The ban, which exempts parties hosted by student organizations as well as residences with 100% graduate students, means students can not consume mixed drinks at on-campus parties, while shots are prohibited campuswide, regardless of school affiliation or age. That exemption applies to alcohol in the form of mixed drinks. “I was wrong”, Turner said, according to court documents.
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In the wake of the high-profile sexual assault conviction of Brock Turner this summer, Stanford University stiffened its alcohol policy this week and barred hard alcohol for undergraduates on campus in an effort to “reduce [its] availability and accessibility”.
Also newly banned is consumption of hard liquor by undergrads at all campus parties, regardless of container size or students’ age. Smaller containers of hard alcohol, defined as 20 percent alcohol by volume, are still allowed. Last spring, in a campuswide referendum, 91% of voters said they opposed a ban on hard alcohol, The Stanford Daily reported.
The move is sure to be unpopular with Stanford students returning to campus for the fall semester.
Turner, who was sentenced to six months in a county jail and three years’ probation, partly blamed Stanford’s “party culture” in a sentencing note to the judge. Two attorneys who argue cases in his courtroom have backed up his abilities.
“It’s hard to look at this policy with respect to fraternities and be very optimistic”, said Douglas Fierberg, a Washington, D.C., lawyer.
The case sparked a national debate on college drinking and sexual assault. “That same assumption has failed thousands of times across the country”.
Dauber also fears that Stanford’s new policy to restrict alcohol at parties could make students turn to binge drinking in their residences prior to going to parties where only beer and wine can be served.
Outraged by what they believed was an unusually light sentence, critics led by Stanford law professor Michele Dauber launched a campaign to recall Persky. She notes that if the new restrictions had been in place when Turner was assaulting the woman behind a dumpster, the crime would have occurred in a dorm room and the act would have never been witnessed.
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The new policy prohibits any liquor bottles of 750 ml or larger in any housing for its almost 7,0000 undergraduates – even students at or above California’s legal drinking age of 21. The new policies are the result of campus-wide discussions that occurred between faculty, staff, and students after both university President John Hennessy and Provost John Etchemendy asked students in March to begin thinking of ways to change the school’s campus-wide attitude toward alcohol.
