Critics: Stanford's new alcohol ban won't prevent sexual assaults

A new, stricter alcohol policy announced this week at Stanford University is coming under fire from critics, who say the ban on hard liquor at most on-campus parties will do little to prevent sexual assault.

Under the new policy, announced Monday, Stanford will prohibit “high-volume” distilled liquor containers in undergraduate housing and ban consumption of hard alcohol at parties, except for those hosted by student organizations or parties taking place at graduate student housing.

Even then, only mixed drinks are allowed — straight shots of hard alcohol, university officials noted, “are never allowed at any party.”

The change comes after former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in January 2015, after both drank at a campus party. Two graduate students came upon Turner and the woman outside a fraternity house, and when Turner fled they chased after him, police said. The case caused a national furor when a judge sentenced Turner to just six months in jail.

The new policy, which limits alcohol containers to those smaller than 750 mL, is actually aimed not just at curbing consumption on campus, but at reducing the “outlet density” of stores near campus that sell hard alcohol, officials said. Since smaller containers of alcohol cost more, they noted, the higher cost “may serve as a deterrent” to heavy drinking.

Washington, D.C., attorney Douglas Fierberg, who specializes in lawsuits involving fraternity hazing, deaths, injuries and other cases, said the new hard liquor rules don’t really address the core issue at hand: fraternities that are allowed to self-govern.

“It’s hard to look at this policy with respect to fraternities and be very optimistic,” he said. Though Greek Life organizations at Stanford are considered university housing, Stanford exerts “no responsible supervision” over fraternities.

“While this policy goes a long way to prohibit certain quantities of alcohol in housing, the Greek community is still not supervised like all other Stanford housing,” Fierberg said. “So the idea that increased restrictions (are) going to solve the problem in the Greek community will never be better than its means of implementation. That same assumption has failed thousands of times across the country.”

The new policy comes four months after a campus-wide referendum in which nearly 92% of students voted against a hard alcohol ban, The Stanford Daily reported. Ralph Castro, director of the Office of Alcohol Policy and Education told the newspaper, “We’re not necessarily looking at popularity, but rather functionality.”

Michele Landis Dauber, a Stanford law professor and critic of the university’s sexual assault policies, credited Stanford with spending more on safety education. But she said it needs to get tough by expelling students convicted of sexual assault. It should also address its “culture of entitlement — and sexual entitlement” among athletes and fraternities.

Like Fierberg, she suggested providing “adult supervision of these places that we know are high-risk.”

Dauber said the university must do more to educate students on the dangers of alcohol. “It’s a weapon,” she said. “We need to educate students about the role that alcohol actually plays in sexual assault.”

She added, “Freshman girls are the ones at greatest risk for sexual assault on college campuses — I don’t know that they know that when they get here.”

She said the new policy, “however well-intentioned,” could take a bad situation and make it worse by driving binge drinking into dorm rooms and thus underground. By banning hard alcohol at most parties, she said, Stanford is encouraging students to engage in “aggressive pre-gaming” before they show up at the parties, where only beer and wine are allowed.

Dauber, who is leading a campaign to recall the judge in the Turner case, said that if the new policy had been in place last January, Turner’s victim might not have been rescued by the two students, who were passing by on bicycles when they noticed the attack unfolding behind a Dumpster. “Perhaps it would have taken place in Brock Turner’s room,” she said.

In any case, she wonders why the lighting hasn’t been upgraded in the area and other dangerous spots. “You ought to be able to see that Dumpster from space,” she said.

Follow Greg Toppo on Twitter: @gtoppo