College presidents from about 100 of the nation’s universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.

The movement, called the Amethyst Initiative, began recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age.

“This is a law that is routinely evaded,’’ said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, who started the organization. “It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.’’

Other prominent schools in the group include Syracuse, Tufts, Colgate, Kenyon and Morehouse.

But so far, no local schools appear on the list.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman said he did not sign on to the Amethyst Initiative, but he did have the chance to do so.

“I do not think merely dropping the legal age to drink would have a beneficial impact,” he said in an e-mail.

“I do not think simple solutions usually lead to solving very complex problems. I think our programs have shown that we can impact the level of binge drinking, which is the style of drinking that puts our students most at risk.”

Doane President Jonathan Brand also was invited to sign, but declined.

Outreach programs that educate students about responsible alcohol consumption have proven effective in curbing binge drinking, Brand said.

“And that’s a much more effective approach than some sort of simplistic dropping of the legal age,” he said.

Nebraska Wesleyan University President Fred Ohles is similarly committed to alcohol-abuse awareness programs and also declined to join the Amethyst Initiative, spokeswoman Sara Olson said.

UNL senior Trevor Nieveen, a student government officer, sees pros and cons to the initiative.

On one hand, Nieveen said, the fact 18-year-olds can serve in the military but can’t legally drink seems odd. And he saw responsible drinking by those under 21 while studying abroad in Spain, where the drinking age is 18.

But Nieveen also worries about alcohol abuse among high school students and is skeptical that lowering the drinking age would automatically lead to more responsible drinking habits.

“There’s a huge maturity difference between 18 and 21,” Nieveen said.

Backlash already has begun at universities who did join the movement.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car crashes. It accuses the presidents of misrepresenting science and looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem. MADD officials are even urging parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on to the initiative.

“It’s very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses,’’ said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD.

Both sides agree alcohol abuse by students is a huge problem.

Research has found that more than 40 percent of college students reported at least one symptom of alcohol abuse or dependence. One study has estimated more than 500,000 full-time students at four-year colleges suffer injuries each year related in some way to drinking, and about 1,700 die in such accidents.

A recent Associated Press analysis of federal records found 157 college-age people, 18 to 23, drank themselves to death from 1999 through 2005.

Moana Jagasia, a Duke University sophomore from Singapore, where the drinking age is lower, said reducing the age in the U.S. could be helpful.

“There isn’t that much difference in maturity between 21 and 18,’’ she said. “If the age is younger, you’re getting exposed to it at a younger age, and you don’t freak out when you get to campus.’’

The statement the presidents have signed avoids calling explicitly for a younger drinking age. Rather, it seeks “an informed and dispassionate debate’’ over the issue and the federal highway law that made 21 the de facto national drinking age by denying money to any state that bucks the trend.

But the statement makes clear the signers think the law isn’t working, citing a “culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking,” and noting that while adults under 21 can vote and enlist in the military, they “are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.’’

Journal Star reporters Micah Mertes and Melissa Lee contributed to this story.