Granted you could find dozens of parties within a mile of campus there; I don't know the geography of Stanford.
My campus didn't allow alcohol at campus parties, full stop[1]. It was nominally allowed at individually approved events, of which I never observed any (besides perhaps a football game?).
[1]: https://health.umd.edu/wellness-advocacy-alcohol-and-other-d...
There are at least 4 bars on the main campus, and several pubs just outside it.
They do have a policy:
> The licensed premises in the College are normally open at lunchtime and in the evening, with regular extensions during term-time for the Union bar until midnight on Wednesdays and 1.00 am on Saturdays (i.e. extended from Friday evening). It is College policy that sales of alcohol must not be promoted at lunchtime
Massachusetts was a Puritan colony and blue-laws state, but there was plenty of drinking for all undergrads using university money till the whole MADD (and related groups) national campaigns against drunk driving. (and in reaction you could get Tshirts that said DAMM, drunks against mad mothers)
The 17 and 18yo drinking ages around the country all got raised when the federal govt cut off highway funds if the state age wasn't 21. The insanity is all within my lifetime.
(but yes, various jurisdictions around the country before that were, for religi-political reasons but not puritan, "dry" with no sale of alcohol.)
As relevant history, it's less than 40 years since the October 1986 deadline for states to raise their alcohol purchase and possession ages to 21, and until sometime in the '90s a lot of schools were still pretty permissive about underage drinking on campus as long as it wasn't in the face of 'townies' and police. For a lot of HN readers who graduated in the 90s (or earlier) the kind of party and alcohol restrictions that are now commonplace are something they first encountered when their kids went to college.
I think banning alcohol on campus is foolish, and leads to worse overall outcomes. I also think this article's framing is dishonest and intentionally tendentious.
They are adults, and if there are no reasonable venues for being able to do regular adult things, for intentional reasons or not, they will create venues somehow, someway.
If there is anything to be learned from Prohibition, it is if you make rules too strict for the context, either you have to enforce them with unreasonable measures, or people break the rules in ways that cause more harm than you were trying to prevent.
Usually both.
Yes, it's called an off-campus apartment. Students have been drinking in them for centuries.
America's pathologies around student drinking are ridiculous. But let's not pretend like the path of least resistance doesn't already exist, and isn't in wide application by just about every other college in this country. The only reason we're talking about Stanford is because it hits all of the culture war hot-topic buttons (elite college, bureaucracy, "coddling," &c.). Nothing about the actual state of affairs is remotely unusual or controversial.
Agreed as a generality. But we are discussing Stanford in particular and you were replying to this:
> Sure, there are just very few Stanford undergrads who live off-campus. And most Stanford undergrads would not choose to live off-campus in order to be able to party more.
The local effectiveness and externalities of rules, no matter how widespread or time honored, still depend on their local context.
Do you expect undergrads who fly come from Missouri to start paying 2k/month for housing? I'm sorry but your solution is an imaginary one that doesn't apply to Stanford. NYC is completely different because you can practically live anywhere there and use the great public transportation network to get to where you want to go. If you live in East Palo Alto (cheapest area), good luck getting to class.
95% of undergrads live on campus. There is not enough housing for them to live off-campus irrespective of the cost. There is not enough parking for that many students to commute. Freshmen aren’t even allowed to have cars. Off-campus housing is not an option.
At least up until 2016 there was an “open door policy” where underage drinking was not policed when done indoors, ironically for safety, so that students would not be afraid to ask for help or support when necessary.
If you don’t know the context at Stanford, you really can’t understand the “war” aspect and I don’t blame you. That’s why this shouldn’t be national news.
Sure, but also most undergrads are not of drinking age, so a no drinking policy is not exactly the end of the world for them. They shouldn’t be drinking anyway.
> underage drinking was not policed
Not policing underage drinking is one thing. But chartered school organizations, throwing school approved events, on school property, with school funds is absolute something Stanford must police. You don’t need to have attended Stanford to understand why.
Edit: Besides alcohol poisoning, you also decriminalize injuries and re-criminalize sexual assault.