And newly appointed UNC – Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp follows in lockstep, The Daily Tar Heel reports. The student paper reports on a memo that Bowles, the UNC system president, circulated to chancellors announcing that he would not support an effort to consider lowering the drinking age, citing a lack of evidence that it would reduce binge drinking and other drinking-related problems. Thorp has “since said he also supports keeping the drinking age at 21,” the paper writes. So far, Duke University is the only Triangle-area college to endorse the Amethyst Initiative, which has collected the signatures of over 125 college chancellors and presidents who endorse “an informed and unimpeded debate on the 21 year-old drinking age.” (The Amethyst statement cites “a culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’” as one reason for signing.) The Tar Heel notes that “Duke’s political clout is less than that of the 17-campus UNC system.” But that didn’t stop Ohio State, or the university systems of Maryland or Massachusetts, from signing. Nor has it stopped UNC from supporting the discussion of controversial topics in the past.