[aidenn0]

This looks to apply to on-campus parties only? If so, it's more liberal, if also more complicated, than the university I went to where the policy for alcohol on-campus was "No."

Granted you could find dozens of parties within a mile of campus there; I don't know the geography of Stanford.

[woodruffw]

Right. The article bends over backwards to make this sound like a repressive policy, but it's significantly more permissive than most campuses' alcohol rules.

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...

[Symbiote]

In my first week of university in London there was an official Maths Department party for new students. There was so much wine the head of department asked me and several others to take a box of 6 bottles home (each!) so it would be less obvious that she's ordered too much.

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

[mjh2539]

You have to understand, the UK got to keep all of its normal Protestants. All of the nuts (see: Puritans and other non-conformist unmentionables) came here.

[fsckboy]

sounds good, but not true at all.

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.)

[fencepost]

I'm going to guess that you're in your 30s or younger (looked, yep). Part of what you're seeing in the comments is a reflection of age ranges on HN and of pretty massive change over the last 30-35 years around alcohol on campuses.

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.

[CraigRo]

My recollection was that in NY, you could have,drink,and buy alcohol as a minor. You just couldn't SELL it to a minor, and, at least in my nbhd, that wasn't really enforced. I saw a couple guys drinking a six-pack at an AP exam in the morning in full view of a proctor. Colleges didn't seem to care much as long as you drank relatively low alcohol beer. What got scary was when I visited a more hard-drinking and yet repressive college where I saw 17 year olds with enough liquor under their beds to kill an elephant. I happen to think that we lost something when adults couldn't drink with college students -- underage drinking without adults easily goes overboard.

[woodruffw]

Sure: I readily accept that this is a generational thing. But it's being presented as a culture war shift, when plenty of people in the comments here have observed that Stanford's policy has not meaningfully changed in the last 20 years.

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.

[aidenn0]

The University I went to was a dry (or nearly dry, maybe wine for welcoming VIP speakers) campus for a long time, but the degree to which it was enforced varied. It was also largely moot since there were 3 bars a single block away from the student union and the majority of students lived off campus.

[gnicholas]

The vast majority of undergrads live on campus. Off-campus housing is quite expensive (it's in Palo Alto), since you're competing with Googlers and the like for real estate.

[woodruffw]

This is not a problem or experience unique to Stanford: NYC has 600,000 university students living in it, and they manage to tear it up just fine without relying on the campus to host their parties.

[gnicholas]

The point is that the vast majority of Stanford undergrads live on-campus. That is presumably not true for universities in NYC. Given that Stanford undergrads live almost entirely on-campus, it is not surprising that on-campus parties form the backbone of the party scene. And given that most undergrads in NYC do not live on-campus, it is not surprising that their party scenes are not as impacted by campus rules.

[disgruntledphd2]

Have you been to Palo Alto? It's rather different from New York. Even SF is more boring and significantly smaller than NY.

[woodruffw]

Boring and smaller aren't the concern: I went to a large state school in an extremely boring suburb of DC. We still managed to cram people into overpriced off-campus housing and to drink ourselves stupid.

[gnicholas]

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.

[woodruffw]

Which is fine! But that's a "them" problem, not a culture-way-proxy-how-dare-they-not-allow-students-to-booze-in-a-college-dorm problem.

[tedunangst]

Stanford campus is somewhat inconveniently distant from any off campus housing. As in two miles is more than a quarter mile when you're running late to class.

[idontwantthis]

Exactly. The main reason these rules are great is that it makes students comfortable with calling an ambulance when someone has alcohol poisoning. If drinking is illegal on campus, then you criminalize alcohol poisoning too and students die as a result. My university had a similar, but not as regimented policy as Stanford. It allows the administration and the students to understand each other.

Edit: Besides alcohol poisoning, you also decriminalize injuries and re-criminalize sexual assault.

[Manuel_D]

Stanford university campus is fairly isolated if you don't drive. You can walk to Palo Alto, but that's not exactly somewhere for undergrads to party.

[Per_Bothner]

Most of Palo Alto and Menlo Park are within an easy bike ride from campus. You can mostly stay on pleasant tree-filled residential streets as you admire the multi-million-dollar cottages. Though as others have commented: few undergraduates live or party off-campus.