Southeast Texas Medical Associates, LLP James L. Holly, M.D. Southeast Texas Medical Associates, LLP


Letters - How Many Student Deaths Are Too Many
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August 19, 2019

Northwestern State University and Lamar University to sell alcohol at athletic events 

I wonder how many student deaths from university sold intoxicating and habituating substances are too many?

Currently, 1,900 college students die annually from alcohol. 600.000 college students are seriously injured from alcohol annually. 

How many students at NSU and Lamar must die or be seriously injured by university promoted alcohol consumption before it’s too many?

How much profit must be gained or how much added attendance must be achieved to make it O.K for one student to die?

Is a profit of $10,000 per student death or would we require $50,000? How much increase in attendance at relatively boring athletic events would it take to justify each student death?  

Would an attendance increase of 1,000 per death, or 100 per injury justify the university preying on students with the administration’ s providing of intoxicants?

Surely a risk expert could calculate the value of a human life, even if it is only a “C” average college student who might not even graduate if he/she lived.

Surely, in making the decision for the university to put students at risk for profit on alcohol sales, university leaders had such studies and calculations made. 

Can we see the results?

Liability

Then we come to the liability assumed by the university in profiting from putting students at risk. 

In one of my favorite movies entitled, Class Action, a plaintiff attorney is asked by a defense attorney what it would cost to settle a law suit. 

If the university is liable for injuring or contributing to the injury of my child or grandchild, and the same would apply for your loved one, the answer would be the same. 

What was the plaintiff’s answer? He said, “Frankly, you can’t count that high!”

Unintended Consequences

“How offensive,” college administrators will say, “we have no intention to hurt students.”  

And, that is what every prisoner would say who robbed a store and unintendedly shot a teller. 

Maturity and wisdom allows us to foresee adverse potentials and too avoid them