Culinary Institute Fails to Provide Alcohol-Free Alternative, Student Says

A student at the Culinary Institute of America says a required course in which students drink wine, and the institute’s unwillingness to come up with an alcohol-free alternative, is frustrating his efforts to remain sober.

The student, Jeremy Umansky, who is 26, filed a complaint in March against the institute with the New York State Division of Human Rights.

He says the institute failed to offer him an alternative to the required three-week wine course, even after he provided doctor’s notes saying that alcohol and Mr. Umansky don’t mix, The New York Times reported today.

Mr. Umansky, who has been sober for seven years, told the Times that he has “an unhealthy mental obsession with alcohol.”

“Being in a room with that much alcohol is not healthy for me,” he said.

Tim Ryan, president of the institute, told the Times that while he could not comment on Mr. Umansky’s situation, students can graduate from the institute without ever tasting or smelling alcohol, regardless of their reasons for abstaining. Students could videotape the wine lectures, he said. —Austin Wright