High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Amethyst Initiative is an organization made up of U.S. college presidents and chancellors that in July 2008 launched a movement calling for the reconsideration of U.S. drinking age laws, particularly the minimum age of 21 as established nationally by the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which required all states to raise their minimum age for purchase and public possession of alcohol to 21 or face a reduction in highway funds under the Federal-Aid Highway Act. The Amethyst Initiative was initiated by John McCardell, founder of Choose Responsibility and a professor of history at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, and is currently supported by 135 college presidents who signed a statement proclaiming, "It’s time to rethink the drinking age".