14 people dead, and more than 30 wounded.