A young woman, 23 years of age, was horrifically, stunningly violated while she lay unconscious in the shadows of the bushes on a frigid night in January 2015. She was digitally penetrated, humiliatingly stripped, and viciously taken advantage of.

This story is familiar to most who have followed the recent news coverage detailing the rape that Brock Turner undoubtedly committed.

Immediately following his conviction, I was outraged that he received such a gentle sentence, with explanations always stemming back to the fact that he was a strong, white swimmer who got too drunk and was understandably looking for a bit of action.

Now, I am outraged at the way Stanford is handling this atrocity.

In an attempt to bandage the bleeding wound that rape culture has left festering within the campus, Stanford administration has enacted new alcohol restrictions that prohibit hard liquor at all undergraduate parties on campus.

Students are still permitted to consume beer and wine, and graduate students are exempted as long as the liquor is in the form of a mixed drink.

This statute strikes me as absolutely ludicrous.

To enforce a hard alcohol ban immediately following a vicious rape is to assert that intoxication perpetuates violence. That alcohol is the excuse for such a vile act, and that rationing it will act as a preventative measure.

Alcohol does not cause an individual to rape. There are thousands, millions of respectable people who have had a bit too much to drink and still somehow refrained from ruthlessly violating another human being.

In addition to this concession on the part of the rapist, these new restrictions also place an implicit blame on the victim for putting herself in a vulnerable situation.

It hints that had she not drank herself into unconsciousness, perhaps she could have walked away from the party without being lured away by an opportunistic sadist.

This, too, strikes a terrible chord within me. I think of my younger sister, of my best friends, of myself having a rare and crazy alcohol-drenched night and awaking to searing pain and paralyzing fear.

Young girls are allowed to have nights where they go too far and get too drunk and pass out before they planned to. These nights should end with them curled in their beds, perhaps already feeling the effects of a looming hangover, but safe and warm.

In Brock Turner's case, alcohol is used as an excuse. In the victim's case, it is used as a cause, a warrant.

I understand that Stanford had to react in some public way to this tragedy in order to let the country know that they are working to resolve the issue.

This just was not the way. From every angle, alcohol did not cause this rape, and it will never cause any rape. It takes a sick mind to commit an act as brutal as Brock Turner's, and hard liquor cannot subdue nor exacerbate that.