From the Community – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Fri, 15 Mar 2024 19:04:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 From the Community – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 From the Community | A parent’s perspective on protests during Family Weekend https://stanforddaily.com/2024/03/15/from-the-community-parents-weekend-2024/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/03/15/from-the-community-parents-weekend-2024/#respond Fri, 15 Mar 2024 07:25:31 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1244815 "On a university campus, one known globally for its wide-ranging academic pursuits and creative expressions, some of my fellow parents chose to verbally abuse someone else’s children," Bartol writes.

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Protest and activism at Stanford are deeply linked. Both have a long and powerful history that can be revisited by perusing Stanford Libraries’ “Activism” online site. Having witnessed both protests and activism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was vital to see crucial issues of our time — apartheid, racial discrimination, the Western Civilization curriculum, diversity in faculty representation — actively debated and acted upon by Stanford students, faculty and administrative officers.

Some protests were civil, others not, but President Kennedy and faculty eventually engaged with concerned and affected students. Conversations happened, regardless of how ugly it looked or difficult it got.

Yet now, given recent protests at Stanford’s Parents Weekend (reported, I would add, accurately in the pages of The Stanford Daily), the University is straying from the legacy of activism today’s students are embracing. The winds of freedom, it seems, still blow, albeit maybe only in one direction.

As an alum and parent of a Stanford student visiting almost three weeks ago, we expected to see growing dissatisfaction over the University’s position on Israel. Its investment choices, its stance on Israel’s war with Hamas and the plight of the tens of thousands of innocents dying unnecessarily in the conflict were common discussions with my student in the previous weeks.

We knew about the sit-in in White Plaza. We expected student protests all weekend. We hoped that President Saller and his peers would critically address the concerns of students both for and against the protests.

What I saw on parent’s weekend was both impressive and unexpected. Impressive, because of the ingenuity, persistence and non-violent actions of the students that made their points about their deep distress at Stanford’s possible ties to Israel’s current administration.

Unexpected, because of the reactions of many parents in attendance. These parents felt the right response to these protests was to shout down the demonstrators. Yells of “boos,” “shut up,” “go away,” “we don’t care” and applause by those same parents accompanied the students’ departure. Those reactions were simply sad, uncalled for and not the sentiment I expected from anyone associated with Stanford. Why belittle students earnest in their intentions and efforts, students who want to believe their chosen university could be something more?

It is easy to understand how those parents might come to those views and actions. For some, it was their first time on campus and their first time visiting their child in a place that, rightly, has changed them. Some clearly traveled great distances for the event. Still others expected an idyllic weekend to match the sunny weather and warm welcome. Maybe they did not agree with the reason for and target of the protests. Perhaps they did not like how the students’ points were being made, or maybe they just felt like this event was “their time” and should be free of disruption.

On a university campus, one known globally for its wide-ranging academic pursuits and creative expressions, some of my fellow parents chose to verbally abuse someone else’s children. All because those young adults were practicing one of the fundamental rights this country affords, essential to any credible institution of higher learning. It is a moment of powerful imbalance I cannot ever recall seeing in an academic setting.

With the words from the on-stage panel about fostering a civil and respectful discourse still ringing in the room, adults chose not to be the more mature, considered and compassionate example. Instead, in word and action, students were shown their concerns were worthless, that their beliefs do not matter.

And — perhaps more shockingly — President Saller, Provost Martinez and several deans sat on stage and watched. When presented with a chance to engage in a very real and honest way, they leaned back.

When there could have been a moment to show both rude parents and anxious students how to de-escalate and connect, they chose to look at their notes. By the administration’s performance that afternoon, it is not hard to believe students who say the past four months have been ones in which the University would not substantially engage, meaningfully speak or actively listen. No wonder students took to MemAud to make a stand.

It is not hard to grasp why the President and the Provost took little action. Since October, college campuses have been deeply and controversially embroiled in protests focused on every side of this conflict.

Ill-timed or poorly handled reactions by college leaders have cost at least two university presidents — one a Stanford alum — their positions by factions that would polarize and weaponize the ripples of this conflict to their own ends.

It is all too easy to believe Stanford’s leaders are exhausted by the tightrope that they must walk. But it is also a moment that desperately calls for engagement, discourse and intelligence in the face of disruption and disagreement.

To the student groups protesting the Israel-Gaza conflict, seeking to be heard and seeking real change from the University, know that the history of protest at Stanford does bend toward justice. 

You are doing what we should expect from brilliant, enthusiastic young minds on a college campus: making your voices heard, working to make our world better. You are seen and you are heard.

You continue a tradition I hope all students, faculty, administrators and — hopefully, someday — parents can come to respect. Perhaps not enjoy, but certainly understand its necessity.

To you, and on behalf of the parents and friends of the University that understand this moment, I would tell you this: Keep going.

John Bartol ’92 is a Stanford parent.

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From the Community | Instead of attacking critics of Israel, explain why we shouldn’t https://stanforddaily.com/2024/03/13/instead-attacking-critics-israel-explain-why-we-shouldnt/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/03/13/instead-attacking-critics-israel-explain-why-we-shouldnt/#respond Thu, 14 Mar 2024 04:09:46 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1244439 "To attack critics of Israel with the label 'antisemite' also carries its own dangers — it not only evacuates the term of its legitimacy and power, it also distracts our attention from authentic antisemitism, which must be fought," Palumbo-Liu writes.

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As someone accused of being one the “worst racists” on campus (“Ph.D. student testifies before Congress on antisemitism at Stanford”), the Daily reached out to me for comment but scarcely used anything I gave them in response. So I asked to be able to more fully represent my reaction in this opinion piece.

From the Community | Instead of attacking critics of Israel, explain why we shouldn’t

In his testimony to Congress, Mr. Figelis cited one of my social media posts, which reads, “When Zionists say they don’t feel ‘safe’ on campus I’ve come to see that as they no longer feel immune from criticism of Israel.”  His testimony for Congress included this question: “Should any professor be allowed to celebrate the lack of safety of any student, regardless of how that student identifies?”

Feigelis distorts my statement in two ways. First, I do not “celebrate” any student’s lack of safety — my comment specifically regards a student’s “feeling” of lack of safety. Second, I am not even “celebrating” that feeling of lack of safety: I am saying that if one feels “safe” only when unchallenged in defending Israel and, conversely, “unsafe” because more and more people — not just at Stanford, and not just in the U.S., but globally — are vociferously criticizing what the International Court of Justice determined to be Israel’s “plausible case of genocide,” then one might want to brace oneself for more discomfort, because world opinion is changing. In the recent advisory hearings at the ICJ, only one country of the 50 that spoke asserted that Israel’s occupation was legal, and that country was not even the United States — it was Fiji. 

To attack critics of Israel with the label “antisemite” also carries its own dangers — it not only evacuates the term of its legitimacy and power, it also distracts our attention from authentic antisemitism, which must be fought. Bernie Steinberg, executive director of Harvard Hillel from 1993 to 2010 wrote:

Let me be clear: Antisemitism in the U.S. is a real and dangerous phenomenon, most pressingly from the alt-right white-supremacist politics that have become alarmingly mainstream since 2016. To contend against these and other antisemitic forces with clarity and purpose, we must put aside all fabricated and weaponized charges of “antisemitism” that serve to silence criticism of Israeli policy and its sponsors in the U.S. As a Jewish leader, I say: Enough.

Rather than using the occasion to sling mud at me in absentia before the Congressional choir, Mr. Feigelis might have attempted a more challenging task. If he believes critics of Israel deserve to be denounced and silenced as “antisemites,” then does it not behoove him to explain why Israel should not be criticized?  In today’s political environment, denouncing criticism of Israel as “antisemitism” is like shooting fish in a barrel. The Ph.D. students might more usefully spend their time elaborating a defense of Israel’s killing of over 30,000 Palestinians, including 12,000 Palestinian children, some 8,000 Palestinian women and 10,000 men, by means of bombing, shooting and starvation. He should explain why such atrocities are acceptable to him.

The bottom line is this: it doesn’t matter who is perpetrating the genocide that is unfolding before our eyes — it is not only our right, it is in fact our obligation to criticize them in the strongest terms possible. The charge of “antisemitism” seeks to deflect attention to the criminality of the State of Israel, and it is rapidly losing traction.

David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and comparative literature professor at Stanford.

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From the Community | ‘Sustainability Science and Systems’ is ambiguous corporate lingo https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/25/sustainability-science-systems-name-change-opinion/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/25/sustainability-science-systems-name-change-opinion/#respond Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:44:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1243239 "The proposed move towards 'sustainability' represents a worrying trend away from the natural sciences in exchange for vague corporate lingo," write the Earth Systems Student Advisors

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On Nov. 8, all earth systems majors received an email from the faculty director of the earth systems program asking for input on a proposed name change. The survey listed rankable options but didn’t include the current major name, inciting community backlash; we personally spoke to dozens of majors who were unhappy and even angry with the change, and did not hear student voices excited about a name change. 

We are the 2023-24 earth systems student advisors and we are against the proposed name change of earth systems to “sustainability science and systems.” The Doerr School has failed to incorporate student feedback, and is making this proposal in spite of our continued protests. The larger Stanford community, and the Faculty Senate Committee on Review of Undergraduate Majors (C-RUM), who will vote on this proposal soon, should hear our perspective and concerns as this decision is made.

In response to student concern, the Doerr School and Earth Systems Leadership organized a town hall and focus group to solicit further feedback from students, both of which occurred during Week 10.  We subsequently sent a letter to Doerr School Dean Arun Majumdar synthesizing the perspectives of the Earth System’s cohort and created a petition against the change which was ultimately signed by 115 students and alumni. However, on Jan. 16, the Doerr School announced that the name “Sustainability Science and Systems” would be sent to C-RUM for approval. This name had not appeared in the original survey, town hall or feedback group, and thus has received no backing from students. Furthermore, the proposed name directly rejects the most resounding feedback expressed repeatedly by the student body: to preserve the word “earth” in the name and to avoid emphasizing the word “sustainability.” To ignore these two critical requests is to ignore the very people at the core of this major. 

In defense of ‘earth systems

The earth systems program’s success and popularity is due in part to its foundation as an “interdisciplinary environmental science” degree that uses a systems thinking approach to address planetary issues. The major name, earth systems, reflects this in a decades-old program with a tight-knit community encouraging students to “investigate complex environmental problems.”  If the Doerr School is truly concerned with expanding this legacy, earth systems is the only acceptable name. It is essential that the current name of the major encapsulates the interdisciplinary nature, scientific foundations, and systems-thinking central to the earth systems program. Additionally, “earth” is the foundation of the current name, and it is what unites us within the major. We are all in this major because we were drawn to a degree that emphasizes protecting, learning from, and celebrating the Earth. Removing “earth”  from the name reshapes what direction the degree will take, the faculty that will be hired, and the classes that will be taught. 

The problem with ‘sustainability sciences and systems

The proposed name centers the term sustainability. While learning about sustainability is a part of the earth systems curriculum, its core components are “science, economics, and policy,” which exist beyond the scope of sustainability. 

As with most corporate lingo, “sustainability” lacks a universal definition. The Doerr School of Sustainability has yet to offer a clear definition themselves. Even sustainability department coursework reflects this vagueness: a debate about the definition is an introductory element of SUST 210: “Pursuing Sustainability: Managing Complex Systems.” This ambiguity is dangerous, especially in situations where our degree precedes us. Potential employers and curious future students will be left to interpret the degree themselves, with the buzzword of “sustainability” changing in connotation every day. Furthermore, the newly announced Environmental Social Sciences Department is developing a new undergraduate degree program that could satisfy the Doerr School’s interest in sustainability sciences, once again rendering a name change unnecessary. 

Stanford does not have a conventional environmental science degree. Stanford’s bachelor of science in earth systems is the closest equivalent. Peer institutions offer comparable degrees: environmental sciences (Berkeley), environmental science and public policy (Harvard), and environmental science (Columbia). Earth systems is a clear analogue to these degrees. Sustainability science and systems is not, which could turn away a large pool of current and future undergraduates looking for such an education. The Doerr School claims that the future name is “easily understandable and recognizable to prospective students and high school families.” They’ve offered nothing to support this claim, which runs counter to the experiences of many current students. The proposed move towards “sustainability” represents a worrying trend away from the natural sciences in exchange for vague corporate lingo. 

The town hall and focus group feedback strongly opposed the use of “sustainability” in the major’s name due to its narrowed scope and worrying ambiguity, yet the SDSS Faculty Governance group explicitly ignored this feedback, adding the terms “science” and “systems” in an apparent attempt at compromise. However, the injection of “sustainability” and complete removal of “earth” from the name shows the Doerr School’s failure to genuinely consider student perspectives.

A lack of transparency 

After the feedback process, the Doerr School continues to push the proposed name change. One should question what motivates this charge, especially given the Doerr School’s acceptance of fossil fuel funding. Stanford flaunts its students as leaders, and yet this change comes with minimal student involvement and no true student agency. This proposed change does not come from the earth systems community, but rather from departmental administrative superiors who have failed to attend our feedback initiatives or listen to the clear and direct support of the current name. The Doerr School touts a “five-year timeline of community engagement” in this decision, yet student involvement made up just a few weeks of that process.

The next steps

The final opportunity to prevent this change from taking place is the C-RUM approval process, which is ongoing this quarter. Faculty and students on C-RUM should take these student concerns into account, and make a decision that supports student interest and agency, rather than one motivated by opaque processes and empty language. Earth systems’ 32-year legacy as a community of students and faculty who truly care about the Earth should not be rhetorically erased.

Laney Conger, Nazli Dakad, Calvin Probst, Julia Donlon, Terachet (Drive) Rojrachsombat, and Sky Chen are the 2023-24 earth systems student advisors.

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From the Community | The health harms of fossil fuel research funding https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/22/health-harms-fossil-fuel-research-funding/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/22/health-harms-fossil-fuel-research-funding/#respond Fri, 23 Feb 2024 01:23:25 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1243194 "If the Doerr School accepts funding from the fossil fuel industry without guardrails, history has taught that industry interests will prevail over the mission of the school to solve the climate crisis," community members from the School of Medicine write.

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As health professional students, staff, faculty, and alumni across Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford Health Care, and Stanford Children’s Health, we support establishing the strongest possible guardrails in the University’s relationship with the fossil fuel industry. Our support for these guardrails stems from our extensive historical experience in medicine with the role of unchecked industry influence on honest scientific inquiry. Climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels is also profoundly a crisis of health and equity. Without guardrails, the University essentially signals to the fossil fuel industry that business as usual is acceptable. Business as usual is already harming the health of our patients and communities, and stands to grow worse without a significant course correction in our emissions.

Climate change is the greatest threat to global health of the 21st century. The science is clear: we need a rapid transition off fossil fuels to avert the worst impacts of climate change and to protect our health and our future. We are already seeing more pregnant individuals experiencing premature birth due to extreme heat exposure, more children arriving with respiratory complaints from poor air quality days, more episodes of cardiovascular events like strokes and heart attacks from both heat and wildfires, and a worsening mental health crisis in part driven by climate change and understandable concern about the future. All of these health impacts are deeply inequitable. In the United States they most impact low-income communities and communities of color. Globally they most impact the developing countries which did the least to contribute to the problem.

Pollution from fossil fuels (e.g., exhaust from cars and trucks, emissions from gas stoves) is also a significant source of air pollution that is making our patients sick right now. Twenty percent of premature deaths globally — that’s 1 in 5 — are attributable to exposure to air pollution caused by combustion of fossil fuels. This pollution disproportionately affects poorer communities and Black and Hispanic communities, contributing to the long history of environmental racism in the U.S.

The fossil fuel industry continues to slow progress on climate solutions and to sow doubt about climate change. The State of California recently filed a lawsuit against Chevron, Exxon, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Shell cataloging how long industry leaders have known about the dangers of fossil fuels, how these companies suppressed this information from the public and policy-makers, and how they have historically and continue to fund misinformation campaigns to slow the transition off fossil fuels.

As the Doerr School of Sustainability seeks to fulfill its mission of developing “high-impact solutions to pressing planetary challenges”, accepting funding from fossil fuel companies will stymie rather than facilitate this aim. As health professionals, we’ve seen a very similar situation before with Big Tobacco, which heavily influenced research to achieve pro-industry results prior to the enactment of strict regulations and guardrails. When the science became clear on the links between tobacco and lung cancer, Big Tobacco engaged in a campaign to cast doubt on the science. The same is true for the pharmaceutical industry, where evidence shows that pharmaceutical industry funding of clinical researchers is strongly associated with pro-industry results as well as evidence of trial design and publication bias. Companies like Exxon followed a similar playbook. This likely occurs through multiple mechanisms, including subtle favoritism and overt “ghost management” of studies. If the Doerr School accepts funding from the fossil fuel industry without guardrails, history has taught that industry interests will prevail over the mission of the school to solve the climate crisis.

With the future existence of humanity itself on the line, we must ensure every dollar spent toward seeking solutions for the climate crisis is used in an ethical and productive manner. To protect health, we support the plan for basic guardrails forwarded by six graduate students at Stanford who have varying opinions on industry dollars but agree that rules should be in place to protect the integrity of research. At a minimum, this requires ensuring that companies who provide research dollars are adhering to credible transition plans off fossil fuels, are making the data for their transition transparent and available, and are not engaging in or funding anti-renewable or misinformation campaigns. Big Oil companies have stated that they stand ready to address the crisis. We have the ability to hold them to their promises by not providing false cover in the form of academic partnerships with elite institutions like Stanford.

If we are to solve the climate crisis and protect the health of this generation and the generations to come, we need to act with a clear moral compass on the path forward. We call on leaders at Stanford to act, understanding that the health of current and future generations is on the line. 

Dr. Michele Barry is the Director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health, a Professor of Medicine and a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute.

Dr. Desiree LaBeaud is a Professor of Pediatrics (Infectious Diseases), a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, a Professor by courtesy of Epidemiology and Population Health, and a Professor by courtesy of Environmental Social Science at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability

Dr. Lisa Patel is a Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and the Executive Director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health

Jonathan Lu is the Co-Director of Stanford Climate and Health and a fifth-year student at the Stanford School of Medicine

Dr. Debra Safer is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Wendy Bernstein is an Adjunct Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Science

This letter was endorsed by an additional 86 signatories.

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From the Community | Stanford’s climate action plan needs to think bigger https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/20/climate-action-plan-think-bigger/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/20/climate-action-plan-think-bigger/#respond Wed, 21 Feb 2024 07:59:59 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1242989 "It is not enough for Stanford to simply make its own campus sustainable," Burk writes. "It must leverage its unique resources and expertise to take action where it is needed most, and create future sustainability leaders."

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Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century. I tend to use some variation of that to open most of my job applications. I don’t claim it’s a good intro — it’s incredibly cliché, and it doesn’t say anything people don’t know — but I think we forget it too easily. In 2022, over a third of Pakistan flooded, displacing millions of people. In Florida last summer, water temperatures reached over 100℉, bleaching vast swaths of coral reefs. We hear this discourse so much that we have almost become numb to it.

It is in this context that Stanford is developing its new climate action plan, which is scheduled to be released this summer. The previous plan was released in 2009, and has helped push the University to become the relatively sustainable institution that it is today. There are more steps Stanford could take, but the University has reduced, or is set to reduce, its direct emissions about as much as it can. So what should this new climate action plan seek to do? 

I would urge the University to focus on making broader change, not just on campus, but also beyond the Farm. Stanford is not just any university — it is a world-leading institution with outsized power, resources and influence. This gives it both the capability and responsibility to serve as a key player in the clean transition. It is not enough for Stanford to simply make its own campus sustainable. It must leverage its unique resources and expertise to take action where it is needed most, and create future sustainability leaders.

One major area of need is at the local government level. These jurisdictions are often severely limited in their capacity and funding, meaning that although many need or want to take steps to lessen their emissions, they simply cannot. Here, Stanford could provide services in a few ways. For one, it could serve as a direct research and analysis service, opening a structured online forum where governments could submit technical questions about the feasibility of certain sustainability measures, or how to take advantage of existing programs and funding. University researchers and staff could then use Stanford’s resources to provide a straightforward and actionable answer, allowing these governments to make an informed decision while saving time and money.

Alternatively, Stanford could utilize the funding it allocates to carbon offsets to help facilitate real projects on the ground in communities. Offsets have been a subject of scandal in recent years, and such projects would allow Stanford to better monitor its emissions impacts while also helping entities who may be struggling to transition. Finally, where it makes sense, Stanford can help establish and support additional internship opportunities in local governments to increase capacity while providing useful job experience and perspective for students. 

Next, I would urge a deeper focus on sustainability in Stanford’s career resources. To meet the needs of combating climate change, even just here in California, will require thousands of trained workers across all sectors of the economy. There is room for a focus on climate mitigation in every field, and students should consider the impact they can have within their chosen career path. These opportunities must be made prominent, whether in discussions with advisors, on department websites, or in career-planning resources. Stanford should also create a new Ways requirement in sustainability, where students can learn about climate solutions and options to tie this into potential careers. The world’s economy needs to change significantly to actually combat the climate crisis, and Stanford must take the initiative to prepare students for this new economy and train future climate change mitigation leaders in all fields. 

Lastly, it is important to build a culture on campus informed about sustainability challenges and working toward solutions. Climate change is a global issue. It cannot be solved with a couple of small policy changes. Instead, sustainability will have to permeate throughout our lives and influence how we live, and how we view the world. Stanford should host more events highlighting decarbonization pathways, and provide people with ways to get involved around campus. Residences should host sustainability talks with new students to help people learn to live more sustainably and think about these issues in day-to-day life. Lastly, Stanford should continue its living lab fellowship program to give students more opportunities to be involved with campus sustainability efforts, while gaining good work experiences. 

If Stanford’s new plan doesn’t seek to make this higher-level change, it must at least target the major lingering sources of emissions — Scope 3 emissions. This is the hardest to abate category, encompassing things outside the direct control of the University, such as transportation emissions from students and faculty, embodied emissions in the products used around campus, waste and more. Stanford has a real opportunity to pioneer Scope 3 reduction mechanisms, but to make real progress, it must be broad in its accounting, and prioritize the most efficient reductions. 

To maximize its impact in the fight against climate change, Stanford must accept its role as a world-leading institution, and use its funds and unique capabilities to make lasting change beyond campus. Similarly, we cannot take the actions of the Doerr school to be a substitute for Stanford’s climate action — we need the full weight and power of the institution behind this transition. Stanford must be willing to reach out to and engage with stakeholders to make progress where it is needed most. It must work to build a culture that values sustainability, and one where people are willing to prioritize that in their lives and careers after Stanford. Finally, it must innovate, and be willing to push the boundaries in its climate mitigation measures on campus. These goals must be enshrined in Stanford’s climate action plan if it is to succeed. Climate action is too large a task for everyone to fend for themselves, and Stanford should use its resources not just to be a role model, but also to help others.

Camden Burk is a junior in the earth systems program.

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From the Community | Alumni commend Stanford’s historic sit-in to stop genocide https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/01/from-the-community-alumni-commend-stanfords-historic-sit-in-to-stop-genocide/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/01/from-the-community-alumni-commend-stanfords-historic-sit-in-to-stop-genocide/#respond Thu, 01 Feb 2024 12:00:59 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1240661 Students at the Sit-In to Stop Genocide have compelled the Stanford community to recognize the nature of the Israel-Gaza conflict and a collective complicity, several alumni write.

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As a diverse group of Stanford alumni, many of us have been involved with the Palestine solidarity movement long enough to remember when it was an embattled, minority position. We are heartened to see the tradition of resisting injustice at Stanford continue during a time when Israel’s enterprise of occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid has never been more brazen. 

Many of us have continued the advocacy that began on campus when we were students. Whether it was Students Confronting Apartheid in Israel (SCAI), Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (CJME), Stanford University Students for UNICEF (SUSU) or Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP), Stanford is a place where alumni who have become international leaders first developed and solidified their social justice advocacy. Conversations with peers in the classroom, around our dorms and across shared meals transformed us and shaped our ethical frameworks. Our opinions changed, our perspective broadened and our empathy deepened precisely because of the kinds of conversations that are taking place every day at the sit-in. 

We, the undersigned, are bound together by an understanding that the historic injustices of the 20th and 21st centuries were often dismantled because college students throughout the world chose to stand against them. We recognize that the Stanford Sit-In to Stop Genocide strengthens the tide of history, which is turning against Israel’s cruel and inhumane systems of oppression. Past protests of this nature, such as Stanford Out of South Africa (1985) and the Hunger Strike for Low Wage Workers (1994), have been pivotal in shaping Stanford into a more just institution, and the present sit-in furthers that legacy.

We lend our voices and support to the students in White Plaza who are playing a vital role in refusing to allow the public to look away as genocide takes place with the tacit complicity of Stanford’s endowment. Many alumni in this collective, some of whom are parents or siblings of participating students, have visited the sit-in, met with administrators to ensure the protestors’ safety, battled misinformation campaigns targeted toward participating students and insisted on the continued protection of free speech and the right to protest. 

Like many current Stanford students, we as alumni have been tremendously affected by the genocide in Gaza, as well as the ongoing raids, extrajudicial murders and kidnappings in the occupied West Bank. Most tragically, Dr. Rajaie Batniji ’03 M.A. ’03, a former class president, has had over 60 members of his family — men, women and children — murdered by the Israeli military in Gaza over the past three months. Dr. Sammy Abusrur’s ’09 first cousin, Anas Abusrour — the director of a youth center in Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp — was abducted by the Israeli military as he returned home to his newborn child and wife. In early December, he was sentenced to six months of “administrative detention,” an apartheid-style policy that allows the Israeli government to jail Palestinians without due process.

Other Stanford alumni have been at the forefront of human rights advocacy for Palestine. Omar Shakir ’07 J.D. ’13 has served as the Israel and Palestine Director for Human Rights Watch for the past seven years, despite being deported by the Israeli government in 2019. Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan ’06 is a pediatrician member of Doctors Without Borders and has volunteered in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Fadi Quran ’10 is the campaigns director for the global campaigning organization Avaaz. He is a Palestinian community organizer and youth leader who has been arrested multiple times for his human rights work. Shakir, Haj-Hassan and Quran have been interviewed by and/or written for numerous media outlets (CNN, ABC, Time Magazine and Al Jazeera) over the past few months, advocating for the rights of those affected by this unprecedented, ongoing tragedy. Meanwhile, many other alumni, faculty and staff at Stanford have eschewed the public eye and worked behind the scenes instead. Those who make this decision do so out of fear of negative repercussions to them, their families and their careers, a fear we have seen echoed in the dismissals of countless workers across all segments of society for publicly voicing their support of Palestine.   

This is why it is so essential we support the students involved in the Sit-in to Stop Genocide. We see our younger selves in these students occupying White Plaza, and we hope that this letter, in situating their efforts within a long legacy of activism, fortifies their spirits. 

Deep fissures are opening underneath the edifice of the U.S.-backed Zionist project that has displaced and oppressed the Palestinian people for more than 75 years. The weight of the Palestinian people’s demands — a permanent ceasefire and lifting of the siege on Gaza; the internationally recognized right of return for refugees ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948, 1967 and thereafter; an end to apartheid against Palestinian citizens of Israel and an end to military occupation, annexation and illegal settlement building — becomes heavier and more urgent by the day. It is within this broader historical context that the International Court of Justice recently ruled — by a 15-to-2 vote — that the Israeli government must “take all measures within its power” to prevent and refrain from acts in violation of the Genocide Convention, and to desist from further killing Palestinian civilians.

The stakes for Palestine and the Palestinian people have never been higher. As Stanford alumni, our moral commitments require us to use our position to advocate not just for peace, but for justice. For these reasons and many more, Stanford students are sitting in. With their presence, they remind everyone on campus of the daily atrocities occurring in Gaza. Their movement inspires those of us who have since left campus to remain hopeful for the future. So, we thank the students for their tireless efforts. Furthermore, we extend our gratitude to the University and its administrators, who have chosen to protect the sit-in and safeguard the students’ free-speech rights. We urge them to continue this policy, and we welcome the university’s decision to establish a task force that will address the anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim hate on campus, which significantly increased after Oct. 7.

These students started their sit-in on Oct. 20, 2023, and have continued it throughout the winter break and into the new year, despite harassment, threats and inclement weather. In doing so, they have accomplished something historic: at 104 days and counting, it is the longest such action to date at Stanford. They have compelled the Stanford community to reckon with both our complicity in this genocide and our communal responsibility to act. As their efforts continue and evolve, we as alumni stand beside them and offer our endless solidarity.

This opinion was authored by a group of Stanford alumni supporting the sit-in efforts. While the initial draft was developed by a few authors, they circulated it among private networks to gather editorial feedback and support.

Maarya Abbasi ’16 M.A. ’17
Ziyad Abdelkhaleq ’11 M.S. ’12
Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi ’12
Olamide Abiose J.D. Ph.D. ’23
Sarah Abushaar ’23
Sammy Abusrur ’09
Firas Abuzaid ’13 M.S. ’15 Ph.D. ’22
Samra Adeni ’14
Zaid Adhami ’10 M.A. ’10
Neida Ahmad M.A. ’22
Mohammad Al-Moumen ’09 MBA ’14
Sanna Ali ’12 M.A. ’21 Ph.D. ’23
Ammar Alqatari ’19 M.S. ’22
Omar Amir M.D. ’12
Dian Andamari Rosanti ’09
Mea Anderson ’21
Diana Austria Rivera ’08
Ramah Awad ’17
Rajaie Batniji ’03 M.A. ’03
Kate Benham-Suk ’09
Lena Bississo M.S. ’03
Nicole Bonsol ’05 M.A. ’06
Lauren Border ’19
Devyn Brown ’09 M.A. ’10
Maya Nell Murungi Burke ’18
Jordan C. Peralta ’04
Kit Carmona ’13
James Carroll ’19
Eutiquio “Tiq” Chapa ’10
Lavanya Chekuru ’03
Geena Chen ’16
Janet Chen ’19
Calvin Cheung-Miaw ’03 Ph.D. ’21
Caroline Cohn J.D. ’19
Niza Contreras ’20
Stephanie Cruz ’08
Natasha Dar M.A. ’13
William David Rogers ’09
Joyce Dela Pena ’10
Anita F. Desai J.D. ’22
Joshua Dunn ’11
Neville Eclov ’09
Sierra Edwards ’23
Hamza El Boudali ’22 M.S. ’24
Amin El Gamal ’08
Abrahim El Gamal ’09 M.S. ’11
Omar El-Sadany MBA ’22
Rasha Elsayed ’13
Jonathan Engel ’17
Kelly Engel Wells ’05
Hassan Fahmy ’21 M.S. ’23
Ibraheem Fakira ’12
Willi Farrales ’08
Erica Fernandez Zamora ’12 M.A. ’13
Dominique B. Figueroa ’09
Mason Flink ’10
Shawna Follis postdoctorate ’23
Cindy Garcia Ward J.D. ’16
Amanda Gelender ’10
Najla Gomez ’14
Diana Gonzalez ’13 M.A. ’19
Aaron Grayson ’11
Laura Groenendaal ’14
Kerry Guerin J.D. ’23
Hialy Gutierrez ’07
Olivia Haas ’11
Rachel Habbert M.S. ’10
Tyler Haddow ’14
Tanya Haj-Hassan ’06
Sheena Hale ’07
Grant Hallee ’19 M.A. ’20
Rachel Hamburg ’10 M.A. ’11
Bilal Hamra El Badaoui M.S. ’10
Audrey Hannah ’04
Olivia Harewood ’09
Collette Harris M.D. M.S. ’09
Emma Hartung ’17
Nabeel Hasnain ’07 M.S. ’07
Fatima Hassan Ali ’09
Emily Hawley J.D. ’20
Bradley Heinz ’08
Mabrookah Heneidi ’05
Jay-Marie Hill ’10
Kuusela Hilo ’03
Daniel Hirsch ’09
Teresa Hofer ’08
Rebecca Hsu ’10
Nicholas Huang M.S. ’18
Adam Hudson ’10
Mariana Huerta ’07
Jack Hunt ’09
Tenah Hunt ’09
James Huynh ’15
Corina Iacopetti ’09
Nabill Idrisi ’09
Anna Maria Irion ’14
Osman Jamil Ph.D. ’22
Neli Jasuja ’14
Starr Jiang ’20
Ronak K Kapadia ’05
Jotthe Kannappan ’16
Farhan Kathawala ’13
Hind Katkhuda M.S. ’13
Ahlia Kattan ’09 M.D. ’13
Megan Koilparampil J.D. ’23
Paige Kumm ’09 M.A. ’10
Fatima Ladha ’17
David Lai ’08
Iris A. Law ’08
Vinney Lê ’11
Cody Leff ’15
C. Genai Lewis ’17
A.D. Lewis ’21
Owen Li ’03
Maryam Liaqat ’09
Jacqueline Lin ’17
Lisa Ndecky Llanos ’09
Skye Lovett ’18
Steve Lovett MFA ’72
Jacob Maddox J.D. ’23
Mario Madrigal ’09 MBA ’13
Dewan Majid ’07
Eric Manolito ’04
Ari Marcus ’18
Imran Maskatia ’97 M.S. ’98
Ashley McCullough Tough ’09
Claudia McKenzie ’18
Jessica McNally ’10 M.S. ’10
Haleema Mehmood Ph.D. ’15
Tina Miller ’14
Irteza Mohyuddin ’13
Mohit Mookim ’18 J.D. ’23
Melissa Morales ’09
Raya Musallam MBA ’19
Khaled Naim MBA ’13
Diana Nassar MBA ’20
Mehran Nazir M.S. ’11
Julia Neusner ’20
Seth Newton Patel ’01
Minh Nguyen ’20 M.S. ’22
Andrew Ntim ’22
Akua Nyarko-Odoom ’18
Kofi Ohene-Adu ’09
John Okhiulu ’21
Tracy Ngozi Okoroike ’09
Bijan Osmani ’09
Zeyne Oulmakki ’17
Swayam Parida ’21 M.S. ’23
Sanah Parvez ’08
Natasha Patel ’16
Siddharth Patel M.A. ’18 Ph.D ’19
Cuauhtemoc Peranda ’10
Jace Perry ’19
Jess Peterson ’13 M.S. ’15
Kristen Powers ’16
Amanda Prasuhn J.D. ’15
Fadi Quran ’10
Michaela Raikes ’10 M.A. ’11
Saraswati Rathod J.D. ’23
Mary Reagan ’18
Bronwyn Reed ’12
Elizabeth Reetz J.D. ’20
Jasmine Reid Ph.D. ’22
Rebecca Richardson ’11
Mia Ritter-Whittle ’19
Takeo Rivera ’08 M.A. ’09
Spencer Robinson ’20
Rebecca Roediger ’04
Lolita Roibal ’03
Mae Ryan ’09
Sammie Sachs ’09 M.A. ’10
Serena Saffarini J.D. ’20
Sarah Salameh ’16
Jessica Salinas ’11
Josh Schott ’14
Jessie Schrantz ’17
Jamie Senéy ’21
William Sherman ’09 Ph.D. ’17
Charlotte Silver ’09
Spencer Slovic ’18
Measha Ferguson Smith ’17
Max Sosna-Spear ’11 M.A. ’12
Rebecca Stellato ’10
Mohammad Subeh ’06 M.A. ’06 M.S. ’08
Frederick Tan ’18 M.S. ’22
Harya Tarekegn ’09
Luke Taylor ’10
Kenneth Tea ’17
Yvette Tetteh ’14
Mitali Thakor ’09
Lilian Thaoxaochay ’10
Manny Thompson ’15
Kat Townsend ’07
Eric Tran ’10
Co Tran ’17
Sarah Tran ’20
Kim Truong ’10
T. Mugabo Uwilingiyimana ’09
Sara Valderrama ’19
Adrien Wagner ’11
Emma Walker-Silverman ’17
Emily Wilder ’20
Disney Williams ’12
Sammie Ablaza Wills ’16
S. Wilson ’06
Alexa Wnorowski M.S. ’17 M.A. ’21 Ph.D ’21
Ma’ili Yee ’20 M.A. ’21
Rachel Yong ’08 M.A. ’09
Jamayka Young ’21
Tesay Yusuf ’18

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From the Community | The tragedy of GSB students voting down a defense technology club https://stanforddaily.com/2024/01/29/from-the-community-the-tragedy-of-gsb-students-voting-down-a-defense-technology-club/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/01/29/from-the-community-the-tragedy-of-gsb-students-voting-down-a-defense-technology-club/#respond Mon, 29 Jan 2024 09:06:08 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1241196 Innovation in defense technology is a vital step to securing the nation's future, and the GSB decision to reject a defense technology club marks tragic a step back, Szablowski writes.

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An elected group of my peers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business recently rejected our proposal to form a defense technology club. The rationalization sent to all denied clubs included scripted justifications of “not addressing an underserved need” nor having enough “potential contribution” to enhancing the school’s culture. 

To be clear, I’m confident these students were not ideologically fighting against the presence of national defense on campus. Rather, their decision was based on a bureaucratic priority ranking under fixed resources. Because Stanford University restricts external financial sponsorship, club funding is generated through default “student activities” fees alongside tuition.

New clubs either dilute the fixed funding-pool and lower all club budgets (not ideal), or Stanford raises student fees to maintain funding (also not ideal). Under this fixed constraint, my MBA peers were stewarding limited resources to best serve our community. A defense technology club was simply not ranked above the cutline as a prioritized, independent organization.

However, our peers did vote to approve an official Stanford MBA Pickleball Club. 

To me, this event serves as a microcosm of a broader tragedy that threatens our future national security. I firmly believe the students who voted against our proposal are not naive individuals at an elite, out-of-touch institution against defense; rather, my peers are brilliant individuals who simply do not feel urgency toward this area. The tragedy here isn’t “woke” resistance — it’s apathy. And, I argue that dismissal is equally as dangerous to our country’s future.

First, dismissing defense technology flies in the face of local history. Silicon Valley was built on a relationship with national security innovations. Many local inventions — microwaves, radar, transistors, circuitry, GPS and the internet — all originated from government grants targeting explicit military applications. Frederick Terman (popularly considered the father of Silicon Valley) spent his decade as University provost (1955-1965) purposely scaling our STEM departments to secure more funding from the Department of Defense. A relationship with the Pentagon runs in our school’s DNA: Defense technology ultimately enabled Stanford to become the powerhouse we enjoy as lucky students today. 

However, I am not solely focusing on the past to justify the formation of an independent defense tech club. I also want to highlight the urgency surrounding our current, critical moment in history. Amid the first major land war in Europe since 1945, conflict cascading across the Middle East beyond Gaza, rising tensions from a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan and democracy declining across the globe, Stanford students are graduating into this “decisive decade” with global uncertainties set to immediately shape our nation’s future.

In this consequential moment, our country’s defense leadership agrees that innovation is a vital step toward securing the nation’s future. However, most discussions automatically equate the concept of “defense innovation” with technological advancements, which I believe is incorrectly short-sighted. Any such consequential advancement in technology is veritably built on the hard work of individuals. Put simply, pushing the limit requires brilliance. Therefore, I argue that true defense innovation must first focus on capturing that foundation of human capital — attracting outstanding, young talent toward careers supporting our national interest.

At a campus where we glorify occupations in industries like technology, finance and consulting, I believe highlighting defense technology is an opportunity to redirect some of Stanford’s brilliance. This was the original motivation of the defense technology club — to promote alignment between our student population’s superb capabilities with careers supporting public service and/or national security. If we can get one student to consider a career in defense technology instead of dedicating their exceptional talent toward increasing advertising click rates, that is a win.  

We are pushing forward to build a movement here on campus advocating for defense technology. If you want to be involved with our “club,” please reach out — we would love to expand the community and show you opportunities that have real impact in securing our nation’s future.

Evan Szablowski is a former U.S. Army Officer and Rhodes Scholar pursuing his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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From the Community | Healthcare’s role in the ‘firearm epidemic’ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/01/25/from-the-community-healthcares-role-in-the-firearm-epidemic/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/01/25/from-the-community-healthcares-role-in-the-firearm-epidemic/#respond Thu, 25 Jan 2024 09:13:11 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1240966 Arusha Patil ’25 argues that physicians are key to preventing gun violence. "My generation is sick of nightmares about gun violence," she writes. "We're ready to dream."

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This opinion is part of a larger collaboration with a coalition of 140+ student leaders in solidarity with gun violence prevention, representing 90 student groups across the nation. On Jan. 24, we published a student-written piece entitled “We will not wait for the next school shooting” in 50 student newspapers from across the country, all on the same day. 

A teacher once told me that his nightmares as a child were framed by the Cold War in the United States. His nightmares consisted of frantic dashes to bunkers and the ominous wait for a feared nuclear threat to dissipate.

In my generation of Americans, these nightmares are set in the familiar walls of our lecture halls. We hide behind desks and crawl on floors littered with shattered glass and bullet casings, as the ever-present specter of gun violence looms over our lives. 

Mass shootings, with their tragic immediacy and scale, naturally dominate our national discourse on gun violence. Yet, by focusing predominantly on these events, we risk neglecting other aspects of gun violence, including homicides, accidental deaths and, most notably, suicides. These dimensions of gun violence, frequently pigeonholed as criminal justice issues, demand a broader dialogue around mental health, overall well-being and firearm safety. 

Consider the deeply intertwined issues of mental health and firearm-related suicides. According to the Gun Violence Archive, 56% of the 43,000 firearm-related deaths in 2023 were attributed to suicide. Without a firearm, only 5% of suicide attempts are fatal. With a firearm, that figure jumps to 85%, making gun ownership — quite simply — a major risk factor for suicide. Alarmingly, a 2022 study found that around one third of people who reported symptoms of depression owned a firearm. 

These alarming statistics reveal that gun ownership is inexorably linked to physical and mental well-being. It is imperative that our healthcare system treats firearms as a significant risk factor and determinant of patient health. Medical professionals should routinely ask patients about firearm ownership and provide counseling on safe storage and handling practices.

However, firearm safety is a topic that many physicians are afraid to broach. Many physicians feel unqualified to provide advice on safe storage practices or temporary transfers of gun ownership. A study in Ohio involving primary care pediatricians revealed that only 39% of pediatricians felt they had received adequate training to counsel families about firearm safety. Despite 72% of pediatricians agreeing about having a responsibility to discuss firearm safety, the actual practice of screening for firearm ownership and providing counseling was rare. Yet, the safe storage and handling of firearms is particularly important in the pediatric setting, considering that guns are the most likely cause of death among children and teens.

In addition to doctors feeling ill-prepared to discuss firearm safety, patients often fail to see the relevance of such discussions. In a survey conducted by the University of Michigan School of Medicine, more than half of adult patients skipped a question about gun ownership on a questionnaire provided in the clinic waiting room. It is not a topic anyone is comfortable with. Addressing the genuine public health risks posed by firearms therefore necessitates a shift in how we approach doctor-patient conversations. 

This is precisely the aim of Team SAFE (Scrubs Against the Firearms Epidemic), an organization co-founded by Dr. Dean Winslow and Dr. Sarabeth Spitzer at Stanford University. Their mission is to equip healthcare providers with skills to advise their patients, communities and legislators on firearm use and ownership. With chapters in medical schools across the United States, Team SAFE is integrating firearm safety into medical curriculum via training on firearm-related injuries, firearm anatomy and patient counseling. Through these resources, Dr. Winslow “hope[s] that a doctor, psychiatrist or psychologist has the knowledge to inquire about firearms and encourage safe practices.”

Whether or not you are a current or aspiring healthcare professional, we are all bound together by our role as patients. These crucial dialogues represent more than just preventative measures: They can be life-saving interventions. Patient-doctor conversations around firearm safety can be uncomfortable, but that is exactly why they are necessary — they are a small price to pay to prevent more lives from being lost.

My generation is sick of nightmares about gun violence. 

We’re ready to dream instead.

Arusha Patil ’25 is a junior majoring in computer science.

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From the Community | On language, silence and the sit-in https://stanforddaily.com/2023/12/08/from-the-community-on-language-silence-and-the-sit-in/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/12/08/from-the-community-on-language-silence-and-the-sit-in/#respond Fri, 08 Dec 2023 13:29:46 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1239471 "I am seized by the possibility that this sit-in, in addition to making clear students’ demands, also generates a signal of commitment to our shared humanity," writes Aracelis Girmay.

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With words of sacred scripture
I shield the oranges from the sting of phosphorous
and the shades of cloud from the smog.

I grant you refuge in knowing
that the dust will clear,
and they who fell in love and died together
will one day laugh.

  —Hiba Abu Nada (1991-2023)

Translated from Arabic by Huda Fakhreddine

In 2021, the Palestinian American poet, translator and doctor Fady Joudah wrote: “I’ve long been aware of the crushing weight that reduces Palestine in English to a product with limited features, a perverse irony that revolves around the violence that Israel and the United States, culture and system, launch against Palestinians.” And later: “The overlap zone with Palestine in Arabic is not small, but the empathy field in English is malnourished.” These weeks we have witnessed the starkest reminders of this devastating lack. 

In the United States, mainstream journalists use their English to obfuscate Israel’s crimes against a besieged civilian population in Palestine. Their English cloaks the perpetrators, making them invisible to every logic that would damn them. They suggest that Palestinians “die” while Israelis “are killed” and treat the occupied as terroristic and the occupier as reasonable and just. 

The atrocities of Oct. 7 are repeatedly framed in the context of hundreds of years of antisemitism. But Palestinians are not granted this historical view. Instead, people are chastised or worse when they mention the last 75 years of Israeli occupation or when they condemn U.S. support of the slaughter of Palestinians. 

Israeli officials wage war against “human animals” and “children of darkness,” familiar tropes meant to dehumanize. This genocidal language has gone largely unchecked by so many of our celebrated cultural and educational institutions. Rhetoric that should be met with denunciation and disavowal has instead been received with a cruel, festering, permissive silence — a silence that pledges its allegiance to one life and its disregard of another.

It feels absurd to write to you of language when hour by hour the people of Palestine face annihilation. But here we are, bereft of the widespread condemnation of these unambiguous horrors. Where is the fire-language of protection for our Palestinian, Muslim and Arab beloveds with whom we are in community? Where are the greennesses and blessings for the ones who speak, who fight?

For me, the ongoing student sit-in at Stanford is a language unto itself, a collaborative practice that makes visible a presence of resistance, education and outrage in the face of such silence. These brave students of conscience have sacrificed their comfort in order to call us into dialogue at a time when so many are afraid to speak. It seems theirs is a vision of effortful togetherness, a patchwork of tents, tables and resources — an evolving grammar of grappling and disruption. 

The words of poet Rasha Abdulhadi fly through me: “Let the soft animal of your body get in the way of the death machines. Let the soft animal of your body make some safety for other people. Let the soft animal of your body refuse and disobey.”

Protesters are rejecting the lie that all of our histories are unrelated and that this particular history is too complex to speak about if you support Palestinian rights and are not from the region. As Gwendolyn Brooks says, “We are each other’s business. We are each other’s magnitude and bond.”  

On this campus, I consider what the sit-in might mean to a range of students, staff and faculty who are themselves survivors of ethnic cleansing or genocide. While these histories of catastrophe are distinct, they also exist within an intricate web of relation. I am seized by the possibility that this sit-in, in addition to making clear students’ demands, also generates a signal of commitment to our shared humanity. 

***

The Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada — all blessings and wildflowers to her name — was killed by an Israeli airstrike within days of writing the poem excerpted in the epigraph above. With these words, in the last days of her life, she protects the oranges and the shades of the clouds. Elsewhere, she blesses the children. She writes a future when even the dead will one day laugh, and with her language makes a refuge, a refusal and a shield. These are the words I think of when I meet the students in White Plaza or see their tents from a distance as I walk to meetings. 

These weeks we have seen student protesters refusing the regimes of silence that threaten to normalize mass killings. With their discipline, they shield action from despair. They are a greenness in the heart of campus, calling us to life.

Aracelis Girmay is a poet and professor of English.

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From the Community | Gaza: The war of the words https://stanforddaily.com/2023/12/08/from-the-community-gaza-the-war-of-the-words/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/12/08/from-the-community-gaza-the-war-of-the-words/#respond Fri, 08 Dec 2023 13:29:36 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1239467 "Legal terms are twisted for emotional impact, and shouted chants replace civil discourse," writes Alan Fisher.

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On Oct. 7, Hamas blew up sections of the border fence around the Gaza Strip. Its fighters entered nearby Israeli towns and farming villages with written orders to kill every civilian they could find — men, women, children and even babies — except for some to be captured as bargaining chips. They did as instructed, killing over 1,200 and taking over 240 hostage. The dead were later found raped, tortured, butchered and sometimes beheaded.

Caught by surprise, Israelis quickly regrouped, halting the rampage and clearing the invaders from their territory. They rescued survivors and brought medical care to the many gravely wounded. Israel then launched a counterattack, first with bombing, and then, after careful preparation, with a ground assault.

This conflict has brought a battle of words and slogans to Stanford and to campuses across the country. Most blame not the aggressor, Hamas, but its victim, Israel. President Richard Saller and his counterparts elsewhere have issued multiple statements and calls for dialogue, to little effect. Here I discuss examples in which the meaning of legal terms are twisted for emotional impact, and shouted chants replace civil discourse.

Prominently, signs on campus have called Israel’s actions “genocide,” a word I see as a hand grenade tossed as an inversion of the Holocaust. When Nazi Germany killed fully one third of all the Jews in the world, the word “genocide” was invented to describe this evil, an attempt to intentionally destroy an entire group of people. Israel, on the other hand, wants to kill Hamas’ fighters, and the killing of soldiers in an enemy army is expected and permitted in war. Israel is not trying to kill everyone in Gaza but to free its hostages and remove Hamas from power.

Protesters at Stanford deny Israel’s right to exist within any borders at all, calling its creation “settler-colonialism.” This concept may properly describe the English landing at Plymouth Rock. However, when applied to Israel, it is a loaded term that sweeps aside 3,200 years of Jewish history in which an indigenous people have re-established their ancient homeland after the invasions of successive empires, including one 1,400 years ago that brought Arabic and Islam from the Arabian Peninsula. Israelis’ and Palestinians’ long-standing claims to the land can be reconciled only by co-existence, but the chants we hear at demonstrations, including at Stanford, leave little room for that. “From the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea, Palestine will be free” translates to “it’s all ours” — no Israel, no Jews. How? “Globalize the intifada” provides an answer — violence, against Israelis and against Jews everywhere.

This assault of loaded words continues with accusations of Israeli “war crimes.” The laws of war include the rule of “proportionality,” which states that the legality of a military action depends on the balance between its objective and its means and consequences. Under prior law and the Rome Statute that governs the International Criminal Court, a “war crime” includes “intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects … which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.”

Causing civilian deaths is not itself a war crime, nor does proportionality require that deaths on both sides must be roughly equal. Critics denounce Israel’s response as “disproportionate” and therefore a “war crime.” But to determine the validity of these accusations we must closely examine whether Israel has properly delineated what is “proportionate” from what is “excessive.”

Consider the battlefield. Hamas intentionally sited command centers, arms factories and weapons depots in crowded civilian areas. Many line their 300-mile network of tunnels, with fighters descending through access shafts hidden in homes and hospitals. Rockets are launched outside mosques and schools. A Hamas headquarters is being uncovered in tunnels under Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest. Hamas chose these strategic locations to protect itself behind human shields (which is itself a war crime). To achieve “military advantage” from attacking its hidden enemy while reducing “incidental loss of civilian life or injury to civilians,” Israel warned civilians to evacuate. 

Even so, there have been many deaths, as the critics properly point out. Hamas sources claim that Israel has killed about 16,000, without distinguishing civilians from combatants. By Israel’s estimate, the deaths include 5,000 or more Hamas fighters (over 30% of the total). Compare this to other urban battles, where combatants typically constitute only 10% of the dead. Of course, the dead care little for statistics. But once an attacker starts a war, the defender may do only what is necessary and proportionate to end the threat. In this ugly context, Israel has satisfied the test of proportionality and has undermined the protesters’ accusation of war crimes. 

Next, consider the demonstrators’ call for “an immediate ceasefire.” This slogan also makes fine emotional rhetoric but lacks critical context. The slogan overlooks the ceasefire that was already in effect on Oct. 6. Even as it was signed last May, Hamas was deep into planning this meticulous attack. That ceasefire was only a hudna, a temporary truce, to be broken when convenient.

Moreover, Hamas still holds over 130 hostages, and it is unlikely that Israel will get them back alive without military pressure. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar even threatened that Oct. 7 was “a rehearsal” for future attacks. This pattern has recurred every few years in a loop, like some bloody version of “Groundhog Day.” How could another ceasefire break this loop?

Israel now says the war will continue until all hostages are freed and Hamas is removed from its misrule of Gaza. Perhaps new, responsible leadership, under international supervision, will at last support the people of Gaza. Perhaps the Israeli government’s scandalous neglect of security before the attack will lead to an investigation, a new election and a new Israeli government too. The parties might then grope toward the dim light of co-existence, glinting in the distance at the end of this tunnel.

Finally, here at Stanford, loud rhetoric that offers more heat than light coarsens debate on campus. After this war, perhaps we will stop shouting offensive slogans and return to learning from one another through reasoned and informed dialogue.

Alan Fisher is a lead scientist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

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From the Community | A Muslim student’s perspective on the Palestinian-Israeli crisis https://stanforddaily.com/2023/12/08/from-the-community-a-muslim-students-perspective-on-the-palestinian-israeli-crisis/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/12/08/from-the-community-a-muslim-students-perspective-on-the-palestinian-israeli-crisis/#respond Fri, 08 Dec 2023 13:29:10 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1236320 "Straw-manning our position as a defense of terrorism or antisemitism is intellectually dishonest and unconducive to progress," writes Hamza El Boudali.

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Over the past nine weeks, students showing solidarity with Palestine have been incessantly accused of supporting terrorism — I have received comments, emails and social media messages claiming that I support beheading babies.

As an American Muslim, these slanderous accusations are not new to me. In the spirit of open dialogue, I wish to respond with my personal view on the ongoing crisis in Gaza, shared by many other Muslim students who I have spoken with.

Despite what many Western media sources, including our student newspapers, The Daily and the Review, will have you believe, the ongoing violence in Gaza is not the fault of Islamist terrorists. Not only is this rhetoric one-sided and simplistic, it is also misused and abused by oppressive regimes around the world.

This rhetoric of terrorism is used by the Chinese Communist Party against the Uyghur resistance, the Indian government against the Kashmiri resistance and the Myanmar military against the Rohingya resistance. In all these cases, a state with a powerful military purports to be “fighting terrorism” as an excuse to brutally attack and oppress indigenous Muslim populations in their homelands. Israel uses the same strategy to ethnically cleanse Palestine by claiming to fight Hamas while bombarding all of Gaza.

In 2001, George W. Bush paved the way for the weaponization of this rhetoric when he declared his “Global War on Terror” to justify invading Iraq and Afghanistan. This is nothing more than a ploy drawing on the Islamophobic trope that Muslims are violent and barbaric.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, there is no internationally accepted definition of terrorism; however, “as a minimum, terrorism involves the intimidation or coercion of populations or governments through the threat or perpetration of violence, causing death, serious injury or the taking of hostages.” 

Terrorism is terrorism, whether it’s committed by a state or a stateless people. Terrorism is terrorism whether the U.S. government acknowledges it or not.

Israel is most deserving of the “terrorist” title in this conflict, especially given their lack of mitigating circumstances: they are not being occupied or blockaded, they have international support and they have advanced military technology capable of precise targeting. Why, then, are Muslim students asked to condemn Hamas, while advocates for Israel are not asked to condemn the IDF?

What is Israel’s excuse for leveling residential buildings? Or targeting refugee camps and schools with airstrikes? Or cutting off electricity, food, medicine and fuel to all of Gaza as collective punishment? Or dropping white phosphorus on civilians? Or ordering over a million Gazans to evacuate before bombing an evacuation route? Or murdering over 170 civilians in the West Bank, which is not governed by Hamas, while the world is distracted by grave risk of genocide in Gaza?

There is no excuse. The Israeli government is a terrorist organization.

Many on campus claim that supporting Palestinian resistance makes me a terrorist sympathizer. But then what does that make those who justify Israel’s crimes against humanity by saying, “Hamas is holding human shields” and “Israel has a right to defend itself”?

Was every one of the 14,000 Palestinians slaughtered so far a human shield? 

The strongest military in the Middle East had to butcher 4,000 kids and displace 1.5 million civilians to defend itself?

If there was a rumor Hamas was hiding inside an Israeli hospital, would that justify blowing up the hospital? How about an Israeli daycare center?

Those who misuse the rhetoric of terrorism center the conversation around Hamas, but the cause of this crisis is not Hamas. Palestinians have been decrying violence by Zionist militant groups long before Hamas existed. And, even aside from Hamas, anyone who has ever fought back against Israel was designated a terrorist.

You do not need to support Hamas to recognize this hypocrisy. Nor do you have to be Muslim or Arab. Many Jews and former Zionists have blamed Israeli apartheid for the recent violence because they understand where our focus should be

To those who criticize us for not condemning Hamas: We Muslims are tired of being spoken down to. We’re tired of moral grandstanding from Western people. We’re tired of condemning groups we’re not affiliated with. Those who arrogantly demand condemnations from Muslims should first condemn the Israeli government. Then, and only then, will you have earned the moral capital to demand condemnations from me.

As Americans, our tax dollars fund military aid to Israel, not Hamas. Stanford partners with Israeli companies complicit in the occupation, not with Hamas. Our administration condemned Hamas in their letter to the community but said absolutely nothing about Israel’s atrocities.

A truck was seen and photographed by Muslim students on campus with the following message written on it in Arabic: “Warning: Stay away 100 meters or you will be shot at.” Palestinian and Muslim students on campus have received threatening phone calls from strangers and alumni, been doxxed, defamed, regularly harassed (even by a professor) and assaulted. Many pro-Palestinians on campus don’t publicly comment because they fear these consequences. Anti-Zionist speech has always been stifled in this country.

All of this is why I choose to focus on Israel and not Hamas.

I condemn the racist ethnostate of Israel, and I condemn anyone who asks me to condemn Hamas without first condemning Israel.

As a Muslim, it is part of my faith to oppose the killing of innocent civilians. Any harm to innocent Israeli or Palestinian people is undoubtedly horrible and should not be condoned. My heart goes out to all the affected families who lost loved ones and are hurting on both sides.

To truly honor the lives of the victims and prevent this from ever happening again, we must stop the terrorist group directly responsible: the Israeli government.

This conflict did not start on Oct. 7. Palestinians have been getting slaughtered and displaced for 75 years

Israel’s government cannot slowly eradicate the Palestinian population and not expect a violent response. The international community cannot continue to support Israel or remain silent and not expect a violent response. The recent violence is the direct result of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. 

Killing civilians is not justified. But under these conditions, armed resistance against the Israeli military and police is justified. On Oct. 7, Palestinians and their allies were not celebrating the death of Israeli civilians; we were celebrating Palestinians breaking out of their prison and attacking military posts. I support armed resistance as Palestinians struggle to end Israeli terror, while simultaneously opposing deliberate harm to innocent civilians.

There are many historical cases of civilians being killed by an oppressed group that is using armed resistance to overcome their oppressor. We look back at these today and understand that we must focus on the root cause of the oppression. For example, Nelson Mandela’s paramilitary wing of the African National Congress, which was designated a terrorist organization by South Africa, the U.S. and the U.K., conducted several bombings that killed police officers and civilians. 

Yet when we talk about South African apartheid, we start and end the discussion with the injustice of apartheid. The same is true for the Algerian National Liberation Front’s attacks against the brutal French colonial government, slave revolts against American plantation owners and Native American attacks against European colonizers. 

This does not mean those civilian lives don’t matter — quite the opposite. It means their blood is on the hands of the colonizing, occupying and terrorizing force.

It’s important to not get stuck in an echo chamber. We hear pro-Israeli perspectives every day on CNN, Fox, MSNBC and other Western news outlets. We see an abundance of false propaganda spread by Zionists in mainstream media to stoke fear against Palestinians and Muslims. 

This is not a new phenomenon. In the 1990s, George H.W. Bush used false testimony of Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators to justify the American invasion of Iraq. In 2001, the “weapons of mass destruction” lie was used to invade Iraq again. Fear-mongering allows governments to manufacture consent and act on entire populations with impunity.

I encourage readers to be critical. Check sources. Demand explicit evidence. Keep in mind that Israel has a long history of lying about its crimes. The massacres in Gaza, on the other hand, are undeniable. Palestinians do not need to lie because the reality is far worse than is even imaginable.

As the great Malcolm X said, “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people being oppressed, and loving the people doing the oppressing.”

Many students like myself are happy to engage in respectful and productive dialogue. Straw-manning our position as a defense of terrorism or antisemitism is intellectually dishonest and unconducive to progress. 

Those willing to support the children of Gaza can help at these links. And to those Zionists who photograph, doxx and attempt to silence pro-Palestinian students: Feel free not to hire me. In fact, please don’t, I would never work for you anyway.

May God protect Gaza and all innocent people around the world.

Hamza El Boudali ’22 is a master’s student in computer science.

After editors introduced a change to align with linked substantiation, this article was updated at the author’s request to more accurately represent his perspective.

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From the Community | Antisemitism is alive and well at Stanford https://stanforddaily.com/2023/12/08/from-the-community-antisemitism-is-alive-and-well-at-stanford/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/12/08/from-the-community-antisemitism-is-alive-and-well-at-stanford/#respond Fri, 08 Dec 2023 13:28:11 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1238532 “For the first time in my life, rather than the unabashed pride I have always felt as a member of the Stanford family, I feel ashamed,” writes Michael Weis.

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While this letter is mostly about antisemitism at Stanford, my heart breaks for students like Abdulwahab Omira, who was targeted in a heinous hit and run attack on Nov. 3, and for all students who are targeted by hate, regardless of their race, gender, country of origin, religion or other protected status. We are all the worse for these unprovoked and destructive acts, and I send him my prayers for healing.

Ever since I tore open my acceptance letter to Stanford over 40 years ago, I had felt nothing but pride in my identity as a Stanford student and alumnus. But since the brutal Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 innocent Israeli men, women and children; took over 200 hostages and wounded thousands more, I no longer feel that way. Ironically, Hamas has relatively little to do with my change of heart. It’s what has been happening at Stanford that has left me feeling heartbroken and ashamed. 

In 2005, I had just arrived in Israel to begin my cantorial studies following the Gaza disengagement that left millions of dollars worth of productive infrastructure in place for the Palestinians and thousands of Israelis uprooted — many of them forcefully removed by the IDF — with no place to live. Though compensated by the state for their losses, many Israelis camped for months in protest outside the Prime Minister’s residence, which I passed each morning on my way to class. Most people that I knew, however, felt it was a necessary step toward peace with the Palestinians.

In return, Palestinian mobs destroyed most of what Israel left behind and began a relentless terror campaign consisting of tens of thousands of indiscriminately fired rockets from civilian areas toward non-combatants and non-military structures. Every single rocket — an ingeniously designed cluster bomb of war crimes — was carefully packed with thousands of ball bearings, nails and shrapnel to do one thing: terrorize as many innocent people as possible.

And so, to protect its citizens from this real and present threat on its border with Gaza, Israel instituted a blockade that continues to this day. To be clear: Palestinian terror preceded the blockade and has continued almost unabated ever since. 

For the most part, while the United Nations and most NGOs have endlessly decried the blockade as “illegal,” it has always been, in fact, wholly defensive (read: not illegal), and kept the southern border relatively safe. Until Oct. 7. 

When the ASSU voted to divest from Israeli companies but the University did not, I still felt pride. I didn’t like how misguided those students were who supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), but I felt like Stanford would still be a great place to send my children one day.

Even when Stanford admitted to using admissions quotas for Jews, I felt pride that the University was willing to shed self-critical light on its own dark past, make amends and take action to address its flaws.

Fast forward to today. Life experience taught me that the support Israel experienced immediately following the Oct. 7 massacre would only last a few days, and I was right. 

What I did not expect, though, was that Stanford students would side with terrorists who savagely butchered adults, women, children and babies. 

I did not expect Jewish Stanford associate professor of history, Mikael Wolfe, to expound upon common antisemitic, anti-Israel tropes — disparaging Zionism as a “settler-colonial project” and referring to Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing,” “collective punishment” and “illegal … blockade,” among others — in his Oct. 31 opinion.

Specifically, “The major element of Zionism that made possible the founding of Israel,” he asserts, “was the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes during the first major Arab-Israeli War in 1948.” While there are legitimate criticisms against Israel that are not considered antisemitic, Wolfe’s claims place the entire blame for the displacement of the Palestinian Arabs in 1948 on Israel. This is so devoid of context that the best that can be said about it is that it was woefully irresponsible. 

I did not expect that The Daily would publish that opinion without fact-checking an “expert” who should know the history of his own people better. I also didn’t expect that The Daily would blithely publish student demonstrators’ propaganda about the 75-year “occupation” of Palestine without bothering to note that 75 years encompasses Israel’s entire existence. 

But most of all, I didn’t expect the University administration, led for the first time in its history by a Jew, to allow unbridled antisemitism in the form of anti-Israel propaganda (see 3 Ds Test below) to stampede its way through Stanford’s classrooms and public spaces. 

Israel isn’t perfect and deserves to be criticized. But if the U.N.-accepted working definition of antisemitism put forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is silent on whether criticism of Israel is antisemitic, how do we know when we’ve crossed the line from legitimate criticism to antisemitism? How do we know there even is a line at all?

Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident, human rights activist and one-time Chairman of the Jewish Agency, after a lifetime of observing modern day antisemitism around the world, proposed a very simple formula for recognizing when otherwise legitimate criticism of Israel devolves into antisemitism. He calls it the Three Ds Test

The first D stands for double-standards. 

Let’s start with one of the favorite canards of Israel’s detractors: genocide. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, genocide is defined primarily as including “violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Guided by this internationally-accepted definition, can we build a case that Israel has been committing genocide against the Palestinians or not? 

The Palestinian population in 1950 stood at 944,087. As of today, Palestinians number more than 5.4 million. While the suffering and devastation from the current conflict in Gaza are heart-rending, based on this stunning statistic alone, the charge that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians is completely counterfactual and patently absurd.

But real-world facts that challenge their hallowed narrative haven’t prevented the U.N., most NGOs, media outlets, governments around the world, academics, social justice activists of all stripes, celebrities and, yes, even our own Stanford students from incessantly declaring that Israel is committing genocide while they simultaneously ignore the very real genocides that have taken millions of innocent Ethiopian, Syrian, Sudanese, Rwandan, Yemenite lives and thousands more in recent years. Such charges are intellectually lazy, downright ignorant and evidence of an obvious and pernicious double standard toward Israel.   

The second D is for delegitimization. 

Israel has fought multiple defensive wars against existential threats and has been in a constant state of war with most of its neighbors since the day it was founded. In every case — 1948, 1967, 1973, 2023 —Israel was attacked first and responded in self-defense, winning each of those wars and gaining territory in the process. Yet Israel is expected to just give it all up, whether it be Gaza and the West Bank, the Golan or, indeed, the entire land of Israel. When you label Israel, a U.N. member nation, a settler colonial state and question Israel’s right to exist (whether on legal or moral grounds), you are guilty of delegitimization.

The final D is demonization. 

When Stanford students adopt terrorist slogans by chanting “long live the Intifada” and relentlessly accuse Israel of imperialism, settler colonialism, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide and apartheid, they not only don’t know what those terms actually mean, they are demonizing Israel.

Double-standards, delegitimization and demonization: These are the three hallmarks of modern-day antisemitism masquerading as anti-Israel criticism. I honestly believe that many people who chant “from the river to the sea” are not antisemitic. They just really want peace. I would simply remind them that what happened on Oct. 7 is but a small taste of how their dream would devolve into an unimaginable nightmare if Israel were to lay down its arms.

It would be a real genocide, but not of the Palestinians. Of millions of Jews. Again.

To paraphrase the late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks from a keynote speech he delivered to the European Parliament in 2016 entitled “Understanding Antisemitism: The Mutating Virus,” it is not antisemitic to not like Jews. Nor is it antisemitic to not like Israel. But when anti-Zionists categorically deny the legitimate right of Jews to live as Jews in their own land, and lend their voices to those who actively seek the destruction of the Jewish state — especially when claiming to defend human rights — then they are, indeed, guilty of antisemitism. 

And so, for the first time in my life, rather than the unabashed pride I have always felt as a member of the Stanford family, I feel ashamed. I am ashamed of students who would threaten their fellow students and advocate for the destruction of the Jewish homeland and all its people, and I am ashamed of the University for allowing such blatant hate to proliferate on campus under the guise of legitimate public discourse and by hiding behind the Leonard Law. Most of all, though, I am ashamed of myself for not advocating on behalf of Stanford’s Jewish students sooner.

Stanford students deserve better than this.

Stanford students should be better than this.

Stanford University needs to do much better than this.

Cantor Michael Weis graduated from Stanford in 1986, and currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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From the community | What should a university stand for? https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/28/from-the-community-what-should-a-university-stand-for/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/28/from-the-community-what-should-a-university-stand-for/#respond Wed, 29 Nov 2023 06:39:40 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1238383 Platforming false and unsupported arguments is antithetical to the pursuit of truth and knowledge with integrity, MacKenzie writes.

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In a recent article, a former provost lamented the loss in our university and society of “the ability to disagree, to dispute, to debate, without questioning our opponents’ fundamental dignity and humanity.” The cultivation of a space for respectful, rational debate is a noble goal and one that undoubtedly falls within the purview of a university. But within his argument, the former provost made a troubling claim, one that is unbecoming of someone who has filled such an important role for our institution: namely, the claim that “a university stands for nothing if not the free expression of viewpoints — true or false, supported or unsupported, agreeable or repugnant.”

A university is a place for the creation, preservation and sharing of knowledge. False and unsupported arguments are antithetical to the pursuit of truth and knowledge with integrity, which should be expected of everyone within our community. The post-truth political climate we currently inhabit, where disinformation and alternative facts abound, has its roots in the proliferation of these false and unsupported arguments. The “community of scholars, who approach even the most agonizing events with compassion and understanding — and a determination to find a solution” must be firmly rooted in the reality-based community. It is neither respectful nor rational to entertain false and unsupported arguments.

The story the former provost shared of his proudest day as a university leader is touching and holds important lessons for us, though perhaps not the ones that he highlighted. When the community came out in solidarity to protect fellow members from hateful speech and rhetoric, it wasn’t in order to disagree, dispute and debate with the Westboro Baptist Church. The false and unsupported ideology Westboro came to profess in itself denied the dignity and humanity of members of the campus community, which was countered by solidarity and affirmation of the humanity of our fellow community members. The happy resolution at the end of the story was not that Westboro Church members altered their viewpoint after rational engagement but that they chose to leave and not return to a place where false and unsupported arguments were not tolerated. That was only possible because “hundreds and hundreds” of community members responded, likely to the calls of dozens of dedicated organizers who made plans that the former provost neglected to credit.

A key tenet of a university is academic freedom to pursue topics that run counter to mainstream thought. Questions about which lens to use in approaching a problem and which tools are most effective to address a particular question are opportunities for rational, respectful debate. A diversity of viewpoints often strengthens the resulting product by introducing new lines of questioning. But academic freedom does not allow for eschewing academic responsibility — arguments must be grounded in truth and supported by evidence. 

The former provost concludes with a well-made point: we should “not … look to the university to assure us that our side is right.” A university does not exist to teach people what to think, but how to think. I was fortunate enough to obtain a Ph.D. in my time working at Stanford, which means I have been trained in critical thinking and analysis. That is why I cannot stand for false and unsupported arguments, nor the supposition that it is the duty of the university to platform them.

Tim MacKenzie Ph.D. ’18 is a postdoc in the genetics department and an alumnus of the chemistry department.

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An open letter to Jewish students at Stanford University https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/09/an-open-letter-to-jewish-students-at-stanford-university/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/09/an-open-letter-to-jewish-students-at-stanford-university/#respond Thu, 09 Nov 2023 10:00:44 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1236319 Jewish students should have the right to engage in civil discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without fear of physical harm or verbal abuse, a group of alumni write.

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We write to you as Stanford Jewish alumni who have been closely monitoring with great concern the discourse on campus regarding Hamas’ terror attack of Oct. 7 and Israel’s military response to those atrocities. We write to ensure you know that, as Jews who are part of the Stanford family, we stand in solidarity with you in these challenging times. 

As Stanford students, you should be able to count on finding supportive learning and living environments that prioritize your physical safety and mental well-being. If you choose to, you should be able to identify proudly as Jewish on campus, in class and in your dorms and houses. You should have the right, if you wish to exercise it, to engage in civil discussion about Hamas’ atrocities, Israel’s response to them, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Israel’s existence in general without fear of physical harm, antisemitic insults, bullying, dehumanization and social ostracization, whether from fellow students, faculty or staff. Stanford should be a place where all students — Jewish, Muslim, Christian or any group — are able to experience kindness, compassion, respect and understanding that we should all expect of one another.  

Where Stanford’s policies on campus discourse and its regulation of speech on campus fail to reflect these principles — or are applied inconsistently or unfairly — then they should be changed. Where Stanford fails to provide you with the resources you need to be safe from intimidation, threats and bullying, or to help you cope with what we can only imagine is an extremely difficult time to be Jewish on campus, then the University must act to ensure that Stanford remains a place where you can learn, grow and experience all that Stanford has to offer. Please know that many of us have already communicated our disappointment to the administration and that we will continue using our voices as alumni to advocate for you as Stanford students. 

In the days and weeks ahead, we encourage you to seek community or other support networks you want and need, whether that be through the Jewish (Hillel and Chabad), University (Office of Religious and Spiritual Life) and/or other resources on or off campus. You can also reach out to the Stanford Jewish Alumni Network if connecting with Jewish alumni might prove beneficial. Wherever you turn, please know that we have your back, will remain vigilant and will continue to monitor the campus conversation, in the hope and expectation that, in time, you are again comfortable calling Stanford your home away from home.

We are circulating this letter more broadly and expect the list of signatories to grow. We pray that you will find comfort and support as you deal with the horrific atrocities of Oct. 7 and all the events that have followed, including on our campus. As you find your own path forward, know that you are not only in our prayers, but also at the top of our minds.

Pamela Brewster MBA ’87

Cody Harris ’00 J.D. ’07

Dr. Tmirah Haselkorn Ph.D. ’04

Dr. Martin Kenigsberg ’74 M.A. ’74

Sharon Kenigsberg M.A. ’80

Robin Kennedy ’68 J.D. ’78

Steve Lazarus M.S. ’70 Ph.D. ’79

Zohar Levy ’22

Ethan Orlinsky ’86

Hovav Shacham ’00 Ph.D. ’05

Matan Shacham ’05

Robert Smith ’77

Michael Weis ’86

Jane Farkas Wolk J.D. ’91

Oded Wurman ’05 M.S. ’05

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From the community | What Stanford has lost https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/08/from-the-community-what-stanford-has-lost/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/08/from-the-community-what-stanford-has-lost/#respond Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:48:16 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1236146 It is our responsibility as an academic community to engage in dialogue with compassion and respect, Etchemendy writes.

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As I walk around campus reading chalked messages and posters, and as I read The Stanford Daily, the Stanford Report and the Stanford Review, I am saddened. This is not the Stanford that once made me so proud to be its provost.

There were many occasions for pride during my years as provost: Nobel Prize announcements, wins at the Rose Bowl, student performances in MemAud. But for me, my proudest day at Stanford was Jan. 29, 2010. 

That was the day we were visited by the Westboro Baptist Church, a strange cult that traveled the country to spread their message of hate toward gays, members of the Armed Forces and, particularly, Jews. This stop on their tour was targeted at Stanford Hillel, where they planned to spew their deranged antisemitism toward members of the Stanford Community.

When word of their coming spread through campus, the president and I received many demands that we prevent them from demonstrating. We could have. We are a private university on private property, and we can prevent access to outsiders if we so choose. But we did not. We are a university, and a university stands for nothing if not the free expression of viewpoints — true or false, supported or unsupported, agreeable or repugnant.

Word spread that the university would not prevent the demonstration, that the Westboro “Church” would be allowed to chant their hate at Hillel’s front door. The University would of course physically protect the members of Hillel, but equally protect the unwelcome Westboro visitors.

Then the day arrived. No plans were made, no call went out, but the Stanford community responded on its own. Hundreds and hundreds of Stanford students, faculty and staff spontaneously arrived to surround Hillel in a community embrace. At the front of the Stanford crowd was the Muslim Student Awareness Network and the Islamic Society of Stanford, proudly showing their support for their Jewish counterparts.

Talisman showed up and led the crowd with songs of love and grace. Then from the edge of the throng a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace,” and we all joined in. Eventually, our Westboro guests packed up their signs of hate and quietly left campus. They never made Stanford a stop on their odious tours again.

As I said at the time, I have never been prouder of our university. Others agreed. But something has been lost, at our university and in our society at large, something we desperately need to get back: the ability to disagree, to dispute, to debate, without questioning our opponents’ fundamental dignity and humanity. In 2010, we did not have a DEI program to mandate diversity and inclusion. This was not because there was no strife or hatred in the world. The Intifada was a recent memory, and the U.S. was still responding to the events of 9/11. But we saw ourselves as a community of scholars, who approached even the most agonizing events with compassion and understanding — and a determination to find a solution.

Our current president and provost have received a great deal of criticism from students and alumni who want them to take a stand, to come down clearly and unequivocally in favor of their own preferred stance. But President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez have done exactly what a president and provost should do. It is their responsibility, above all, to maintain the potential for rational, respectful debate, even about the most tragic and divisive circumstances facing the world. It is our responsibility as an academic community to engage in this debate with compassion and respect for those with whom we disagree, not to look to the university to assure us that our side is right.

John Etchemendy served as the 12th provost of Stanford University from 2000 to 2017.

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From the community | Stanford must respect fellows’ right to unionize https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/07/from-the-community-stanford-must-respect-fellows-right-to-unionize/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/07/from-the-community-stanford-must-respect-fellows-right-to-unionize/#respond Tue, 07 Nov 2023 08:20:32 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1236021 The Stanford administration is acting hypocritically in denying fellows the right to participate in union bargaining, Beller writes.

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On April 26, in a letter to the community, former President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and former provost Persis Drell wrote to graduate workers in explanation of why the administration refused to voluntarily recognize the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU) after a supermajority of us signed authorization cards signaling interest in forming a union:

“We believe that a secret-ballot election is a fundamental principle of democratic decision-making and is the most inclusive, fair and secure method by which to determine whether a majority of eligible graduate students wish to be represented by a union. We feel strongly that every graduate student should have the ability, free from undue influence, to make this decision on their own.”

Every graduate student except roughly 33% of us who are funded by fellowships, based on estimates from voter data provided to organizers by the University. In negotiations with the SGWU in preparation for the subsequent election, the Stanford administration refused to agree to allow fellows to participate in spite of the union’s push to include them. Of the 5000 graduate student-workers at Stanford, only 3400 were allowed to vote. After ignoring the evident interest of a supermajority of graduate workers in the name of “democracy,” the administration proceeded to disenfranchise a third of the electorate.

The Stanford administration is not interested in inclusive or fair democratic decision-making for graduate workers. They have made this clear before the unionization campaign, as they consistently ignored and disrespected our elected representatives on the Graduate Student Council. They have reiterated this antagonism to our interests as they moved to split our membership. They tell us that they are trying to promote our democratic will, but the exclusion of fellows from our bargaining unit is a clear effort to limit the power of our union (see union busting). Fewer workers in our membership means less power to bargain collectively for the interests of all graduate workers.

Stanford’s move to exclude fellows from union representation follows on the example of a number of private universities. The general logic behind the exclusion is that because of fellows’ distinct funding arrangement, they do not fall into the traditional labor relationship where compensation is provided to an employee in exchange for services rendered. A similar logic is evident in Stanford’s Graduate Academic Policies and Procedures, which states that fellowships are “awarded on a merit or need basis,” and “no service is expected in return for a fellowship.” 

These arguments and policies, however, misrepresent the reality of fellows’ day-to-day work. Just like workers funded by assistantships (whose status as employees is not disputed), fellows are expected to perform research and teaching responsibilities at the direction of their advisors and in accordance with their program requirements. The performance of these services translates into a direct monetary benefit for the University. Fellows author highly cited research papers that give our institution its prestigious name. Fellows teach University undergraduates, performing the educational service that Stanford is charging tuition for. And, fellows apply for and bring in grants, from which the University takes a huge cut in the form of “indirect costs” to fund broader operations. The labor of fellows is a direct source of revenue for the University.

Moreover, just like graduate workers funded by assistantships, fellows are subject to the working conditions set by Stanford. If a worker’s fellowship does not reach University minimums, Stanford tops up their compensation to ensure that these workers receive the minimum pay. Thus fellows have a vested interest in University pay rates. Additionally, workers funded by fellowships pursue the same grievance procedures when responding to harassment and discrimination, and share the common interest of graduate workers in securing fair, neutral arbitration of disputes. Fellows receive the same benefits as students funded by assistantships and struggle with the same issues of affordability that come with living in one of the most expensive regions in the country. Denying fellows their right to participate in negotiations for the betterment of their conditions is a callous choice coming from an administration that claims to be promoting our well-being.

Repeatedly throughout their tenure, our former president and provost spoke to us about their commitment to listening to graduate workers and supporting our needs. They repeated this refrain in their April 26 message:

As “Stanford leaders we greatly value the many contributions our graduate students make to Stanford’s mission of teaching and research. We will continue working to understand, appreciate and be responsive to the needs of our graduate students, so that we may foster their well-being throughout their time at Stanford.”

Graduate workers have spoken unequivocally on what our needs are. The membership of the SGWU recently ratified contract proposals calling for fellows’ inclusion in our bargaining unit. We have issued a petition alongside to collect signatures in support of this demand. We invite everyone in our broader community, graduate worker or otherwise, to sign and join us in solidarity in this call.

President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez: We invite you to break with the legacy of your predecessors. Demonstrate your intention to bargain with us in good faith by withdrawing the administration’s position that fellows should not be included in our bargaining unit. Voluntarily recognize all graduate workers, regardless of funding source, as members of our democratic union.

Ari Beller is a graduate worker in psychology and a member of the SGWU.

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From the Community | On radical pro-Palestinian voices on campus https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/31/from-the-community-on-radical-pro-palestinian-voices-on-campus/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/31/from-the-community-on-radical-pro-palestinian-voices-on-campus/#respond Tue, 31 Oct 2023 09:05:21 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1235143 Demonstrations on campus were not calling for co-existence, but the eradication of Jewish existence in the region, Horowitz writes.

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These past three weeks have been, for me, the most stressful and painful weeks since I came to Stanford with my family in 2021. I grew up in Israel and lived there my entire life; my parents were born in the United States, which has always felt like a second home to me. The past three weeks of living here while keeping an alarmed, watchful eye on what is happening in Israel and Gaza — friends and family members agonizing and bereaving — have taught me a great deal about my place in the Stanford community. I discovered that the people whom I thought were sensitive, moral and thoughtful have chosen to remain silent in the wake of a dreadful war and the atrocities against my people. 

What I am referring to is hardly just my own personal feeling, but something that many of my Israeli friends on campus have experienced these past weeks. In the wake of the horrific events of Oct. 7 — namely, Hamas’ killing, rape and kidnapping of Israeli civilians in what has been considered the deadliest day in Jewish history since 1945 — what we had hoped to get from our peers and classmates was support and empathy. Some of us did receive that, and I cherish my friends and colleagues who reached out to me and proved that friendships can overcome ideological differences. Still many others were, and are, silent. These are people we go to class with, people we sit for coffee with, people to whom we nod every morning when we go to our labs or to our joint working spaces — and they have said nothing, offered no condolences and didn’t even check in. 

There were other smaller disappointments along the way. This newspaper, which I admire and read closely, ran a piece about a case involving a lecturer who, allegedly, made some disturbing remarks towards Jewish and Israeli students in class. The Stanford Daily, always keen on getting to the bottom of things, investigated the case, interviewed students who refuted the original account (which has since been picked up by nearly every media outlet in the United States) and was sure to include quotes about the wonderful and beloved lecturer. Imagine, for a moment, a semi-sympathetic piece written about a professor who berates an Asian American student in class. It is unimaginable.  While it is always important to thoroughly examine what is happening on campus, one cannot escape the sense that some stories are automatically believed and supported, while other stories — in this case, a story involving Jewish and Israeli students — are doubted, questioned and countered.

Then came the demonstrations. A demonstration on Friday, Oct. 20, included blatant, hateful speech, which explicitly called for an intifada, a violent resistance against Israelis. I should emphasize the fact that though I am writing this text in the (relative) comfort and safety of Green Library, had my children and I flown from San Francisco to Israel for the weekend of Oct. 7 to visit family or friends in the Negev, near Gaza, we would most likely have been killed or abducted. A speaker at the demonstration, who identified as an “anti-Zionist Jew,”  supported the atrocious acts of a militant group which the United States, the EU, Germany, Great Britain, Jordan and Egypt, among others, have denounced as a terrorist organization. Quite simply, they are supporting the killing and abduction of myself and my family. The speaker then moved on to indicate that it may be time to carry weapons on campus as well. The audience gleefully cheered. “Long live the intifada,” some of them yelled. This cannot be tolerated. No student should be walking around campus and hearing chants supporting the killing of their family. No faculty member should have to endure calls for an armed resistance against their loved ones. And, as members of the Stanford community, none of us should feel unsafe. 

Some people — too many, unfortunately — think that a clear and forceful condemnation of the heinous acts carried out by Hamas necessarily contradicts a vehement support of the Palestinian cause. These people demand that we pick sides — either you express your sorrow and shock over the evil, blood-thirsty slaughter of 1,400 innocent people, or you join forces with those who advocate for equality and self-determination in Israel and Palestine. This binary is false. Nothing in the world can justify Hamas’ monstrous crimes, and those who consider themselves moral people should stop and seriously think why is it that they are unable to condemn these crimes. I believe that one can wholeheartedly stand with Palestine and simultaneously acknowledge the horrific murder of innocent people in Israel. Contrary to what the extremists here and elsewhere are positing, decent and moral people can and must hold these views at the same time. 

My cards on the table: I am an Israeli leftist. I have opposed the policies of the Israeli government since the day I started reading about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which I have done extensively since I was a teenager. I support the end of the occupation and the self-determination of Palestinians, and I am deeply saddened and appalled by the devastating sights coming from Gaza right now, where thousands of innocent people are killed and hundreds of thousands are fearing for their lives. I have spent a good portion of my academic and writing career reading about my neighbors, trying to understand their pain and cultivating ways of thinking of a better future. This is how I raise my children, too — I explain to them that Israel and Palestine are the home of two peoples who must find ways, against all odds, to live together. The demonstration on campus was not calling for co-existence, but the eradication of Jewish existence in the region. That was Hamas’ self-proclaimed attempt on Oct. 7. That is Hamas’ objective, as stated in the Hamas Covenant. That is, inconceivably, what the radical, vocal pro-Palestinian voices on campus are expressing. We should stop and reflect on the shallow and distortive rhetoric that is being used. More importantly, we should stop and consider the human beings who work and live beside us, and the fact that they too have pains, feelings, dreams, convictions and hopes. 

Ariel Horowitz is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of comparative literature.

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From the Community | Denying the history of settler-colonialism only perpetuates suffering in Israel and Palestine https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/31/from-the-community-denying-the-history-of-settler-colonialism-only-perpetuates-suffering-in-israel-and-palestine/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/31/from-the-community-denying-the-history-of-settler-colonialism-only-perpetuates-suffering-in-israel-and-palestine/#respond Tue, 31 Oct 2023 08:56:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1234431 Israel and the U.S. must recognize the history of settler-colonialism the Palestinians have experienced in order bring justice and peace to Israel and Palestine, writes Wolfe.

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Coming of age as a Jewish-American adolescent in the late 1980s, I had seen the U.S. media coverage of the first Palestinian Intifada (uprising) against Israeli occupation. I feel that the stakes of the current Israeli-Palestinian violence are much higher and scarier than anything else I’ve experienced since then. This is not only because the scale of civilian deaths since Oct. 7 on both sides is so much larger. It is also because there had been no serious peace process to try to end the more than century-long conflict for years before Oct. 7.

Yet largely absent from the debate on the conflict since Oct. 7 in most major U.S. media is acknowledgement of the conflict’s extreme asymmetry — a fact rooted in historical reality that the state of Israel was the creation of a settler-colonial project known as Zionism. There is no doubt that Zionism emerged in large part as a defensive response to centuries of virulent European antisemitism and the terrible oppression of Jews that culminated in the Nazi Holocaust, a horrendous genocide that wiped out 12 members of my great-grandmother’s family. This, however, does not negate the fact that Zionists, including their founding father Theodore Herzl, saw the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine through a European settler-colonial lens. 

Like their brethren in neighboring Ottoman provinces, who became nation-states after the First World War (i.e. Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq), the indigenous Arabs of Palestine were forging a national identity when Herzl’s First Zionist Congress chose Ottoman-ruled Palestine as the site of a future Jewish homeland in 1897. Upon the demise of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, Great Britain imposed a mandate (temporary neocolonial rule) over Palestine. 

Unlike neighboring mandates, however, Palestine was promised to the Jews as a homeland in a letter from Britain’s then-Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to British Zionist leader Lionel Walter Rothschild. Known as the Balfour Declaration, the letter referred to the Arabs of Palestine, who had made up 90% of the Palestine mandate’s population, as “existing non-Jewish communities,” whose civil and religious rights should not be prejudiced. The letter also granted national rights exclusively to the 10% minority of Jewish settlers. Effectively, this “imperial edict” declared that there would be no independent state of Palestine for its majority indigenous Arab inhabitants.

Zionism was and is a complex ideology, movement and raison d’être of Israel as a nation-state. The major element of Zionism that made possible the founding of Israel was the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes during the first major Arab-Israeli War in 1948 — commonly known as the “Nakba,” or catastrophe in Arabic. After the second Arab-Israeli war of 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, along with the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula (the latter having been returned to Egypt in 1979). Since 1967, Israel has been steadfastly committed to Jewish settlement of the West Bank, and, until 2005, the Gaza Strip. Not only has this commitment continuously and forcibly dispossessed Palestinians of their land and water, it is also a gross violation of their internationally recognized sovereignty per dozens of U.N. resolutions. In 1976, an international consensus emerged on a two-state solution in a U.N. General Assembly report stating “that the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, was a prerequisite for peace in the Middle East.” This Palestinian state was to be established in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, which consisted of 22% of historic Palestine.

The secular Palestine Liberation Organization joined this consensus, prompting Israel to support the precursor of Hamas in the late 1970s and 1980s as a counterweight to the more moderate PLO. This was a fateful decision that helped to create Hamas in 1987. U.S.-supported Israeli elites across the political spectrum have consistently rejected an authentic two-state solution in favor of settlement expansion into Palestinian-occupied territories, even during the long Oslo peace process of the 1990s. The current Netanyahu government is only the latest, although the most extreme, instantiation of this consistent policy. 

The persistent demand in the U.S. media and among politicians that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims condemn the war crimes of Hamas is rarely accompanied by a parallel demand that Jews in Israel and abroad condemn the illegality and brutality of the now 56-year Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the 16-year blockade of Gaza. The structural violence of the occupation often terrorizes Palestinians through collective punishment in flagrant violation of international law. The current punishment consists not only of indiscriminate bombing of densely populated urban areas in the tiny coastal enclave of Gaza, but also the issuing of an evacuation order that forced more than a million Gazans — 50% of whom are children — to immediately leave Northern Gaza, as Israel prepared to commence its major ground invasion. 

As former President Jimmy Carter, who presided over the landmark 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, has pointed out, Israel’s rule over Palestine clearly resembles South African apartheid in form and practice prior to 1994. And lest we forget, Nelson Mandela endorsed armed resistance against the structural violence inflicted by apartheid in South Africa and supported an authentic Palestinian state — one with borders along the pre-1967 border and with full sovereignty over its resources free of Jewish settlements.

Hamas is certainly not the moral equivalent of the African National Congress, but neither is the current government of Israel, whose defense minister after Hamas’ attack declared that “we are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly” in Gaza. Ignoring or downplaying the structural violence of occupation while dehumanizing its victims only ensures that the civilians of Israel and Palestine will continue to suffer. But it is Palestinian civilians, especially those in the besieged and bombarded Gaza, who will suffer exponentially more. Until Israel and its superpower U.S. backer recognize this and fundamentally change their decades-long status quo narrative, there will very likely be neither justice nor peace in Israel and Palestine for generations to come. 

This article was written by Mikael Wolfe, an associate professor of history at Stanford University.

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From the Community | Urging the president and provost to condemn atrocities in Gaza https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/16/from-the-community-urging-the-president-and-provost-to-condemn-atrocities-in-gaza/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/16/from-the-community-urging-the-president-and-provost-to-condemn-atrocities-in-gaza/#respond Mon, 16 Oct 2023 08:44:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1233540 The statement by the president and provost effectively exonerates the State of Israel by failing to acknowledge its role in the conflict, writes Palumbo-Liu.

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I was glad to read President Saller and Provost Martinez’s denunciation of the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas upon innocent Israeli citizens. They forcefully and unambiguously wrote in their Oct. 11 email to the Stanford community:

As a moral matter, we condemn all terrorism and mass atrocities. This includes the deliberate attack on civilians this weekend by Hamas. One of the advances in international law in the 20th century following the horrors of the Holocaust was the development of international humanitarian law prohibiting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Such crimes are never justified. 

Their statement aligns with the Oct. 10 communication of the Office of the United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner, with the key exception that the UN is even-handed in its application of international humanitarian law:

The Commission has been collecting and preserving evidence of war crimes committed by all sides since Oct. 7, when Hamas launched a complex attack on Israel and Israeli forces responded with airstrikes in Gaza.

Reports that armed groups from Gaza have gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians are abhorrent and cannot be tolerated. Taking civilian hostages and using civilians as human shields are war crimes.

The Commission is gravely concerned with Israel’s latest attack on Gaza and Israel’s announcement of a complete siege on Gaza involving the withholding of water, food, electricity and fuel which will undoubtfully cost civilian lives and constitutes collective punishment.

Lest there be any ambiguity with regard to collective punishment — “the prohibition of collective punishments is stated in the Hague Regulations and the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions.”

Israel is heaping yet more suffering on the people of Gaza in order to punish Hamas. This act of collective punishment goes directly against the international humanitarian law that Saller and Martinez invoke to condemn Hamas. 

This collective punishment is being meted out against a captive population, 80% of whom are refugees, 60% of whom are under the age of 18. In 2010 British Prime Minister David Cameron referred to Gaza as a “prison.” The Washington Post has reported the death count of Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinian civilians — 1,537 killed, including 500 children and 276 women. Human Rights Watch has reported Israel’s use of white phosphorus on the Palestinian population — “White phosphorus … has a significant incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The use of white phosphorus in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, magnifies the risk to civilians and violates the international humanitarian law prohibition on putting civilians at unnecessary risk [emphasis added].” 

The illegality of collective punishment takes place within an illegal blockade that Israel has imposed for sixteen years, on top of an illegal occupation which has been in existence since 1967. Since Saller and Martinez predicate their statement on international humanitarian law, let us see what it says about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.

Not all occupations are illegal. There are settled conventions and protocols for how an occupying state must behave if it has placed a people and their land under occupation. The International Red Cross provides this account:

The duties of the occupying power are spelled out primarily in the 1907 Hague Regulations (art. 42-56) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV, art. 27-34 and 47-78), as well as in certain provisions of Additional Protocol I and customary international humanitarian law…

The main rules of the law applicable in case of occupation state that:

  • The occupant does not acquire sovereignty over the territory.
  • Occupation is only a temporary situation, and the rights of the occupant are limited to the extent of that period.
  • The occupying power must take measures to restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety.
  • To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the occupying power must ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population under occupation.
  • Collective punishment is prohibited.
  • The taking of hostages is prohibited.
  • The confiscation of private property by the occupant is prohibited.
  • The destruction or seizure of enemy property is prohibited, unless absolutely required by military necessity during the conduct of hostilities.

Israel has violated each of these provisions. Let us simply go down the list:

As far back as 2017, Israel passed a bill to annex Palestinian lands illegally, As a report from the BBC points out in its discussion of Israel’s annexation of Palestinian land, “Annexation is the term applied when a state unilaterally proclaims its sovereignty over other territory. It is forbidden by international law. A recent example was Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.” On that basis if we condemn Russia’s annexation of Ukraine we should likewise condemn Israel’s annexation of Palestinian land, that is if we are to be morally consistent.

Far from being “temporary,” the Occupation has been in effect since 1967. Rather than ensuring the safety and well-being of those under its occupation, Israel has deprived (via its illegal blockade) and is now in its actions of collective punishment depriving the civilian population of Gaza of hygiene, public health, food and medical care.

Palestinians under occupation are not tried in civil courts, but rather in military courts which deny basic constitutional rights to Palestinians, including children, who are not only prevented from quickly obtaining legal representation, but also often from seeing their parents, sometimes for crimes as minuscule as throwing rocks at military vehicles. This suspension of legal protections and the abuse of minors is a form of hostage taking for the purposes of silencing protest and resistance.

The unbridled appropriation of Palestinian property by Israeli settlers, armed and protected by the Israeli state, has existed for decades, but has increased exponentially under the rule of Israel’s far-right government, which tens of thousands of its own citizens have been protesting for months precisely because of its attacks on the Israeli court system.

While Israeli Jews have the right to protest when Netanyahu deprives them of their constitutional rights, Palestinians are beaten, incarcerated and killed for protesting the assault Israel has made on their lives and the rights guaranteed to them by international human rights law.

To silence the monitoring of violations of international humanitarian law, Israel has declared civil society human rights organizations “terrorist” organizations. To the grave concern of international law jurists it expelled former Stanford Law student Omar Shakir, who serves as Human Rights Watch’s director in Israel-Palestine.

In condemning the egregious violations of international humanitarian law performed by Hamas, but not acknowledging those of the other protagonist in the conflict, the statement by the president and provost, at the same moment it declares the importance of maintaining the University’s “neutrality,” effectively exonerates the State of Israel. This makes it impossible for the Stanford community to have any discussion or debate on this topic — those critical of Israeli state policies already run the risk of being labeled “anti-Semites.”

Saller and Martinez have made invisible precisely the basis for Palestinian claims to the rights guaranteed to them by international humanitarian law; they have exploited and desecrated the very law they use to advertise their moral goodness. 

Once again — whose lives matter?  Whose lives deserve justice?

This article was written by David Palumbo-Liu, who is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor at Stanford University, and a professor of comparative literature and by courtesy, of English.

This article was updated on the request of the author to directly substantiate their claim that Israel violated this provision: “The occupant does not acquire sovereignty over the territory” within the laws of occupation set out by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

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From the Community | SJP leadership should apologize https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/15/from-the-community-sjp-leadership-should-apologize/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/15/from-the-community-sjp-leadership-should-apologize/#respond Mon, 16 Oct 2023 03:34:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1233468 The refusal to acknowledge the loss of life and the equating of Hamas terrorists and Palestinians should disqualify SJP leaders, writes Adam Lifshitz.

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I, along with hundreds of other Jewish students at Stanford, woke up last weekend to the earth-shattering news that over a thousand of our brothers and sisters in Israel were senselessly slaughtered by Hamas terrorists. Like many of my fellow students, I immediately looked to the news to find relevant information about the terror that took place. 

The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post all provided the horrible details of the attacks and on-the-ground testimonies of infants slaughtered, women raped and dead bodies paraded in the streets of Gaza. When I looked to The Daily, however, I saw a front page op-ed titled “From the Community | Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine” written by SJP leadership rationalizing the attacks. The op-ed stated the importance of putting the “attack” in “context” “as the world witnesses the atrocities committed in Palestine.”

Authoring this article in the aftermath of the recent terrorism is not only emotionally tone deaf but also morally reprehensible for failing to acknowledge the loss of life and instead attributing blame to the victims. Those who author such articles should be held responsible for their actions. Accountability is key to preventing the wanton disregard of norms of decency that should guide university discourse. Those who seek to influence our classmates should be held to a higher standard and be forced to reckon with the impact of their influence on our community.

As a law student, I celebrate open discourse. I enjoy discussions about hotbed issues and seek out opinions different from mine. But writing this article before the blood of innocent children dries is appalling. It displays no humane mutual respect and should not be endorsed by The Daily or any other organization. I am sure that the leader of SJP does not speak for all SJP members. In fact, his support and his rationalizing of Hamas’ actions this weekend likely indicate that he is not the right person to be leading an organization that is supposed to value human rights. He should salvage any remaining shreds of his dignity by stepping down from SJP and issuing an apology for his offensive article. His lack of empathy is not only directed toward a people who, just two generations ago, fought for their existence, but also toward his fellow classmates who aspire to foster an environment of respect for human life and the destruction of evil.

Palestinians do not deserve to carry the same fate as Hamas terrorists. Misguided statements insinuating that Hamas acts as a “resistance” for the Palestinian people weakens the Palestinian cause. It risks creating association between helpless Palestinians and Hamas, which is an authoritarian terrorist organization beholden to Iran. SJP does not have to stand alongside baby murderers and rapists to support the Palestinian cause, and even if they choose to, they certainly should have enough self-awareness and common decency to still acknowledge the terrible loss of life that took place last weekend. The time has come for leaders who serve their constituents and not their own egos. I call on SJP leadership to resign immediately, apologize for last week’s op-ed and acknowledge that they were not speaking for all of the organization’s members when they issued their statement. 

Adam Lifshitz is a third-year J.D. MBA dual degree candidate at Harvard Law School and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

This article was updated to correct a line. This error was introduced due to a lack of consistency across drafts.

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From the Community | The impact of Hamas’ devastating attack https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/13/from-the-community-the-impact-of-hamas-devastating-attack/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/13/from-the-community-the-impact-of-hamas-devastating-attack/#respond Fri, 13 Oct 2023 09:50:20 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1233476 Hamas' terrorist acts will bring Palestinians no closer toward achieving their legitimate claim to self-determination, writes Matthew Wigler.

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Shabbat this past Saturday, Oct. 7, marked the holiday of Simchat Torah, a joyous day on which Jews complete our yearly reading of the Torah and begin the sacred cycle of reading our holy book anew. However, this year, Jews who were looking forward to celebrating in the holiday’s festivities awoke to the devastating news of a surprise attack and a declaration of war. 

Heartbreaking images and videos have streamed our Israel since Hamas began its attack. As of Wednesday, Oct. 11, Hamas, in pursuance of its explicitly genocidal agenda against the Jewish people, has launched over 5,000 rockets into Israel and sent its armed fighters across the border for the purpose of slaughtering civilians. Hamas rejects any distinction between Israeli civilians and soldiers. They have murdered over 1,300 innocents (including 22 Americans) and injured at least 3,300 more. At a holiday music festival turned bloodbath, where Hamas cut down 260 young people alone, a current Stanford student’s family member was amongst the many lost. In its wake, Hamas perpetrated the mass rape of Jewish women beside the bodies of their slaughtered friends. They have taken over one hundred and fifty hostages — including both the young and the elderly, as well as citizens of countries including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Thailand and more — whose loved ones fear they will never see them again. They reduced homes in Tel Aviv to rubble. 

These terrorist attacks are unacceptable. Hamas’ violence has unleashed the bloodiest conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in nearly fifty years, and their blatant transgression of legal and moral norms shocks the conscience. The Jewish people have been persecuted for 3,000 years. Hamas’ actions this Saturday made it the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust. Never again is now.

Like most Jews, I support Palestinians’ aspirations for justice and independence. However, that future will not come under the banner of Hamas — a designated terrorist organization with a long history of torturing and killing not only Jews but Palestineans (even including one of their own top commanders for alleged homosexuality). While recognizing the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people, terrorism and war crimes cannot be condoned under any flag or cause. International law offers no sanction for Hamas’ brutal actions — which, in fact, are flagrantly illegal violations. Hostage-taking, attacks intentionally targeting civilians and rape are clearly proscribed under all circumstances during armed conflicts under Article III of the Fourth Geneva Convention (common article III of the 1949 Geneva Conventions), customary international law on rape and Article VIII of the Rome Convention, to which Palestine is a signatory.

There is nothing to celebrate in a mass slaughter of Jews. Hamas knows well that its action will bring Palestinians no closer toward achieving their legitimate claim to self-determination, but will instead tragically set that goal on a backward trajectory at the cost of innocent lives. Hamas’ pursuit of genocide against the Jewish people has come at the expense of the Palestinian people, who have been their primary victims. As Hamas makes clear in its own words in Article 13 of its Covenant, it will never, ever make peace. To free Palestine requires freeing Palestinians from Hamas. Its radical tyranny over Gaza must end.

As distressing as it already is to process the trauma of a modern-day pogrom and grapple with fear for our loved ones in Israel that is keeping many of us awake at night, it is doubly devastating to do so while also processing the extent to which many around the world and in our own community are desensitized to Jewish bloodshed, with some even celebrating it. Even as we worry about Jews in Israel, Jews around the world are now being forced to question their own safety where they live. The palpable threat of a former Hamas leader’s call for a global ‘Day of Rage’ on Friday, Oct. 13, has led to synagogue and school closures and demanded an urgent increase in security for Jewish institutions facing targeting. In Britain alone, reports of antisemitic incidents have shot up 300% since the war broke out. On the steps of the Sydney Opera House, protestors chanted “gas the Jews.” In Alexandria, Egypt, a police officer shot and killed two Jewish tourists along with their Egyptian guide. From Utah to Chicago, U.S. synagogues have faced a flood of bomb threats. American universities too have been the scene of mounting antisemitism since Hamas’ attack. For example, on Wednesday, an Israeli student at Columbia University was beaten with a stick in front of the library while putting up posters with the names and photos of Hamas’ hostages.

Unfortunately, Stanford has been no exception to the devastating trend. Too many students here have posted on social media sites such as Fizz and Instagram, justifying Hamas’ mass murder. As many students feared loved ones being burned alive while watching Israeli homes and towns set alight by Hamas rocket fire, a banner was hung at Tresidder Union emblazoned with the words “The Illusion of Israel is Burning.” The word choice felt like a calculated attempt to exploit that fear and trauma — as it reminded many Jewish students of the image of the mass burning of Jews during the Holocaust, a scene which Hamas is now replicating. Students biking to class past White Plaza on Wednesday morning were subject to the cruel taunts of chalkings with messages lauding violence against Jews, including “Viva Intifada” (which refers to two historical episodes of terrorist violence that claimed thousands of Israeli lives) and “Israel is Dead.” 

Jewish first-years eager to learn in their required “Civil, Liberal and Global Education” class were singled out and harassed by their instructor based on their identity in a disgraceful public shaming. The instructor, who has since been suspended, asked Jewish students to identify themselves and then separated them from their belongings, claiming that this was what Jews were doing to Palestinians. According to what students in touch with the targeted first-years told the San Francisco Chronicle, after asking them how many people died in the Holocaust and receiving the accurate answer of six million, the instructor responded “Yes. Only six million,” before adding, “colonizers killed more than six million. Israel is a colonizer.” Such incidents make many Jewish students at Stanford afraid to come to class.

The Stanford Jewish community appreciates the courage and moral clarity of those who have stood up as allies to the Jewish people over past days. President Joe Biden has rightly called out Hamas’ attack as “an act of sheer evil” and taken important steps to defend the lives of Israelis and Jewish Americans in these threatening times. His leadership in uniting the world behind Israel’s defense and Hamas’ destruction sends a clear message (see his letter, co-signed by Stanford alumnus Rishi Sunak, prime minister of the United Kingdom, along with the leaders of Germany, France and Italy). President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has also expressed strong support for Israel in response to Hamas’ attack, connecting his own country’s struggle against Russia’s invasion to Israel’s defense against Hamas’ invasion (as well as accusing Russia of supporting Hamas’ operations). Here on campus, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brought comfort to many by taking the stage at Tuesday night’s White Plaza community vigil to express her support for Israel and Stanford’s Jewish community.

Like most Jews, I seek the peace and security of Israel as a Jewish state in the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people, a safe haven after millennia of persecution where Jews can finally claim control over their own destiny. Likewise, like most Jews, I also dream of a future of dignity and freedom for the Palestinian people, who, by the very same principles of self-determination, deserve a state of their own in a land that they too have called home for many centuries. 

However, Hamas’ ideology of hate and methods of terrorism are contrary to that vision. The wanton bloodshed and carnage that these past days of terror have brought are obviously not the path to liberation; they are instead the harbinger of continued large-scale, unnecessary suffering for innocent Israelis and Palestinians alike. I fervently hope for a day when all Israelis, Palestinians and others living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea can live together in peace as neighbors. As we yearn for that future, please join me in praying for the memory of 2,000 civilians, Israeli, Palestinian and others, who have lost their lives in the past five days of violence. For their sake, from the destruction of war, we must build a better future.

“May the Maker of peace in high places make peace for all of us and for all of Israel.”

Matthew Wigler ’19 J.D. ’25

Co-President of the Jewish Law Students Association

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From the Community | There is no justification for terrorism https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/12/from-the-community-the-killing-of-civilians-must-not-be-justified/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/12/from-the-community-the-killing-of-civilians-must-not-be-justified/#respond Thu, 12 Oct 2023 07:00:44 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1233328 The killing of civilians is never justified, whether by Israel or Hamas, writes Benjamin Driscoll.

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Content warning: This article contains references to violence and sexual assault.

The killing of civilians is never justified, whether by Israel or Hamas. The opinion penned in The Stanford Daily by Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on the current Israel-Palestine conflict is vile and despicable.

As the great Martin Luther King Jr. intoned in his Nobel speech, “[v]iolence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral […] It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible.”

While I take deep issue with the treatment of the people of the Gaza Strip over these past decades and staunchly supported their cause many years before that position was “trendy,” there is no justification for Hamas’s terrorism. Hamas has massacred Jewish men, defiled and raped Jewish women — parading their bodies in front of jeering crowds — and littered the streets with the bodies of Jewish children. In Article Seven of their 1988 charter Hamas wrote, “[t]he Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” Hamas’s dream is not to expel Israel from the Gaza Strip, nor even to exterminate Israel as a nation. Their dream is the extermination of the Jewish people. There were many Israelis who advocated for the lifting of the Gaza blockade. How many of them did Hamas murder? While the Israel Defense Forces have, at times, committed grave injustices against the people of the Gaza Strip, there is no equivalence here.

SJP excuses child murder, rape and terrorism as freedom-fighting. The SJP’s article draws a false parallel with Ukrainian soldiers who are bravely fighting to protect their country from autocracy — perhaps SJP believes Russia’s propaganda about the Azov Brigade but takes no affront. SJP paints Israelis as colonialists, ignoring that the Jewish people have suffered persecution and genocides for thousands of years, ignoring that Israel is a nation besieged by antisemitic powers. Hamas is funded by Iran via Hezbollah and by the Gulf States. Finally, let us not forget the treatment of women by Hamas. SJP, under a faux shroud of progressivism, defends a group which, in 2021, determined that women should not be allowed to travel freely without the permission of a male guardian.

That SJP would call upon the Stanford community to “educate themselves” is frankly insulting given that their article reflects a lack of compassion and a poor understanding of history. To understand the current conflict, one must understand that Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, as they reaffirmed in 2017. Hamas rejects the notion of any long-term, peaceful solution. While Israel bears some responsibility for the failure of long-term negotiations, Hamas has, at numerous times, incinerated peaceful dialogue. For instance, in 2003 Hamas ended a cease-fire with the suicide bombing of a bus in Jerusalem.  

That students at this university could be so thoughtless and base as to defend terrorism, sitting safely in their dorm rooms and living privileged lives, speaks poorly of American society and of social studies departments, which have evidently equipped students with the language to discuss colonialism, but a paucity of understanding.

An anecdote: tucked away under my mother’s desk is an old box of family photos, passed down to us by my great grandmother. A group of wonderful people sit in that box, people my mother was robbed of the opportunity to know by the Nazis and the German concentration camps where they died torturous deaths. Most of their stories my great grandmother took to her grave. It was too painful to talk about them.

I urge the members of SJP to reconsider their position and not, led astray by good intentions, to don the attitudes of Nazis and terrorists. I would rather welcome them as brothers and sisters.

Benjamin Driscoll is a Ph.D. student in the computer science department at Stanford University.

This article was updated on the request of the author to clarify that their position is that Hamas, not SJP, rejects the notion of any long-term, peaceful solution.

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From the Community | Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/10/from-the-community-stanford-students-for-justice-in-palestine/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/10/from-the-community-stanford-students-for-justice-in-palestine/#respond Tue, 10 Oct 2023 09:28:52 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1232986 Palestinians have a legal right to resistance to resist occupation, apartheid and systemic injustice, Students for Justice in Palestine writes.

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To the Stanford community and concerned individuals everywhere, 

We, the members of Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), feel compelled to address the recent and ongoing injustices faced by the Palestinian people. As the world witnesses the atrocities committed in Palestine, it becomes increasingly clear that these events are not isolated incidents, but rather part of the protracted struggle against settler-colonial oppression.

On Saturday, as a part of the ongoing, decades-long struggle against Israeli oppression, Palestine forces attacked Israel. The media’s depiction of Saturday’s resistance as a one-off event is fundamentally reductionist: no conversation about Palestine can be conducted without the context of the decades of systematic oppression, discrimination and violence the Palestinian people have faced. 

Israel currently places a “land, water and air” siege on the Gaza Strip. Regularly cutting off water and electricity, Israel vindictively rules and occupies the Gaza Strip. Israel also regularly forces Palestinian produce to spoil rather than allowing it to pass through checkpoints to where it can be sold. Israel’s choice to lay siege to Gaza has caused Gaza to become an “open-air prison,” a term being used by the Human Rights Watch. These conditions should provoke all of us to take action and fight for safety in the world. 

We are embarrassed to live in a world that tolerates this level of consistent, systematic and unrelenting violence. The fact that people can be treated like this in the 21st century is a stain on our history. 

Palestinians, like all peoples, have the legitimate right to resist occupation, apartheid and systemic injustice. Saturday’s events underscore the structural violence, displacement and daily hardships Palestinians have faced for decades under a regime that seeks to undermine their basic human rights and dignity. It is essential for us as an academic community and as global citizens to recognize the roots of this conflict. While it might be easy for some to view the issue as a distant geopolitical dispute, the reality is far simpler. Western media will hail the Ukrainians who defend their homeland as valiant heroes; however, there is a distinct double standard at play when it comes to the resistance of the Palestinian people against the settler colonialists of Israel. 

Furthermore, while Palestinian resistance is legal under international law, Israel’s breathtakingly violent actions are illegal collective punishment under the Geneva Convention. For example, Israel’s destruction of Palestine Tower, a media and residential building, constitutes a war crime, since news and civilians are not legitimate military targets under U.N. law.

At its core, this message is about an oppressed population striving for equality, freedom and self-determination in the face of systemic subjugation. We are dismayed by the fact that institutions like Stanford, which proclaim values of justice, equality and human rights, continue to be entangled with companies and entities that directly or indirectly support the machinery of this oppression. Our association with such entities not only undermines our collective values but also tacitly condones the perpetuation of this injustice. Furthermore, between 2008 and 2020, Palestinians have endured 96% of the total casualties resulting from the conflict, demonstrating the one-sided nature of the situation. 

We stand firmly with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, echoing their call for immediate action to cease all military, security and technological collaboration with those implicated in the ongoing colonization of Palestine. We also demand an end to any partnerships with companies that actively participate in the dispossession of Palestinians. We recognize the strength and resilience of the Palestinian people, who, despite facing overwhelming odds, continue to rise and assert their undeniable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Their resistance is not just a testament to their spirit but also a reminder of the universality of the human desire for justice and freedom. Injustice anywhere hurts all of us. The fact that Palestinians must endure such brutal conditions is an embarrassment to the modern human condition. The only thing that Israeli apartheid has succeeded in doing is creating violence and misery, which can be heard all around the world. 

In solidarity with the Palestinian cause, we call upon the Stanford community and individuals everywhere to educate themselves, raise awareness and actively challenge complicity in this system of oppression. 

Justice for Palestine is justice for all. 

This article was written by Hamza El Boudali and other members of Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) leadership. SJP is a pro-Palestinian student activism organization.

The byline above has been updated to include Hamza El Boudali. A previous version of this article was attributed to SJP inconsistently with our anonymity policies. The Daily regrets this error.

This article has been updated to contextualize the events on Saturday, Oct. 7 referred to by the authors.

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From the Community | The big problem with R&DE’s small plates https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/09/from-the-community-the-big-problem-with-rdes-small-plates/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/09/from-the-community-the-big-problem-with-rdes-small-plates/#respond Tue, 10 Oct 2023 06:06:48 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1232720 Stanford student Eliana Fuchs comments on the detrimental effects of downsizing dining hall plate size on restrictive eating and self image. They write, "intentionally-restrictive plates are not a viable option."

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Content warning: This article contains references to eating disorders.

I am concerned about the downsizing of plates in the dining hall. As someone who has struggled with an eating disorder and has many friends who have struggled with eating disorders on this campus, interventions like these make recovery harder. This kind of behavioral nudge presents a serious community health issue.

The new dining hall plates this year are tiny. They have an eight-inch diameter, compared to standard dinner plates that have 10-inch or 11-inch diameters. This means that the new plates have about 60% of the area of a standard plate.

People eat less food when provided with smaller plates. One study published in the Food Quality and Preference Journal asked participants to draw the amount of food they expected to eat for dinner on two different plate sizes. On average, they drew 24% more food on larger plates.

These results have been corroborated time and time again. Another study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that nutrition experts given larger bowls served themselves 31% more ice cream. As Bryan Wansink, professor of consumer behavior at Cornell, wrote, plate size “can subtly suggest how much food is reasonable, normal, typical and appropriate for us to be serving ourselves and consuming.”

This perception leaves people thinking they have eaten enough food, or even too much food, when they haven’t. For this reason, “use smaller plates” is common dieting advice.

The amount of food that can fit on the new dining hall plates is not enough for a meal for me — a semi-active, five-foot-four woman with a medium metabolism. This amount of food is also not enough for many of my friends, with one exclaiming, “Oh! That’s why I’m so hungry,” an hour after dinner when I brought up the small plates.

The default meal plan amounts to around two swipes per day, and there is little to no access to free food between meals for most students on campus, so not eating enough at one meal affects students throughout the day.

An obvious workaround would be for students to take multiple plates if they need more food. However, people struggling with restrictive eating disorders likely will stop themselves from getting another plate, thinking that needing more than one plate worth of food means they have failed, makes them fat or means they are overeating (this is an eating disorder recovery blog post reframing getting seconds).

Even for people without formally diagnosed eating disorders, there is a stigma associated with getting seconds or taking multiple plates of food. 

Eating disorders are commonplace among college students. Between 10 and 20% of women and 4 to 10% of men in college currently suffer from an eating disorder, according to the Child Mind Institute. Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE) should be taking steps to ameliorate this alarming prevalence, especially because eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all psychological conditions. With the known ubiquity of disordered eating on this campus, Stanford Dining has no excuse for forcing the student body to follow dieting advice.

In addition to harming students who struggle with disordered eating, small plates can aggravate other existing problems.

  • Limited swipes, exacerbated by small plates when students are more likely to accidentally leave a meal hungry, cause stress to people who have dealt with food insecurity. Larger plates will not fix everything, but they will at least not be a regression away from helping these communities. 
  • Since many people are getting multiple plates, smaller plates result in more work for the dishwashers and dining hall workers, who are probably not seeing a pay increase due to the change in plate size.
  • Small plates are an accessibility issue: bigger plates can be used to perch glasses and bowls on the side for people who only have mobility or strength in one arm or otherwise only have the ability to carry one item at a time. I have a broken arm that has kept me from getting two plates when I need to. There are other people with much more long-lasting and salient accessibility concerns in this regard. Since we don’t have trays in the dining hall, people need to use plates to balance bowls and cups.
  • Small plates are an allergy issue: People are resorting to piling food items one on top of the other to fit them all on the plate. This piling is more likely to result in serving tong contamination than if there were clean space on the plate to put new food items.

I am sure that this change was instituted with good intentions, maybe as a food waste prevention program or to save costs on food in the dining halls. While it can be argued that portion control is an important life skill, I firmly believe that protecting college students who are particularly vulnerable to disordered eating is more important. And there are other ways to prevent food waste that don’t result in hungry students struggling with whether to go back for seconds. 

  • Education about food waste can help.
  • Having some food available outside of dining hours (cereal, etc.) could lead to less of a scarcity mindset. This food availability could keep people from putting more than they can eat on their plates or gorging themselves to prevent getting hungry between meals (something I did many times before living in a co-op where we always have food available). 

I don’t know all of the solutions, but intentionally restrictive plates are not a viable option.

Eliana Fuchs wrote this article.

Cameron Lange, Vai Crevoisier and Elena Sierra contributed to this article.

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Letter to the Editor | Across diverse backgrounds, we are more aligned on how to approach Stanford’s fossil fuel engagement than you might think https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/05/letter-to-the-editor-across-diverse-backgrounds-we-are-more-aligned-on-how-to-approach-stanfords-fossil-fuel-engagement-than-you-might-think/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/10/05/letter-to-the-editor-across-diverse-backgrounds-we-are-more-aligned-on-how-to-approach-stanfords-fossil-fuel-engagement-than-you-might-think/#respond Thu, 05 Oct 2023 08:02:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1232379 Six graduate students speak up on the Doerr School's entanglement with fossil fuel companies, suggesting a set of recommendations for Stanford's Committee on Funding of Energy Research and Education.

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Dear Editor,

We are a group of six graduate researchers with diverse professional backgrounds and opinions on fossil fuel companies’ role in funding affiliate program research. Three of us have been actively protesting fossil fuel funding at the Doerr School. Three of us are in favor of maintaining an open dialogue with fossil fuel companies. We agree that addressing climate change is serious enough to demand a clear strategic response from the University. Working together, we have reached a consensus on recommended criteria for evaluating the sources and objectives of research funding through affiliate programs, as well as a set of actions for enforcing these criteria. 

We all endorse the following recommendations and we hope that they will contribute to a university-wide decision to adopt enforceable standards for research funding provided by fossil fuel companies through affiliate groups. 

In December of 2022, Stanford’s Office of the President established the Committee on Funding of Energy Research and Education (CFERE), charged with “exploring and reporting on the issues raised by Stanford’s accepting funding from fossil fuel companies.” The committee has thus far not made any findings publicly available. We are concerned that the committee’s recommendations may come too late or fail to embody the leadership that Stanford must play in the energy transition. 

Our alignment on these recommendations demonstrates that stakeholders with different backgrounds and interests can find common ground rooted in our values of integrity and transparency. This work represents a model that we believe could achieve widespread support for reasonable, actionable and verifiable criteria for supporting research at Stanford. We have shared the below recommendations with the CFERE and hope they will incorporate them into their own findings. There is no cause for further delay. 

Recommendations prepared and approved by:

Choi, June

Fraces, Cedric

Grekin, Rebecca

Kashtan, Yannai

Long, Wennan

Wettermark, Daly

Summary of recommendations for industrial affiliate programs
To take effect immediately: Review, identify and eliminate benefits to industry donors that present a direct conflict of interest. In particular, by enforcing Stanford’s existing policies for industrial affiliate programs.
Dissociate: Eliminate financial sponsorship from any company, trade group or other organization that engages in any of the following (see below for details on each criterion): Does not provide a credible transition plan, does not provide transparent data, has plans to conduct their operations in a manner that is at odds with a Paris-aligned transition pathway.
Establish a third-party enforcement board tasked with: Enforcing existing policies for industrial affiliate programs, including establishing consequences for any violations in line with Stanford’s Code of Conduct, overseeing dissociation and future re-association processes with industry partners on a case-by-case basis. Develop a concrete timeline for the above
Disclose: Strengthen existing disclosure requirements across the University, including by writing specific guidance for conflicts of interest involving the fossil fuel industry.
Establish a transition pathways research initiative: Support the creation of an initiative tasked with evaluating partners’ transition pathways and creating standards for emissions accounting.

Details for Recommendation #2: 

Dissociate: Eliminate financial sponsorship from any company, trade group, or other organization that engages in any of the following:

  1. Does not provide a credible transition plan. A credible transition includes, but is not limited to, all of the following:
    1. A plan for diversification of assets, such as increasing percentage investment (i.e. capital expenditures) for clean energy supply and end use efficiency
    2. Net-zero emissions pathway that achieves a significant reduction in absolute level of emissions and does not rely on carbon offsets
    3. Changes in management incentive structures, for example through Key Performance Incentives
  2. Does not provide transparent data necessary to evaluate the above, including:
    1. Its emissions and carbon intensity of its upstream operations (Scope 1 and 2 emissions)
    2. Lobbying expenditures and funding of citizens groups/front groups
  1. In the last five years, has obstructed climate policy, as evidenced by actions including, but not limited to, the following:
    1. Documented decisions to publicly downplay or contradict peer-reviewed climate science 
    2. Documented lobbying against pro-climate legislation, including but not limited to, lobbying
      1. For a lower social cost of carbon
      2. For less stringent greenhouse gas emissions regulations
    3. Documented opposition to renewable energy projects, directly or via “astroturf” front groups (e.g. the California Drivers’ Alliance)
    4. A record of false or misleading advertising, as adjudicated in court decisions and/or peer-reviewed literature (for a database of court decisions, see Columbia Law School’s Global Climate Change Litigation database)

Details for Recommendation #3:

Establish a third-party enforcement board: We define “third party” as a panel of Stanford affiliates, including students, who are not directly responsible for financing of industrial affiliate programs. To address conflicts of interest, any board members must disclose funding from fossil fuel companies. This board shall review existing industry partners based on the above criteria and oversee the dissociation and re-association process. This would involve:

  1. Communicating to any violating industry partners and associated principal investigators the actions they must take in order to abide by the above criteria and provide a 60-day period for them to respond. The 60-day timeline originates from Princeton Fossil Fuel Dissociation. This serves as an example to demonstrate a concrete timeline.
  2. Appropriately sanctioning affiliate programs who continue to receive funding from violating industry partners after the 60-day period 
  3. Establish a process by which an industry partner may re-associate (i.e. re-enter as a funder in an affiliate program) with the University if it has demonstrated compliance with the above criteria
  4. Oversee implementation of a phase out fund to support the transition of any research programs whose operations would be impacted by dissociation

Sincerely,

June Choi is a Ph.D. candidate in earth system science. Her research focuses on quantifying the impacts of climate change to inform adaptation strategies. Her previous work involved tracking global climate finance flows, setting standards for green bonds and sustainable finance integrity.

Cedric Fraces is a Ph.D. student in the energy sciences engineering department. His research focuses on a new class of numerical methods for the simulation and uncertainty characterization of CO2 sequestration in geological formations. Prior to this work, Cedric spent a decade working as a reservoir engineer on major oilfields in the Middle East and Latin America, as well as CO2 sequestration projects in the U.S. and Canada.

Rebecca Grekin is a Ph.D. candidate in energy sciences engineering looking at ways to reduce carbon emissions from the commercial building sector from heating and cooling systems by changing the operations of these systems. Prior to this work, she completed a master’s in the same department studying Scope 3 emissions, doing a deep dive into developing automated systems to estimate emissions from food purchasing.

Yannai Kashtan is a Ph.D. candidate in earth system science, an organizer for the Coalition for a True School of Sustainability and a Knight-Hennessy Scholar. His doctoral research focuses on the health-related hazards of residential fossil-fueled appliances.

Dr. Wennan Long is a recent graduate from the energy science and engineering department at Stanford, where he was advised by professor Adam R. Brandt. He has expertise in energy engineering and life-cycle assessment. His research interest is building simulators to calculate upstream greenhouse gas emissions across the oil and gas supply chain. Dr. Long led the team on the Archie Initiative to calculate the global oil upstream carbon intensity.

Daly Wettermark is a master’s student in environmental engineering studying operational efficiencies for wastewater treatment and reuse. She is also a climate activist, and she has previously worked as an engineer in product development and corporate sustainability in the water industry.

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From the Community | A note on academic freedom and institutional orthodoxy https://stanforddaily.com/2023/06/15/from-the-community-a-note-on-academic-freedom-and-institutional-orthodoxy/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/06/15/from-the-community-a-note-on-academic-freedom-and-institutional-orthodoxy/#respond Thu, 15 Jun 2023 15:09:05 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1230243 “When senior University administrators tell the Faculty Senate that they cannot even consider a resolution,” writes postdoctoral scholar Tim MacKenzie, “the only internal coercion and institutional orthodoxy I see is an attempt to silence faculty by the administration.”

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There has been a great deal of conversation in our community recently over a motion introduced in the Faculty Senate. Several articles have appeared in The Stanford Daily, and tensions were high at the Faculty Senate meeting on May 11. Moving anecdotes have been shared in response to the suggestion that voting in favor of the motion could be likened to Nazi ideology. Notwithstanding the difference between academic freedom and freedom of speech that has already been discussed, questions of academic freedom and institutional reputation are undoubtedly within the purview of the Faculty Senate. As an early career academic researcher, there are a few observations I’d like to make that I hope my senior colleagues will consider in their deliberations.

First, let’s clarify the stakes. A few months ago, nearly a hundred professors publicly asked for an accounting from University leadership about the position of honor and power bestowed upon Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Mercer as members of the Board of Overseers for the Hoover Institute. After hearing radio silence from the named individuals for several months, two professors introduced a resolution for consideration at the Faculty Senate, the self-organized body where faculty can exercise their governance power over aspects of University operations. It is important to note that the resolution introduced is purely symbolic. The Faculty Senate does not have the authority to sever ties with individuals, nor does the resolution attempt that. It is an opportunity for faculty to discuss the merits of the resolution in their self-organized body. If the resolution were to pass, it asks that senior University leadership take action that only they have authority to do so.

Another clarification: there is a very clear difference between someone holding a position of honor, privilege and power like being on the Board of Overseers and someone being invited to give an academic talk. With academic freedom comes academic responsibility to pursue truth with integrity. The greater the position of power, the greater the responsibility. It feels disingenuous to conflate asking University leadership to publicly explain the position of power and honor bestowed upon Murdoch and Mercer with attempts to suppress academic scholarship. Passing a purely symbolic motion in no way sets up the Faculty Senate as “thought police.”

In the discussion at the Faculty Senate, there was a warning about a slippery slope if the Faculty Senate motion were to pass. In the words of the President: “To be consistent, the senate could not cherry-pick which appointments to evaluate. Every appointment would need to be scrutinized, on the left as much as on the right. And it is hard to see why only advisory board appointments would be scrutinized. What about the hundreds of guest speakers who are invited to teach in classes or give special lectures?” Notwithstanding the difference between invited talks and positions of privilege, power and prestige outlined above, I fail to see how Stanford being considerate and intentional in building and maintaining relationships is a problem. We should hold the Board of Trustees, Board of Overseers and similar bodies to a higher standard and sever ties with anyone that does not align with our shared values as a community. There is currently ongoing discussion about the new advisory council for the Doerr School of Sustainability. Even with the scrutiny, there does not seem to be a “precipitous drop in interest to serve on boards” as the President forewarned.

Director of the Hoover Institute and former Provost Condoleezza Rice quoted the Faculty Senate’s foundational statement on academic freedom, saying that “expression of the widest range of viewpoints should be encouraged free from institutional orthodoxy and from internal and or external coercion.” The President of the University, who has used his position of power to call into question the integrity of an award-winning freshman investigative reporter, said that passing a symbolic resolution would have a “chilling effect.” Director Rice passionately argued that it was not the place of the Faculty Senate to even consider the resolution, pushing past the two-minute limit allotted to each speaker by Senate rules. In addition to characterizing the resolution as “an attack on Hoover,” Director Rice also attacked a professor and said “you have been a problem this entire time.” Would an Assistant Professor without tenure have been afforded the opportunity to speak past the two minute limit? What about a recognized representative from the undergraduate, graduate or postdoctoral scholar community?

When senior University administrators tell the Faculty Senate that they cannot even consider a resolution, the only internal coercion and institutional orthodoxy I see is an attempt to silence faculty by the administration. I can’t help but draw the connection to the gag order on faculty that administrators issued with regard to the graduate student unionization efforts. The passionate defenders of academic freedom and freedom of speech didn’t have much to say on that topic.

Faculty members can reasonably disagree on the prudence of voting for or against the introduced resolution. Although my views on how I would vote if I had the opportunity are probably clear, it is not my place to discuss the merits of the idea. No matter where you stand on the content of the resolution, however, all faculty members should band together to claim the right and responsibility of the Faculty Senate to speak to matters of academic freedom and integrity. Especially when senior University leadership tries to deny them that ability.

Tim MacKenzie, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral scholar in the Genetics Department at Stanford University.

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From the Community | Doerr School confuses wealth and fame for leadership and knowledge https://stanforddaily.com/2023/06/07/from-the-community-doerr-school-confuses-wealth-and-fame-for-leadership-and-knowledge/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/06/07/from-the-community-doerr-school-confuses-wealth-and-fame-for-leadership-and-knowledge/#respond Wed, 07 Jun 2023 22:53:14 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1230001 Commenting on the recent announcement of the new membership of the Doerr School’s Advisory Council, Yannai Kashtan writes: “If we want to solve climate change equitably, we need decision-makers with truly diverse perspectives who have a stake in the solution.”

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What group of people is best positioned to advise a new school of sustainability? On June 5th, we got Stanford administration’s answer. The Doerr School’s Dean announced the school’s Advisory Council’s new membership. The Council now counts 22 members, over half of whom are either billionaires or their spouses, and half of whom are executives at large corporations or investment firms. Five of the new council members are researchers, and only three of these researchers have expertise in environment, energy or sustainability. The sole student is a brilliant and thoughtful individual whom I hope will be listened to. The Council includes no community organizers, activists, government officials or representatives from Africa.

The Doerr School seeks to address climate change — what former World Bank Economist Nicholas Stern called “the greatest and most wide-ranging market failure ever seen.” It is far from obvious that businessmen, financiers and philanthropists steeped in market thinking are best qualified to advise a school of sustainability. But this goes beyond a mismatch of skills.

The Council counts among its members a titan of high-tech who made his billions monopolistically stifling competition and who recently purchased a stake in the world’s largest private jet services company, the managing director of a bank deeply invested in fossil fuel expansion, and the president of a thinktank notable for employing a cadre of climate deniers, to name a few easy examples.

Stanford administration’s confusion of accumulated wealth for leadership and fame for wisdom is certainly true to form — after all, what else would you expect from a school founded by a notorious robber baron and led for decades by prominent eugenicists? More recently, Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes similarly substituted power and money for domain knowledge to form the board of Theranos. Still, in 2023, Stanford and the Doerr School clinging to the same fallacious logic disappoints.

It is shockingly credulous to allow those who have financed or supported oil wars, anti-competitive rents and science denial to advise us on how to solve many of the problems they exacerbated. As Anand Giridharadas points out in his book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, it is like assuming that “arsonists make the best firefighters.”

Moreover, the vast majority of the Council’s members provide an extraordinarily narrow perspective of shelter and privilege. They will likely experience climate change, an existential threat for billions, as nothing more than an inconvenience. This is fundamentally anti-democratic. In the words of Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, to make good decisions about an existential threat, “those closest to the pain should be closest to the power.”

If we want to solve climate change equitably, we need decision-makers with truly diverse perspectives who have a stake in the solution. Diversity is both just and pragmatic: Stanford’s own research has shown that diverse perspectives lead to the best climate adaptation strategies.

What do we students do with our intransigent school? Do we put our head down, get our degree and move on to do good in the world? That is certainly one approach. But I think Stanford is too prestigious and wields too much influence to be given up on. And change is possible. This year alone, the Stanford community has already successfully pressured the Doerr School to launch an environmental justice center and to reconsider its fossil fuel funding.

To steer the Doerr School towards true sustainability, we can establish a Council where more young people, people from low-lying island nations who are already forced to abandon their ancestral lands, people who have experienced environmental racism, and people whose livelihoods are dependent on a just energy transition hold the highest advisory roles. In our time here, we have the power to push Stanford ever so slightly towards justice, towards community, and towards sustainability.

Yannai Kashtan is a Knight-Hennessy Scholar and a Ph.D. student in the Earth System Science program, where he researches the health effects of burning fossil fuels in the home. He is also an organizer for the Coalition for a True School of Sustainability.

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From the Community | Shared Governance https://stanforddaily.com/2023/06/07/from-the-community-shared-governance/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/06/07/from-the-community-shared-governance/#respond Wed, 07 Jun 2023 09:14:13 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1229915 Tim Mackenzie calls for transparency, accountability, and diversity in representation as the university embarks on a search for a new Provost. He writes, “With all the attention being paid to the Provostial Search Committee and the importance of the role for our institution, I have no doubt that the current committee will be deliberate, thoughtful, and anything but a show committee. But transparency is not guaranteed.”

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I was pleased to see that the Provostial Search Committee had representation from the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral scholar communities. I was one of the voices calling for that representation. At the risk of being accused of moving the goalposts, I do take issue with how the selection occurred.

At the SURPAS Council meeting on May 25, we learned that the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs nominated a few postdocs to the committee. Those postdocs were then interviewed behind closed doors to choose the one person who would represent our community. It is a funny form of shared governance where the elected representatives of the postdoctoral community (SURPAS) did not get the opportunity to choose who will fill the important role of helping select a new Provost.

I have no doubt Dr. Robert M. Stolz will do an excellent job of making sure the new Provost is someone who understands the important role postdocs play in our university and is responsive to our needs as a community. One does not become a postdoc at Stanford unless they are brilliant, driven, thoughtful, and deeply knowledgeable about academia. Further, the issues facing the postdoctoral community are cross-cutting and deeply felt as demonstrated in the recent SURPAS Long Range Planning Report. But there is a benefit to representatives on committees being engaged with community structures that provide institutional knowledge, which I will illustrate with a story.

This is a tale told to me by someone who served on a search committee to fill a role in the university administration. I have been at Stanford long enough that the individuals involved can remain in a haze of anonymity granted by the passage of the sands of time. They have moved on from the institution and the possibility of career repercussions.

This search committee had one graduate student and one postdoc, neither of whom had official voting rights. One of the early career committee members had heard that someone on the shortlist had a toxic lab environment. The graduate student and postdoc representatives said that if they had any veto power (which they didn’t officially), they would strike that candidate from the list. To their credit, the faculty members on the search committee were responsive and did not move forward with consideration of that candidate. That is why everyone was so shocked that the person who had apparently been stricken from consideration was the person who got the job. The faculty-led search committee with early career representatives was a facade and a waste of everyone’s time.

With all the attention being paid to the Provostial Search Committee and the importance of the role for our institution, I have no doubt that the current committee will be deliberate, thoughtful, and anything but a show committee. But transparency is not guaranteed. Dr. Stolz, I hope you will engage with already existing self-organized postdoc organizations like SURPAS or the Postdoc Affinity Groups to ensure all voices from the postdoctoral community can have a say in the selection process and to keep us updated as possible. Thank you for your commendable willingness to step up to serve our institution and community. Trust your judgment and make your voice heard representing postdocs and other committee members that do not have the same power as faculty or administration.

Tim MacKenzie, Ph.D. has been a member of the Stanford Community since arriving to start his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2013. He currently works as a postdoc in the Department of Genetics.

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From the Community | After death threats against its Vietnamese community, Stanford stayed silent. https://stanforddaily.com/2023/06/05/from-the-community-after-death-threats-against-its-vietnamese-community-stanford-stayed-silent/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/06/05/from-the-community-after-death-threats-against-its-vietnamese-community-stanford-stayed-silent/#respond Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:09:35 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1229808 "Repeated online threats culminated in the physical presence of a suspect on campus," write Britney Tran, Dwight Hua and Kyle Nguyen. "However, despite the severity of the event, Stanford has yet to issue a University-wide announcement about what occurred or denounce this act of racial hate and intolerance."

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Content warning: This message references anti-Asian violence/racial violence.

Earlier this quarter, a man was found and detained on campus after threatening to enact violence against Stanford’s Vietnamese community. After posting a series of online threats and racially charged comments against Stanford’s Vietnamese students, the individual physically showed up on campus — and was located while making active threats of direct harm to a graduate student. Yet, despite the severity and proximity of the threat of violence during this event, Stanford never issued a University-wide announcement about what occurred. In the aftermath, we in the Vietnamese community are left wondering: are students meant to bear the responsibility of keeping our community safe and informed?

Throughout the month of March, Stanford’s Vietnamese Student Association (SVSA) received a series of racially violent and hateful comments on its public Instagram account. The anonymous comments expressed strong self-loathing and hate towards the poster’s own Vietnamese identity and included death threats towards members of SVSA. One comment stated, “If you carry a Vietnamese last name, you will die first. This is a promise.” Others included threats such as “You’re not coming home” and “I will be pulling up to your events in person and exacting my revenge.”

SVSA leaders notified the Department of Public Safety (DPS) after receiving each wave of hateful comments, asking for guidance on whether it was safe to proceed with the association’s annual Culture Night show. DPS determined in coordination with Stanford’s Threat Assessment team that there was not an immediate threat to SVSA and indicated that they believed the threats were not racially motivated. DPS identified a possible suspect on the East Coast and advised that SVSA was safe to move forward with Culture Night with additional security measures. During this exchange with DPS, several town halls were held where student community leaders bore a majority of the stress and responsibility for responding to this threat, with little to no support from senior University leadership.

The situation escalated in early April when SVSA leaders were notified that the non-Stanford affiliated suspect had been discovered on campus, and in fact had likely been at Stanford for several weeks. The suspect was detained by DPS on April 6 after posting a threat on social media towards a Stanford graduate student, which indicated his real-time location at the Graduate School of Business. The suspect, confirmed as a Vietnamese-American male, admitted to posting the aforementioned threats on the SVSA Instagram account and shared he held a grudge against Vietnamese people. While the suspect had no weapons in his possession, he was transferred to a hospital for evaluation out of concern for his mental health and wellbeing. Three days later, the suspect was released from psychiatric hold and issued a “stay-away order” from Stanford. As of April 14, the individual has allegedly returned to his family on the East Coast. Amidst intense concerns of physical and psychological safety, SVSA leaders made the difficult decision to cancel SVSA Culture Night.

This event has been severely distressing and traumatizing for many members of Stanford’s Vietnamese community, particularly those that were directly threatened and those who bore the responsibility of urging the University to respond. Anxiety and fear gripped our community as the threat of racial violence hung over us for over a month. Repeated online threats culminated in the physical presence of a suspect on campus. However, despite the severity of the event, Stanford has yet to issue a University-wide announcement about what occurred or denounce this act of racial hate and intolerance. This left students feeling isolated and unsafe as many different systems and people representing the University continue to fail us. Though a community letter from the Asian American Activities Center (A3C) was sent to Asian-interest mailing lists, no announcement was sent to the University at large, leaving the majority of students, many of whom are themselves a part of the Vietnamese community, wholly uninformed and largely alone to deal with the impact of harm perpetrated.

When Stanford fails to bring attention to anti-Asian violence, they fail to acknowledge the very present racial hate that persists on this campus. They minimize the lived experiences and concerns of marginalized communities of color, and they endanger students who deserve to be informed about threats of violence against their community. Events such as these affect our community at large, and the University should have published a University-wide announcement rebuking racial violence and hate, while affirming Stanford as an institution that values and supports students of all marginalized identities to feel safe and to thrive. Their failure to publicly denounce this act of racial hate signals that the University does not take concerns like this seriously. It minimizes the extent of the harm done to our community. And it sends a message that anti-Asian violence is an Asian/Asian American issue, not a University-wide one. The University’s silence equates to complicity.

May was Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month, and in the aftermath of these events, those of us in Stanford’s Vietnamese community are reflecting on the nature of anti-Asian violence that has and continues to occur on this campus. We wonder how and why Stanford leadership and systems failed to really see and protect students. When the University remains silent on an event such as this, it is difficult to feel that the University takes transgressions against its APA community seriously. This event has raised serious questions about the University’s “selectiveness” in which issues and communities merit attention from the highest levels of University leadership, and which are ignored.

It is clear that Stanford prioritizes protecting its reputation. But how bad do things have to get before the University can’t ignore it any longer? How severe will the next hate incident against APA communities on campus be, and will the University remain silent then, too?

Britney Tran ’24, Dwight Hua ’23, Kyle Nguyen ’23

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From the Community | SEIU 2007 supports Stanford Graduate Workers Union https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/29/from-the-community-seiu-2007-supports-stanford-graduate-workers-union/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/29/from-the-community-seiu-2007-supports-stanford-graduate-workers-union/#respond Tue, 30 May 2023 00:13:08 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1229156 SEIU 2007, a union which has represented more than 1200 Stanford workers since 1970, writes: “It is ultimately in Stanford University’s interest to recognize the Stanford Graduate Workers Union and bargain with them in good faith.”

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Our Union, SEIU 2007, has represented more than 1200 Stanford workers since 1970. We proudly support the Stanford Graduate Workers Union campaign to unionize graduate student workers. The ongoing issues they face, including lower-than-living wages, spiraling healthcare costs and extremely high housing prices, are the same issues that confront all of our SEIU 2007 members. Graduate student workers should not have to rely on food banks to make ends meet. Only through collective bargaining on the graduate level will these essential workers achieve the level of dignity and financial security they need and deserve. Nearly 30,000 graduate students have already unionized throughout the United States, and after beginning their Union organizing efforts here at Stanford, their Chapter’s internal officer elections are on Wednesday and Thursday.

It is ultimately in Stanford University’s interest to recognize the Stanford Graduate Workers Union and bargain with them in good faith. SEIU 2007 calls upon University leadership to quickly recognize the Union and promptly engage in bargaining to resolve these crucial issues.

Paul Regalado
President Local 2007
SEIU HEW

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From the Community | Why did we propose a resolution about the association of Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Mercer with Stanford? https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/29/from-the-community-why-did-we-propose-a-resolution-about-the-association-of-rupert-murdoch-and-rebekah-mercer-with-stanford/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/29/from-the-community-why-did-we-propose-a-resolution-about-the-association-of-rupert-murdoch-and-rebekah-mercer-with-stanford/#respond Mon, 29 May 2023 23:58:00 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1229111 “We expect the members of our faculty to be truthful and not knowingly publish false information,” write professors Branislav Jakovljević and Joseph Lipsick. “Therefore, we should expect persons in positions of responsibility and honor at Stanford to meet the same standards.”

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On May 11, 2023, we proposed a resolution in the Faculty Senate requesting that the association of Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Mercer in all positions of responsibility or honor at Stanford University be terminated due to promulgation of dangerous, racist and antisemitic disinformation on platforms they own or control. The motivation for our resolution was first and foremost ethical. Although the Faculty Senate has no control over non-academic appointments and honors, members of the Stanford faculty do have an obligation to ensure that our University abides by its own code of conduct and other stated policies.

The University Code of Conduct states that “All members of the University Community are responsible for sustaining the high ethical standards of this institution, and of the broader community in which we function. The University values integrity, diversity, respect, freedom of inquiry and expression, trust, honesty and fairness and strives to integrate these values into its education, research, health care and business practices.” It specifies that this Code applies to faculty, staff, students, postdoctoral scholars and members of the Board of Trustees, in addition to other individuals, including those who perform services for the University as volunteers. We believe that President Tessier-Lavigne’s statement in the Stanford Report on April 3, 2023, was made in that spirit: “Out in the broader world, we see too often the impact of misinformation, oversimplification and, especially, demonization in public discussions. Social media, cable news, and political discourse can be home to taunts, personal invective, and even the rule of the mob. We must collectively reject such corrosive conduct at Stanford.” Our primary concern is that the disinformation and hate speech promoted on platforms controlled by Murdoch and Mercer have violated the Code of Conduct and the clearly demarcated lines beyond which Stanford University’s president has promised action.

Platforms owned and controlled by Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Mercer have been repeated purveyors of disinformation — false information deliberately spread with the intent to deceive people. This unethical practice is antithetical to the very purpose of our University. Murdoch’s Fox News spread disinformation about the 2020 U.S. presidential election that stoked the fires that led to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, then knowingly spread lies about that horrendous event. Mercer’s Parler platform spread similar disinformation and was also used to plan and execute the insurrection. Mercer’s Cambridge Analytica firm improperly obtained the private data of up to 87 million Facebook users and then according to a whistleblower used these data to alter democratic elections in the United States and the United Kingdom via targeted disinformation. A major goal of this effort was to suppress the votes of Black Americans. In 2018, Cambridge Analytica declared bankruptcy, leaving Facebook/Meta on the hook for a $725 million legal settlement for user privacy violations involving Cambridge Analytica.

Some have claimed that Murdoch and Mercer had no control over the content of their platforms. However, Murdoch admitted under oath in the Dominion lawsuit that election claims made by Fox News hosts were false, and that he could have given orders not to allow certain kinds of content, or guests, on Fox News programs. “I could have. But I didn’t,” he said. Fox settled that lawsuit out of court for $787.5 million, reportedly to avoid further public disclosure of yet more damaging evidence against it. Following the January 6 insurrection, co-founder John Matze tried to stop domestic terrorists from using Mercer’s Parler platform; at this point, according to reporting, Mercer fired him.

Platforms owned and controlled by Murdoch and Mercer have also promoted racial hatred and antisemitism. The “Great Replacement” theory repeatedly promoted by Tucker Carlson and others on Fox News was directly cited by perpetrators of targeted mass murders of innocent Blacks, Jews, Hispanics and Muslims in the US and New Zealand. Only a few years after the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, PA, in which the perpetrator cited a centuries-old trope that powerful Jews act as puppeteers to control the world, Murdoch’s NY Post and Fox News social media displayed a cartoon that illustrated this antisemitic calumny. Very similar images were used by the Nazis in Germany and in countries they occupied to stoke the virulent antisemitism that fueled the Holocaust. Mercer’s Breitbart has used the same antisemitic puppeteer conspiracy rhetoric. Furthermore, Mercer’s now defunct Parler platform was an internet repository for the spread of hateful racism and antisemitism. These practices stand in direct contradiction to a statement President Tessier-Lavigne made at Stanford Hillel on April 7, 2023, in response to yet another antisemitic incident on campus a few days earlier: “I want to make it very clear that we will not tolerate antisemitism and the symbols of antisemitism here on campus. It is something we need to eradicate.” His energetic response to this and other incidents of antisemitism on campus is laudable — our institution should have no tolerance for antisemitism and racism.

When we introduced the resolution in the Senate, we emphasized our concern with the consistency of ethical positions upheld by the University. Referring to the motion about the Stanford University Honor Code that the Senate approved only two weeks earlier, we pointed out that we expect our students to be truthful and not to cheat on exams or misrepresent others’ work as their own. We expect the members of our faculty to be truthful and not knowingly publish false information. Therefore, we should expect persons in positions of responsibility and honor at Stanford to meet the same standards. However, the evidence cited above shows that having Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Mercer occupy such positions contradicts the Code of Conduct and President Tessier-Lavigne’s statements cited above. Murdoch and Mercer are currently members of the Board of Overseers of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Therefore, they should be subject to the same expectations of conduct as the faculty, staff, students, postdoctoral scholars, and members of the Board of Trustees. In our view, which is shared by many faculty members at Stanford, these individuals have repeatedly violated these expectations of conduct as detailed above. Therefore, we believe that their association with Stanford University in all positions of responsibility or honor should be terminated. Our resolution was not specifically directed at the Hoover Institution, as some have claimed. We would have the very same objections were these individuals to occupy positions on the Board of Trustees of Stanford University.

Critics of our resolution on the Senate floor attempted to dislodge it from its proper context of ethics and present it as a question of academic freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and even freedom of the press. Regarding academic freedom, Murdoch and Mercer are neither faculty members nor students. Rather, they currently occupy high non-academic positions within the University. As for freedom of speech, we would of course welcome them to speak at the University if invited. Our critics have characterized Murdoch’s and Mercer’s actions as “views” and “viewpoints,” and, against considerable evidence, claim they are not responsible for what is published in the media they control. We are not questioning their opinions; we are questioning their undermining of our University’s values by the disinformation in the media they own or support. Murdoch is free to publish in his news and broadcast media anything he wishes, and he does. We don’t object to that. We object to the University holding in a position of honor a person who had admitted, under oath, to have disseminated harmful disinformation for financial gain. How can we, as the University, implement the honor code in our undergraduate education while honoring someone who admitted to not doing anything to prevent dissemination of dangerous lies in the media he controls? Are we saying that a person’s ability to make donations or pay a steep legal settlement fee elevates them above all ethical standards? If so, what kind of message does that send to our students? How is it possible to simultaneously enforce and relativize basic ethical principles of conduct? Ethics is not a matter of opinions but of values. One builds one’s moral identity through membership and participation in a community. We need ethical consistency in pursuit of our two-pronged mission of research and teaching. Holding Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Mercer in positions of honor at the University disrupts that much-needed ethical agreement that forms the foundation of an institution. If the University is serious about its ambition to educate new generations of responsible citizens, it needs a clear ethical vision, to which all of us, faculty, students, administrators and, yes, board members, can subscribe.

We introduced our resolution as “New Business” towards the end of the Senate meeting on May 11. Since it has not been voted on, the Senate rules stipulate that it must be brought back in one of its future meetings as “Unfinished Business.” We recognize that the Faculty Senate does not have the institutional authority to name or revoke members of advisory boards. It does, however, have moral authority to question these appointments. With this resolution, we invite each and every member of the Senate and the entire Stanford community to reflect on the ethical values they want to uphold at our University and to act on them.

Branislav Jakovljević
Sara Hart Kimbal Professor of the Humanities
Theater and Performance Studies

Joseph Lipsick
Professor of Pathology, Genetics, and Biology (by courtesy)

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From the Community | Thought police or moral integrity? https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/23/from-the-community-thought-police-or-moral-integrity/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/23/from-the-community-thought-police-or-moral-integrity/#respond Tue, 23 May 2023 16:30:27 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1228728 “There is a line; there are people Stanford will not associate with,” writes computer science and electrical engineering professor Philip Levis. "Perhaps Ms. Mercer and Mr. Murdoch are close to the line. Perhaps they are far. We won’t know unless we debate the matter and consider the facts."

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It’s been an exciting year in the Faculty Senate. A brief overview for those who have missed the most recent kerfuffle: Professor Jakovljevic and Professor Lipsick, who sits on the Faculty Senate Steering Committee, brought forward a motion requesting that Rebekah Mercer and Rupert Murdoch be terminated from all association with Stanford. Ms. Mercer and Mr. Murdoch are on the Board of Overseers at the Hoover Institution. President Marc Tessier-Lavigne responded with some prepared remarks, which included the claim that if the Faculty Senate voted in favor of this motion, it “would be setting itself up as a thought police.”

Nonsense.

I think I’d probably vote against the motion. Ms. Mercer’s and Mr. Murdoch’s indirect support and amplification of prejudice, anti-semitism and white nationalism are immoral and distasteful. I don’t like their association with Stanford. But at the same time, Ms. Mercer has publicly stated that she doesn’t personally believe in such hateful rubbish. While I think most of President Tessier-Lavigne’s prepared remarks are mistaken (more on that in a bit), he makes one point I do agree with: it is important that different groups within the University have a freedom of association. The Hoover Institution has decided that the benefits of association with Ms. Mercer and Mr. Murdoch outweigh the drawbacks, and I want to respect that decision.

But while I’m inclined to agree with President Tessier-Lavigne that we should not terminate association with Ms. Mercer or Mr. Murdoch, his prepared remarks are misguided, inaccurate and illogical. His defense of the Hoover Institution’s judgment is couched in wild claims of the collapse of the University and jingoistic dog whistles: “thought police,” “orthodoxy” and “autonomy.” By falling back on such emotional absolutes, the statement misses the real challenges and the difficult questions we must face. 

My deference to the Hoover Institution’s judgment on Ms. Mercer and Mr. Murdoch is conditional, as everyone’s should be. Stanford’s principles of academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas are not absolute. We do consider certain ideas or behavior so unacceptable that we disassociate from them: we removed David Starr Jordan’s name from campus spaces, in part due to his promotion of eugenics, and I hope we would not have accepted post-conviction donations from Jeffrey Epstein, as MIT did then said it was a mistake to do so

Furthermore, in an academic setting, not all ideas are created equal. As scholars, our primary responsibility is to decide which ideas are good and worth consideration, and which are not. As the Political Science department’s webpage on Academic Freedom articulates well, “Of course, scholars have constitutional rights to express outlandish views as private citizens or in public discourse. They do not have the same protections if they propagate such views in their position as scholars… Although the First Amendment would prohibit government sanctioning an editorialist for the New York Times if he were inclined to write that [the astrological signs of world leaders explain the incidence of inter-state wars], no [political science] department could survive if it were unable to deny tenure to a young scholar similarly convinced.” 

There is a line; there are people Stanford will not associate with. Jordan and Epstein are clearly on one side, while George Soros and the Koch brothers (despite all of the controversies around them) are clearly on the other. The Faculty Senate has actively debated particularly challenging cases that are close to the line, such as the tobacco industry. Such debates are critical, for us to actively explore, define and defend our values and principles when they are in tension. Perhaps Ms. Mercer and Mr. Murdoch are close to the line. Perhaps they are far. Having a named position of authority, rather than only funding research, might move where the line is. We won’t know unless we debate the matter and consider the facts. 

We all want what is best for Stanford. While I currently don’t support Professor Lipsick and Professor Jakovljevic’s motion, I wholly support their raising it for debate. I respect that their moral compasses tell them that the negative association of Ms. Mercer and Mr. Murdoch with Stanford so greatly outweighs any benefit. I respect that they have the moral integrity to argue so. I want to hear their arguments and consider them. As a reply, I would hope to hear a defense of the Hoover’s Institution’s decision on the merits of the case. But by instead responding with a hyperbolic set of predictions on the downfall of Stanford, President Tessier-Lavigne’s statement does exactly what it says we shouldn’t do: it argues we cannot even ask the question.

Philip Levis serves on the Faculty Senate and is a Professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He adores excellent engineering and has a self-destructive aversion to low-hanging fruit.

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From the Community | Living the DCI dream https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/22/from-the-community-living-the-dci-dream/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/22/from-the-community-living-the-dci-dream/#respond Mon, 22 May 2023 23:55:11 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1228723 On his experience as a fellow in Stanford's Distinguished Careers Institute, Joe Seldner writes: “I’ve gone to dozens of sporting events here, attended many lectures and other events outside of the classroom, explored the campus and beyond, yet only scratched the surface of what this place has to offer.”

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The old guy in the classroom may not look like a typical Stanford student, but he is living the dream the rest of those in the room are lucky enough to share.

I started as a fellow in Stanford’s year-long Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI) program last September and I have loved every minute of my time here.

DCI was created in 2015 by Dr. Phil Pizzo, the former Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine (now in his late 70s, and a former Catholic who converted to Judaism and is currently studying to become a rabbi, demonstrating vividly to all of us that learning has no age limits).

Our cohort consists of about 30 each year, a few of whom bring their partners to participate in the program. We are happily welcomed in most classes across the University — I have taken courses in history, law, medicine, psychology, writing, ethics and more.

I have had the privilege of absorbing wisdom from historian David Kennedy, psychologist and longevity expert Laura Carstensen, ethicist Rob Reich and neuroscientist David Eagleman, but also lesser known but significant talents such as poet and memoir teacher John Evans, visiting family law instructor Joanna Grossman and many others.

And we are fortunate to have a new “faculty dialogue” every Wednesday with Stanford professors we might not otherwise have the opportunity to get to know.

DCI builds its program on three pillars: community, purpose and wellness. But for me, and I believe for most of us, what emerges during the year as the most profound and meaningful experience is community, both within our cohort and throughout Stanford.

We come from a wide range of backgrounds (mine was film, television and journalism) and locations. My cohort has three Brazilians, one Venezuelan, two from the UK, one from China and of course many from all over the US (including one from New Jersey, myself).

The alchemy somehow works brilliantly. Do we all love each other? Perhaps not. But I am confident in saying we all get along, engage in frequent conversations, socialize and, above all, help each other in ways I did not think were possible.

When one of the members of our cohort was hit by a car while riding his bicycle early in the year, the cohort was there for him and his family, providing food, care and emotional support. People are frequently offering the use of their homes to other fellows (and their families). And the exchange of introductions, and dare I say, wisdom, among fellows has been ongoing and without the need for any quid pro quo.

Graciousness and generosity are manifest on a regular basis in the program among people who didn’t know each other at all and now are willing, indeed eager, to go the extra mile for one another.

At the core of DCI is something called the Life Transformation Reflection, or LTR. We are not required to do it, but nearly everyone does.

The LTR is a 20 minute “presentation” by each fellow, and happens on Wednesdays. The fellow chooses what they want to talk about. There are neither requirements nor limitations (beyond a general appreciation for civility).

They can be and have been funny and lighthearted. But many have been stunningly personal and revealing, and have brought many of us to tears.

It is a tribute to the program and its creators that the LTR is a place where people of considerable achievement feel comfortable to share in many cases stories they admit they have never shared with anyone outside their partners — and in some cases not even that.

Then there is the incredibly important intergenerational piece of our experience. I’m the oldest member of our cohort. There. I said it. I have a granddaughter who is nearly old enough to be a Stanford freshman.

I love being a part of a great university with so many energetic, motivated, gifted young people pursuing so many different pathways, many of whom I have met in the classroom, at panels and events with Knight-Hennessy Scholars, at MSx (Masters in Management) mixers, in undergraduate courses and through random interactions that have enhanced my experience here — and perhaps even theirs a bit.

I’ve gone to dozens of sporting events here, attended many lectures and other events outside of the classroom, explored the campus and beyond, yet only scratched the surface of what this place has to offer.

I don’t know what they think of me, but I have interacted with many students, and they have been wonderful, and I wish and hope I am around long enough to know what they accomplish in coming years.

September to August isn’t enough time. I am on campus most days from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Not long enough.

That old guy in the classroom knows how lucky he is to be here, and he is grateful to the Stanford community for being so welcoming.

Joe Seldner is a 2022 Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute Fellow. He was a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, creative executive to Tom Hanks, writer and producer and raised his kids on his own. He went to Yale and Columbia. And he loves Stanford.

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From the Community | A parting love letter to the Well https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/18/from-the-community-a-parting-love-letter-to-the-well/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/18/from-the-community-a-parting-love-letter-to-the-well/#respond Fri, 19 May 2023 05:01:46 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1228301 "Let us recognize that substance use disorder is a serious and complex issue that affects many," write Noel and Ryelee Vest, resident fellows of Stanford’s substance-free and wellness-themed house.

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A departing love letter to the Well House,

As my wife Ryelee and I begin to face the inevitable reality that we will be moving on from our resident fellow roles at the Well House, we write today with our hearts full of gratitude and appreciation. When we entered this community nearly two years ago, we found ourselves awestruck by the courage and determination that each of the students at the Well exudes.

We have seen firsthand the transformative power of this community. The residents of the Well House are a testament to the fact that building a community that is supportive of students opting for a substance-free lifestyle is not only possible, but also beautiful and fulfilling. They have created a safe and supportive environment where they can learn, grow and thrive at Stanford without substance use. We have seen them support each other through difficult times, celebrate each other’s victories, and build lasting friendships.

But the impact of this community goes beyond its residents. It also serves as a beacon of hope for anyone struggling with substance use disorder, reminding them that they are not alone, and that recovery is possible, even at a school like Stanford. It is a testament to the fact that recovery is not a solitary journey, but a collective one, and that support and community are crucial to success.

To the resident assistants of the Well House: Your leadership has carried us through the bright and gloomy times over the past two years. You have worked incredibly hard to create a warm environment where students are inspired by your devotion and leadership. Your unwavering commitment and love for the house and its students has been extraordinary. 

To the students of the Well House: You are an inspiration to us and to countless others. Your courage and perseverance in the face of adversity is nothing short of remarkable. You have created a community that is filled with love, kindness, and hope, and we are grateful to have had the privilege to live with and learn from you. Thank you for being the change you wish to see in the world.

To our neighbors living on The Row: We thank you for your willingness to reach out and ask how to support students in recovery living next to you, while at the same time carrying forward the dominant culture traditions passed down by Row students of yore. It has not been perfect, but it has been progress. 

To the Stanford students in addiction recovery: The sheer willpower to stay sober and maintain a healthy lifestyle in the midst of a campus culture that often glorifies substance use is nothing short of admirable. It takes strength, support, and a level of self-awareness that is not easy to come by.

To the rest of the Stanford community: Let us rally around these students and offer them the support and encouragement they deserve. Let us recognize that substance use disorder is a serious and complex issue that affects many, and let us work together to create a culture of compassion, understanding, and support.

In conclusion, we want to express our deep gratitude and admiration for the students of the wellness and substance-free housing unit, The Well House, at Stanford University. As the world around you searches for answers to the addiction crisis, you have shown that real-world solutions can and do start at home. You have shown us what true courage, resilience, and community look like, and for that, we are all better off.

With love, admiration, and appreciation,

Noel and Ryelee Vest, Resident Fellows of the Well House

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From the Community | Election reform: good intentions but questionable execution https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/16/from-the-community-election-reform-good-intentions-but-questionable-execution/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/16/from-the-community-election-reform-good-intentions-but-questionable-execution/#respond Tue, 16 May 2023 07:12:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1227867 Cautioning against the recently proposed ASSU joint bylaw changes, Lodewijk Gelauff and Viktor Krapivin write: “Unfortunately, haste is a poor advisor when it comes to crafting legislation.”

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Recently, the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) has gone through another election cycle. The students of Stanford elected a new ASSU President and Vice President and also voted in the Undergraduate Senate elections or in the Graduate Student Council elections. Although there was an allegation that one of the candidates violated the campaign finance rules, overall the elections went smoothly and over 4000 students voted.

As we’re processing the outcomes of these elections and waiting for the new legislature and executives to come in, the “lame duck” legislature has taken it upon itself to review the rules that prescribe how elections are being run. We generally encourage the legislature to revisit its bylaws from time to time and consider how they can be improved to secure the democratic process. As two current or former members of the Constitutional Council, we have some concerns, however, about the speed with which this is happening, and the possible implications of specific implementations in the new bylaws. One example pertains to the certification of elections.

Student leaders should be representative of the democratic will of the student body and incumbent leaders should not be able to prevent, delay or remove newly elected leaders. With the thought of January 6th in mind, we have all recently experienced how uncertainty about electoral processes can lead to disarray and outright attempts to subvert the democratic will. Unfortunately, the ASSU has its own history when it comes to certification of elections. We would like to take the reader back to the 2004 ASSU election.

That year, the Undergraduate Senate refused to certify the results of the ASSU presidential election in which the top candidate won by more than 300 votes. Instead, the Undergraduate Senate delayed the Presidential transition and called for a special election without any grounds in the ASSU Constitution. As can be expected, these actions were not conducive to the legitimacy of the ASSU.

This set of actions led to a total of three Constitutional Council cases, which resulted in rulings that made it clear that these actions were unconstitutional. This set of circumstances put the Constitutional Council in the awful position of having to decide who were the ASSU Executives: the students who won the general Presidential Election or the ones who won the special election. The Council ruled in favor of the winners of the special election as the winners had already been serving as ASSU Executives for about eight months. At the same time the Council ruled unanimously that the Senate acted unconstitutionally. 

After this series of rulings, the Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council amended the Joint Bylaws of the ASSU to make it clear that the Presidential election cannot be undone by the Undergraduate Senate or the Graduate Student Council alone, and instead both of the ASSU legislative bodies must act in concert to invalidate ASSU elections results on four grounds: voter fraud, voter disenfranchisement, partisan conduct by elections officers or an election conducted not in accordance with the ASSU Constitution.

Unfortunately, last-minute bylaw amendments with the intent to clarify the ASSU Presidential transition will undo these reforms by requiring the Presidential transition to only take place after the certification of the election results by the Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council. These proposals might put unelected students (such as elections commissioners or Constitutional Council members) in the position of choosing who are the duly elected leaders.

To be sure, this recent flurry of activity in procedural bills is a necessary undertaking that ASSU should commit to. The ASSU legislative bodies should draft new election rules. This proposed activity is very encouraging, because it means that people are thinking about complex election issues and are working to improve ASSU procedures which have not been carefully updated in a number of years. It is also a good idea to make these changes well outside of the election season.

Unfortunately, haste is a poor advisor when it comes to crafting legislation. As challenges of election results before the Constitutional Council have shown time and again in the past decades (for example in 2004, 2005 and recently), elections are a breeding ground for potential unconstitutional behavior or rules and these new election rules are likely to introduce new problems. 

The proposed changes that we are most concerned about are those regarding the transition timeline (e.g. this proposed bill). These changes seek to sync the transition of the ASSU Executive with the legislative bodies — a goal that is perfectly fine in and of itself. However, the proposed language will reintroduce the ability for one legislative body to indefinitely delay the ASSU Executive transition.

Furthermore, we encourage the newly elected student leaders in the Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council to pick up the mantle from the previous legislative bodies and work to finalize the other proposed procedural bills. While it may be tempting to rush through these changes (who wants to discuss boring election legislation for many weeks?), the required 2/3 majority should be an indicator that these changes shouldn’t be rushed. It is important to create a system that is safe and addresses possible irregularities in the process. 

The legislative bodies have introduced a bill amending election sanctions. We think it is valuable to revisit this framework cautiously, especially considering the criticism that was repeatedly expressed regarding the constitutionality of various campaigning constraints. Our concern about the implementation in this bill is that it seems likely that it will lead to more invalidated elections. The bill introduces the option that candidates are disqualified before the election, yet it is possible the Constitutional Council rules a slate or candidate disqualification was invalid after the election has already taken place. In this situation the Constitutional Council would have to decide if the wrongful removal of a candidate from the ballot necessitates the invalidation of that election. A candidate wrongly removed from the ballot does not have a fair chance of winning the election they are running in.

We urge prudence and hope the ASSU legislature works to address these issues prior to adopting bylaw amendments. The bylaws need revision and we embrace the ASSU taking on the difficult task of election policy reform. 

There are probably a number of other issues that can be improved in the election legislation (see, for example, this recent op-ed by one of the authors) and it may be advisable to ask a joint committee to evaluate the entire package of regulations in light of the ASSU Constitution, Constitutional Council rulings and general best practices in dialogue with the student community — not only to optimize election security, but also to make it a pleasant process for candidates and voters alike, hopefully with higher turnout and more candidates as a result.

We urge the current members of the ASSU legislature to postpone adoption of these bylaw amendments and instead allow the newly elected members to resolve the issues we raise here.

Lodewijk Gelauff is a Ph.D. candidate in management science and engineering, and a member of the Crowdsourced Democracy Team. He was a member of the ASSU Constitutional Council from 2019 until 2022.

Viktor Krapivin is a Ph.D. candidate in applied physics and has been a member of the ASSU Constitutional Council since 2018.

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From the Community | Students and postdocs are needed on the provost search committee https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/07/from-the-community-students-and-postdocs-are-needed-on-the-provost-search-committee/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/07/from-the-community-students-and-postdocs-are-needed-on-the-provost-search-committee/#respond Mon, 08 May 2023 05:52:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1227183 On the search committee for a new provost, "there should be representation from the undergraduate, graduate student and postdoctoral scholar populations at a minimum," writes Tim MacKenzie.

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Persis Drell just announced she will be stepping down as provost after six years. If you’re anything like some of the people I talked to, your reaction was ‘what the heck is a provost?’

The provost is the chief academic and budget officer. For our University community, academics is obviously hugely important as one of the major ties that bind us together. But the budget for the multi-billion dollar enterprise that is Stanford University is fiercely complicated, too, making the yearly responsibility required to keep the University running something of a Herculean task. The impact the provost has on everyone in the University is exemplified by the veritable army of high level administrators who report directly to the Office of the Provost.

A central tenet of democracy, to which our University leadership has a stated commitment, is that people impacted by a decision must have a say in that decision. Given the impact the provost has on everyone in the University community, it is imperative that the faculty-led search committee have voices and representation from across the University. Specifically, there should be representation from the undergraduate, graduate student and postdoctoral scholar populations at a minimum. Those committee members should have voting seats as required for true representation. 

Stanford has a stated commitment to shared governance. Recent actions have called that commitment into question for some members of our community. Proactively including student and postdoc representation in the important task of choosing a new provost for our University is a step that could help begin to repair the broken trust. It would also align with a specific recommendation from the recent Long Range Planning Report produced by the Stanford University Postdoctoral Association (SURPAS). University leadership must include broad representation on the provost search committee. 

Tim MacKenzie is a postdoc in the genetics department at Stanford University.

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Letter to the Editor | IFC and ISC response to the Editorial Board piece on Greek Life https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/03/letter-to-the-editor-ifc-and-isc-response-to-the-editorial-board-piece-on-greek-life/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/05/03/letter-to-the-editor-ifc-and-isc-response-to-the-editorial-board-piece-on-greek-life/#respond Thu, 04 May 2023 06:56:15 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1227005 The presidents of IFC and ISC respond to the recent Editorial Board piece on Greek life at Stanford, which raised issues of diversity and sexual violence in FSL. They write, "we write to express our desire to be included in future conversations surrounding community improvement."

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Dear Editor,

As leaders within the FSL (Fraternity and Sorority Life) community we felt it important to respond to the opinion piece authored by the Daily’s Editorial Board. To begin with, we largely agree. The social opportunities including parties, philanthropic events, and non-alcoholic events hosted by FSL organizations should only be a small part of the choices available to Stanford students. We concur that hosting any event is currently far too difficult, and we look forward to the changes promised by the administration to streamline the process. We would also like to state unequivocally that the primary reason many of our events are not as inclusive as we would like is directly driven by the actions and policies of the University, not our desire to exclude our fellow students.

The Greek system has played an outsized role in our conversations about the challenges of social life on Stanford campus. Being sometimes over-represented as a hero, and often unfairly portrayed as the villain. It is to this last point that we would like to correct some of the misrepresentations frequently made and echoed by the Editorial Board.

The first is diversity and exclusion. Our FSL community is observationally among the most diverse in the nation. We have been working with the administration to try and obtain data that we can publish to inform the community and potential new members. Every chapter is not perfect, but all want to improve. In support of economic diversity, Stanford has the Opportunity Fund that allocates 16% of its resources to FLI students who recognize the FSL community as an elevating platform for them, but while this resource is greatly appreciated it is dwarfed by the need of the many FSL members who do not fit the wealthy stereotypes. To include these students many of our chapters have created alumni led funds to support the experience. This coupled with dues well below the national average place Stanford’s FSL community amongst the nation’s most accessible.

It is true we have a selective process for choosing new members. No one enjoys selective processes whether it is choosing a University, joining a sports team, matching to a medical residency, or finding a job. It is both about resources and assuring the quality of an experience. There is currently a larger disconnect between the student demand for a housed FSL experience and the ability to provide that experience than has ever existed. Our housed organizations are larger than they have ever been in Stanford’s history. For many of them there are more members living outside of the house than in it. For the second year in a row despite taking record sized classes of new members, there were almost as many people that we could not take into the system as joined. This again is a matter of resources and policy that we do not control. We will continue to advocate for more chapters and more housing to expand the experience to the growing number of students who desire it. 

In response to the concerns about safety, we would like to state unequivocally that the Stanford community should strive to create an environment where non-consensual contact never occurs, and the FSL community knows we can be part of the solution. We’ve built in training for our members, monitors at our parties, reporting hotlines, and codes of conduct for members and guests. With that said, we feel the Editorial Board misrepresented the data in their piece. In the linked reference we could not even find numbers to support the 47% figure given in the initial piece, which has since been corrected after our piece was submitted for publication. Most people only read the original article and never see the corrections, which are typically not issued for pieces regarding Greek Life. This feeds a vicious narrative in the Stanford community. In actuality, we found that for the incidents cited, the most egregious assaults were over 5 times as likely to happen in a dorm and non-consensual touching was over 20% more likely to happen in a dorm.

Lastly, we write to express our desire to be included in future conversations surrounding community improvement. The Editorial Board did not contact FSL leaders to request comment before authoring their piece and consequently misrepresented our community in damaging ways. We will never profess that we are perfect, but it is hard for us to correctly assess our shortcomings without the opportunity to be included in the important discussions about them.

We embrace the recommendations on how FSL chapters can promote more safety and diversity. We commit to enacting the recommendations of the Editorial Board. But we would respectfully ask that our community, who represent more than 1 out of every 5 undergraduates, not be blamed for all challenging issues our community faces. Stanford social life thrives when it is student led and provides opportunities as diverse as the students. We can and should partner to make our student experience better.

Sincerely,

Jude Reiferson ’24 (Interfraternity Council (IFC) President) and Olivia Partamian ’24 (Inter-Sorority Council (ISC) President) on behalf of the joint IFC and ISC councils

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Letter to the Editor: Updating the Honor Code https://stanforddaily.com/2023/04/30/letter-to-the-editor-updating-the-honor-code/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/04/30/letter-to-the-editor-updating-the-honor-code/#respond Mon, 01 May 2023 06:31:50 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1226481 Arguing in defense of the motion they introduced to the Faculty Senate, professors Justin Grimmer, Juan Santiago and Richard Taylor write: "Breaking with 100 years of tradition was not a step taken lightly. But it is clear that the Faculty Senate was operating well within its authority and well within the spirit of earlier collaborations with students for shared academic integrity."

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To the editor:

We are writing in response to your report on the Faculty Senate’s discussion of proctoring to clarify our view on why the faculty had to act now and to encourage the Undergraduate Senate to work with the faculty on improving academic integrity.

Over the last 3 years the “C-12” committee composed of five students, five faculty and two administrators have worked tirelessly to study the Judicial Charter and Honor Code. The committee was given the explicit goal of finding a compromise among undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty. To that end, the C-12 conducted extensive outreach both inside and outside Stanford, and used that information to craft modest compromise proposals. Those proposals are true steps forward to improve academic integrity in the classroom and help students learn from their mistakes, rather than be unnecessarily punished. All stakeholder groups that have considered the proposals have adopted them, with one exception: the Undergraduate Senate, who rejected the Honor Code proposal. Undergraduate representatives told the Senate that students found a proposed study of proctoring unacceptable. 

Under the mutually agreed C-12 procedures, the Undergraduate Senate’s rejection of the C-12 proposal ended the C-12 process as regards the Honor Code, and placed the entire Stanford community at an impasse. The faculty want to work with students to improve academic integrity. However, the Undergraduate Senate’s rejection of the modest Honor Code proposal from the C-12 indicates that they fail to appreciate the dire state of academic honesty on campus and are refusing to compromise to improve the situation.   

The situation, both on and off campus, is dire, and with the advent of new technology can be expected to get worse. For instance, the Faculty Senate heard two weeks ago about a remote exam in a required CS class which turned out to be harder than expected, and where there is evidence that 30-50% of the students cheated. It seems that as more students heard about the cheating, some felt they needed to do the same. This problem is not unique to Stanford. In exit surveys conducted by the Harvard Crimson and the Daily Princetonian, approximately 20-30% of seniors at those institutions admit to having cheated. Whatever the reasons, the status quo is fundamentally incompatible with Stanford’s values and cannot be allowed to continue. This is a view widely held among the faculty: several of the faculty who voted against our motion to proctor exams agree that the current situation is unsustainable. 

Perhaps most troubling, our current policies and climate put honest students in an extremely difficult position: It is very hard to stand by your principles when you see classmates that cheat gain an advantage.

To be clear, we are not blaming students for the current academic climate. The faculty have failed and we owe the students better. Proctoring is one step towards the faculty reclaiming our responsibilities. Of course, we don’t want to spend our time proctoring or engaging with time-consuming judicial proceedings. The view that ‘the Honor Code makes this the students’ problem’ has allowed the faculty to neglect our responsibilities for too long. All parts of our community must step up if we are to create a climate of true academic integrity.

Breaking with 100 years of tradition was not a step taken lightly. But it is clear that the Faculty Senate was operating well within its authority and well within the spirit of earlier collaborations with students for shared academic integrity. The Honor Code was built on norms of students monitoring each other. For example, in 1955 the ASSU Honor Code Study Subcommittee made a powerful statement on the responsibility of students to monitor to ensure integrity. For whatever reason, this responsibility appears to have languished. According to the C-12 report, in the last 3 years only 2 of the 720 reports of Honor Code violations came directly from students. Of course some reports were made from students to instructors first, but it is hard to reconcile these numbers with any substantive level of student self-monitoring. We are told that the C-12’s outreach sessions confirmed that overwhelmingly students do not want to monitor each other. There was more consensus on this than on whether the faculty may or may not act as proctors.

Allowing proctoring is certainly not the end of the story. As was discussed in the Faculty Senate, it seems likely that much cheating happens in settings other than in-class exams. We have much more to do. Whether they choose to let the proctoring proceed in the Autumn or prefer to return to the study of proctoring proposed by the C-12, we urge the undergraduate leadership to engage with the problem of academic integrity, as the student representatives on C-12 did so effectively. What ideas do the students have to prevent cheating? What affirmative steps forward do the students want to take? Students are probably best placed to come up with practical and effective strategies, in what must surely be our shared interest in ensuring academic integrity at Stanford.

Justin Grimmer, Professor of Political Science
Juan Santiago, Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Richard Taylor, Professor of Mathematics

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From the Community | Farm Fridays: Community, joy, traditions and fun  https://stanforddaily.com/2023/04/27/from-the-community-farm-fridays-community-joy-traditions-and-fun/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/04/27/from-the-community-farm-fridays-community-joy-traditions-and-fun/#respond Fri, 28 Apr 2023 06:43:15 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1226313 The creators (rejuvenators) of Farm Fridays share their excitement for the renewed tradition and express their hope for a newly awakened Stanford social life. They write, "Farm Fridays is only one piece of a large, ongoing puzzle for us as students to make our college experience our own."

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In September 2021, Stanford’s campus re-emerged as though born anew. Of 7,700-odd undergraduate students, only a fourth had ever experienced a full “normal” year of student life. Suddenly, they were club presidents, team captains, dorm residential assistants (RAs), each more than the last carrying all the weight of hundreds of organizations’ institutional knowledge. And so began what many students have felt to be a cultural crisis, in which the branches one could chart through campus all felt abruptly pruned. Every corner of Stanford began to see, feel, and formulate plans to address the circumstances. So a question is asked: in the midst of drastic change, how can we continue to facilitate joy and community? What inclusive, accessible opportunities for “fun” have truly been lost over the pandemic that we once had? How can we bring them back? 

We joined the Hillel Design Lab last quarter to explore these questions. In a small conference room, a group of us met weekly and wondered how to address “fun” from a true student perspective. We, a small group of upperclassmen, conducted peer interviews, covered whiteboards in post-its and considered the low-hanging fruit we can start doing today to restore student confidence in Stanford’s fun (film screenings in Memorial Auditorium? Coupon books for local restaurants?). In the discovery process, a repeated theme emerged: the feeling — and potential — in absent tradition. 

The concept of “tradition” is almost as complicated to sift through as differing notions of fun. Stanford traditions have long histories; many have undergone critical changes to reflect our developing values. Institutions, groups, celebrations have come and gone in a long-term journey to develop a campus climate in the best interests of students. But some of the traditions students have always valued have disappeared. Cardinal Nights has changed, its presence on campus nightlife diminished from pre-pandemic years. The Band has, too. Even Lake Lagunita – full, for now — is a visible reminder of what prior generations once had. There are so many more student traditions that have become entirely lost to time. These traditions once did, and still can, invigorate a sense of shared community that can de-fracture social life and redefine “fun” to be something had on students’ own terms. In the past few years the idea of fun has felt like something that can be had in spite of circumstances. Traditions turn chances for fun into a default expectation rather than something that must overcome a static inertia on campus. 

One tradition — part experience, part mindset — that emerged in our journey was the feeling of “Camp Stanford.” 

Camp Stanford can be best captured in spring Quarter weekends: sun and vibes. With awful weather in the winter quarter, that feeling was especially lost. We have a beautiful Row with big lawns and great spots for enjoying the weather. Within our little Design Lab, we thought: what if we funnel the energy of Camp Stanford into a weekly tradition on the Row? The idea eventually narrowed scope.

And so begins (resumes?) Farm Fridays. 

Starting this past Friday (April 21) from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and continuing each week, rotating host houses on the Row will have their lawns open to any students to stop by, hang out, and take part in that week’s theme. Think of the Row as a temporary waterpark or Mario Kart racecourse. See the Sigma Nu (SNU) guys playing Die on the front lawn or Columbae slack-lining? The ambition is to have the whole Row and campus around it unite for an organic, ground-up fun time on the Farm. Each Friday of spring quarter will bring new themes and activities. With kudos to Hillel@Stanford for their ongoing support and for providing us with the funding to get started, Farm Fridays is by and for students who want to keep fun going – this spring, and for every future frosh who wants to know they’ll find belonging. If you were one of the 200 students who joined the kickoff event at Mars last week (‘Hats and Tats’), we had a blast and hope you come back each week. We deeply appreciate the support of The Stanford Daily editorial board encouraging this early success. This Friday, we’ll be chilling outside the Well House and Robert Moore South (BOB) for Farm Fridays ‘Pickling Edition: Pickling and Pickleball.’ Look for the golden sky dancer. 

Farm Fridays is only one piece of a large, ongoing puzzle for us as students to make our college experience our own. It won’t bring back everything we’ve lost. But it’s a chance to address some of our many valid frustrations with Stanford’s new post-pandemic status quo. It’s a way for each of us to be part of a solution. 

It will, hopefully, just be fun. The only thing missing is you. Will you join us? With joy, 

Sophia Danielpour ‘24

Ellie Fajer ‘23

Ben Fischer ‘24

Emily Gurwitz ‘24

Kyra Kraft ‘23

Ashlee Kupor ‘24

Claire Rosenfeld ‘23

The authors are upperclassmen brought together to lead the Hillel Design Lab, which conducted a design process to address community and belonging on campus. Farm Fridays will be hosted each week in spring quarter at rotating houses on the Row, always from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., always open to all students. Join the mailing list for updates every week.

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From the Community | Motivations for unionization among Stanford resident and fellow physicians https://stanforddaily.com/2023/04/27/from-the-community-motivations-for-unionization-among-stanford-resident-and-fellow-physicians/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/04/27/from-the-community-motivations-for-unionization-among-stanford-resident-and-fellow-physicians/#respond Thu, 27 Apr 2023 08:24:44 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1226218 Stanford Housestaff Union was invited to speak at the Faculty Senate to share its motivations around unionization, but a week before the meeting, that invitation was rescinded. "To that end I want to make available the message that we were planning on sharing at the Faculty Senate," writes Philip Sossenheimer, one of the Union's organizers, "so that any faculty member who wants to understand our position has the opportunity to do so."

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My name is Philip Sossenheimer, and I am one of the resident physicians who has been organizing with the Stanford Housestaff Union for the past two years.

The Stanford housestaff organizing committee was invited to present to the Faculty Senate in April to share our motivations around unionization, and also to reaffirm our commitment to the relationship between housestaff and faculty. This was part of a series of presentations meant to inform the Faculty Senate on this topic, and to that end Dr. Laurence Katznelson, Associate Dean of Graduate Medical Education, presented Stanford Health Care (SHC) management’s position at the Senate’s last meeting.

Unfortunately, only a week before we were scheduled to speak, our invitation was rescinded.

While I am disappointed in the decision by the Faculty Senate to rescind our invitation, I can’t say that I am surprised by it. And to a certain degree I can even understand it. The Housestaff Union is new to Stanford, and I recognize there may be fear and uncertainty around what that means for the relationship between housestaff and faculty. I want to be clear that all of us with the housestaff bargaining committee are committed to transparency and ongoing dialogue around these issues. We believe faculty have the right to understand our perspective and that through this conversation we can sustain the Stanford that we love.

To that end I want to make available the message that we were planning on sharing at the Faculty Senate, so that any faculty member who wants to understand our position has the opportunity to do so.

***

To understand our motivations for unionization I think it’s helpful to remember the origins of our movement. During the vaccine rollout in Dec. 2020 there were issues with the COVID vaccine allocation algorithm. This meant that only a handful of housestaff were included in the first wave of vaccinations — despite residents carrying a substantial portion of COVID-19 surge burden — and experiencing some of the most high-risk exposures along with other frontline staff.

From where we sit now, vaccinated with multiple boosters and with the mask mandate having ended, it could be easy to forget how high the stakes felt at the time, but for those of us working on the front lines during the surge, being systematically excluded from protection against the pandemic was exceptionally distressing. No other generation of physicians has trained in a pandemic to this scale, and our training is forever imprinted with the experiences of living and working as trainees in an unprecedented public health crisis. To say this time period has been difficult for residents and their families does not fully encapsulate the stress and strain of the realities of our collective experience.

But there were moments of hope during the pandemic as well. As a resident body, we saw in real time the power of collective action in response to the vaccine rollout. A group of residents organized a lunchtime unity break and by standing together in solidarity we were able to convince SHC to reverse course and offer all frontline housestaff vaccinations in the first wave. After that experience many residents and fellows began to wonder how else collective action could improve working conditions and elevate care delivery. Within a year we had launched a unionization campaign and won an election with a super-majority of support from residents across from SHC.

While the vaccine rollout was a catalyst for this effort, it was by no means the main driver behind unionization. Instead, for many of us, the rollout was a representation of the nature of medical training. It represented the lack of control we have over our working conditions, our personal safety and our increased vulnerability to exploitation.

Employees in other sectors have the ability to leave an unsafe work environment. They can apply for a new job, and they can leverage their experience and training to negotiate for a better contract. For housestaff, that’s not an option — we never get the opportunity to individually negotiate our contracts, and if we leave our training positions we may never be able to practice medicine. For us, the legal right to contract negotiation that unionization affords is one of the only ways we can have a voice in our employment conditions.

So, why unionize? We unionized because we want to foster a culture within medicine that empowers individuals instead of burning them out to keep physicians in the workforce, a culture that holds advocacy and self-improvement as a professional value, instead of prioritizing traditionalism and sociopolitical inertness. We are not here because we dislike our jobs and want to work less; we are here because we love our jobs and want them to nurture us and foster career longevity.

We are unionizing because we care deeply about our programs and want to empower housestaff to make the most of their training. Burnout among resident and fellow physicians continues to be a significant issue, and research shows that the quality of our working conditions can have an impact on the care that our patients receive — even the best doctors do not perform as well when they are overburdened and fatigued. That is why our union is bargaining for a new contract that can help address the root issues that housestaff face. We feel strongly that residents should not need to routinely sneak food home from conferences because their grocery budget is tight. That housestaff should have access to safe transportation home if they are too fatigued to drive safely. We believe that housestaff with disabilities should have equal access to call rooms. That lactating mothers who are choosing to come to work instead of spending time with their newborns should have clean spaces close to their work sites so that they can pump breast milk.

Fundamentally: we believe that people who dedicate the vast majority of their time to SHC should have a voice in what their contract looks like.

For me personally, the reason I have dedicated my own free time to unionize is because it creates this conversation. Before the union, there was no channel for housestaff to speak directly with hospital leadership on an equal footing. Unionization has helped level the playing field between SHC management and the residents and fellows who are an integral part of the SHC enterprise. It is my sincere hope that our union will benefit not only residents and fellows, but also program leadership and departmental leadership. Well-cared-for residents make everyone’s jobs easier. In my own program I have witnessed the struggle to reduce the caps on our services to make it easier for residents to attend educational conferences. I can’t help but wonder how much easier that campaign might have been if there had been a strong housestaff union in place to campaign alongside our program director.

I recognize that there might be anxiety about how this will impact the relationship between housestaff and program leadership. Our union is committed to maintaining those relationships. We hope that the presence of a union will strengthen the ability of program leadership to advocate for residents and fellows.

I imagine there has been lots of discussion among program leadership around the issue of “status quo protections” so I want to address those directly. Status quo refers to a provision in the National Labor Relations Act which bars an employer from unilaterally changing the terms and conditions of employment that are mandatory subjects of bargaining. The key word here is “unilaterally.” Let me be clear: our union unequivocally supports any programmatic changes that are intended to benefit housestaff and serve patient care. If any program leaders want to implement changes to improve working conditions for housestaff — we will support them. Our intention is not to stand in the way of progress. The status quo just means that the hospital cannot make things harder or worse; they can always make things better.

The Stanford Housestaff Union is driven by housestaff, and not by a third party. We have partnered with the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) to help represent us because they have the knowledge and experience to help us bargain with a very well-resourced hospital administrative team while we simultaneously continue to provide patient care. So let me touch briefly on what CIR is. CIR is the largest housestaff union in the United States, representing over 24,000 residents and fellows across the country. It is a democratically run organization, with leadership composed of elected housestaff from across the country. But when it comes to decisions made at Stanford, those decisions are made by Stanford residents and fellows. So who are we?

Well, we are the residents and fellows you work with every day! We have representatives from across the spectrum of specialties, and we have the support of a supermajority of all housestaff. We are surgeons, pediatricians and researchers. We are the first physicians that patients see when they come to this hospital and the last ones they see as they walk out the door. None of us want our relationship with our faculty to change because of this union.

I want to end by reflecting on the future of our profession more broadly, and how we can protect the role of physicians as leaders within healthcare. Over the past decade, and in particular over the past three years, we have seen a massive shift in the relationship between physicians and the health system we work in. Where physicians used to largely be independent, a majority of physicians are now employees of hospitals or other corporate entities. Stanford’s own Dr. Kevin Schulman has written about this issue, and poses the question of how we can, as a profession, maintain our professional independence as we lose our economic independence. These are issues that we all share — residents, fellows, attendings — and I believe that physician unions, including resident unions, are a valuable part of the solution. Historically physicians have been a fairly apolitical class, but with the change in the distribution of power between various stakeholders in medicine I believe physicians need to elevate our political consciousness and stand together as a profession to advocate for our interests and the interests of our patients. Unionization is not the only tool in our tool box, but it is an effective intervention for training physician-leaders while also improving their own working conditions.

So, while I am disappointed by the Senate removing our invitation to speak, I want to commit to continuing these conversations and remain open to anybody who has questions. I believe the Housestaff Union and program leaders can find innovative ways to improve the working conditions of housestaff and the care that we deliver. Our goal is to make Stanford the premier institution to train at and to perch it at the top of ranked lists nationwide.

Thank you all so much for reading.

Philip Sossenheimer is a third-year internal medicine resident at Stanford Hospital, and will be staying on at Stanford as a fellow in palliative medicine. He has been involved as an organizer for the Stanford Housestaff Union, which is currently negotiating its first contract.

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