To host a social gathering, I would eventually learn, one needed to apply far in advance to the Party Review Committee, which only met once a week, on Tuesdays. Few parties were approved, and even those that were could only last for a limited time, be hosted on certain days, and be open to specific people. A detailed proposal filling dozens of pages of requirements was required. And then there was the other essential component: the “Harm Reduction Plan.”
Every social event, in Stanford’s view, was a harm waiting to happen—the university’s goal was to minimize the fallout. This framing, while perhaps understandable from a lawyer’s perspective, had the effect of bludgeoning formative life experiences to death.
All decorations, even a few balloons, had to be approved ahead of time. Social media marketing and flyers were required to “align with the mission of the University.” The all-powerful Party Review Committee even claimed jurisdiction over parties held entirely off campus. Yes, this War on Fun crossed sovereign borders.
All of this at a university with the motto “Die Luft der Freiheit weht.” Let the winds of freedom blow.
Applying to run an event had become a full-time job. In fact, simply learning how to fill out the requisite forms and navigate the tangled institutional web required taking a specific registration-process course— with an exam you had to pass in order to apply to host a social event. Let me repeat that: You had to take a class. And pass an exam. To be able to apply to host a college party. “It’s like getting audited by the IRS to get boba for people,” one club leader confided in me.
Fraternities were the last groups on campus with enough dedication to continue waging battle with the bureaucrats. But the administration was determined to break them, too. A few months before I arrived, every single fraternity had been placed on probation, each receiving a letter from a lawyer on the same day.
By the time I landed at Stanford, students were fuming, and it was impossible to escape discussion of the War on Fun. Every possible action a student could take was governed by regulation, detailed on one of Stanford’s labyrinthine web pages. Officially, you weren’t even allowed to make more than fifty-five decibels of noise past 10:00 p.m. The average conversation is seventy decibels.
Clearly, this was no longer the college of generations past. Equally obvious: This so-called war would make for a great first article in The Stanford Daily.
My attempts to gather information quickly stalled. Dozens of emails to club leaders, administrators, frat bros, and safety advocates went unanswered. It was weird. There was this fear.
