[stupac2]

So, my question is whether there has been a shift at Stanford (nationally?) toward more of a binge-drinking frat culture?  Has the frat system strengthened over the decades, and has the drinking culture worsened?  Or are things about the same, except that our attention has focused on an old problem because of the Brock Turner case?

I think my time at Stanford was more recent than a lot of the people posting here, so I'll just weigh in on this question. I think frats are a red herring here. And I don't like frats, I think they're a bad idea for a host of reasons. But frats aren't that important to campus drinking culture, I was only in one a handful of times and still managed to get rip-roarin' drunk just fine. Between the co-ops, other houses, dorms, common spaces, and apartments there are plenty of places to party. Would shutting down frats improve the drinking culture? Maybe, but my suspicion is that whatever kids ended up in the house would still host boozy parties. It's what kids want to do.

Changing the campus binge drinking culture (which is very real, though very much not to blame for Turner's actions) would be hard. Someone elsewhere asked if other countries with more liberal drinking attitudes have these problems, and the answer is that they do, very much so. I don't know what the answer is here, as far as I'm aware the only societies that have no problems with alcohol have religious prohibitions against it (and that's probably not even a failsafe). Making it really expensive is probably the only thing you could do, but even that has its limits as homebrewing is legal, inexpensive, and not particularly difficult (even in college, a buddy of mine brewed his own beer for parties). Like most tricky problems, there aren't any easy solutions here.

[stupac2]

So, my question is whether there has been a shift at Stanford (nationally?) toward more of a binge-drinking frat culture?  Has the frat system strengthened over the decades, and has the drinking culture worsened?  Or are things about the same, except that our attention has focused on an old problem because of the Brock Turner case?

I think my time at Stanford was more recent than a lot of the people posting here, so I'll just weigh in on this question. I think frats are a red herring here. And I don't like frats, I think they're a bad idea for a host of reasons. But frats aren't that important to campus drinking culture, I was only in one a handful of times and still managed to get rip-roarin' drunk just fine. Between the co-ops, other houses, dorms, common spaces, and apartments there are plenty of places to party. Would shutting down frats improve the drinking culture? Maybe, but my suspicion is that whatever kids ended up in the house would still host boozy parties. It's what kids want to do.

Changing the campus binge drinking culture (which is very real, though very much not to blame for Turner's actions) would be hard. Someone elsewhere asked if other countries with more liberal drinking attitudes have these problems, and the answer is that they do, very much so. I don't know what the answer is here, as far as I'm aware the only societies that have no problems with alcohol have religious prohibitions against it (and that's probably not even a failsafe). Making it really expensive is probably the only thing you could do, but even that has its limits as homebrewing is legal, inexpensive, and not particularly difficult (even in college, a buddy of mine brewed his own beer for parties). Like most tricky problems, there aren't any easy solutions here.