SOUTH BEND — Eighteen-year-olds can help choose the president of the United States. They can get married, go to war, and be tried as adults. But they can’t walk into a bar anywhere in the United States and buy a beer.

Some people, including a local college president, think it may be time to rethink that law.

This week, Brother Richard Gilman, president of Holy Cross College, joined a host of other college and university administrators signing the petition of the Amethyst Initiative, a movement by some of the leaders in higher education to encourage open dialogue and debate about the federal drinking age.

“This initiative is not necessarily supporting an immediate reduction of the legal drinking age,” he stressed. “What it does state is that we need open and comprehensive discussion of this law, because as it stands right now, it is a real disaster.”

The Amethyst Initiative, at www.amethystinitiative.org, started with an invitation to John McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College, to speak in June at a meeting of the Annapolis Group, an organization representing 120 liberal-arts colleges.

While preparing for the speaking engagement, McCardell contacted friends who were also college administrators and discovered a common desire to reopen debate about drinking age laws.

By signing the petition, supporters take the position that the current age limit of 21, which was signed into law in 1984, isn’t working well, that it may be increasing drinking risks for young people, and that it may be a good time to rethink the law.

More than 100 presidents and chancellors of colleges and universities have signed the petition, including Butler University President Bobby Fong, Duke University President Richard Brodhead, and the Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee.

Now, Gilman, who said he agrees the current law may create more problems than it solves and his opinion is the age limit should be lowered, possibly to 18.

“It puts us in a very untoward position,” he said. “As an institution, we are bound to uphold the law.

“But we have students here ranging in age from 17 to 25 or so. And because of this law, we have a situation where one class of students can drink, another class cannot, and they are all living and socializing together,” Gilman continued. “It just doesn’t work.”

Gilman acknowledged that his support of the Amethyst Initiative might draw a few high-fives from fun-loving students who interpret the move as an encouragement of drinking. But he stressed that his support of the project does not mean he supports drinking among young students, or any age group, for that matter.

Though heavy drinking will always be a problem colleges and universities have to deal with, he believes a lower drinking age could have the opposite effect — taking away the taboo of drinking and allowing for better education.

“It is a forbidden fruit for some young people, and I think that may be at the root of the problem,” he said. “By bringing it out into the light, we can teach moderation and responsibility.”

Spokespeople for Saint Mary’s College and the University of Notre Dame said their institutions would not be making statements on the Amethyst Initiative issue at this time. Indiana University South Bend Chancellor Una Mae Reck was not available for comment Tuesday afternoon.