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Op Ed

Op Ed

Campus worker highlight: Week four

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The Campus Workers’ Rights Coalition and members of CSRE35SI: An Introduction to Labor Organizing have put together a series of profiles drawn from both archival and current interviews with workers on-campus to highlight both the struggles that workers at Stanford face and the resilience that they bring to the work they do. Campus workers often have to deal with chronic understaffing and difficult menial labor. Alongside this, Stanford does not pay its workers a living wage despite the rising costs of food, health, and housing in the Bay, and workers must often cover many of their own health costs because of a lack of insurance benefits while managing hours-long commutes due to a dearth of affordable housing.

Op-Ed: Blood in Caracas

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I met Jaime Barrio when he came to the US. He was an engineering student with a passion for building and racing go-karts. His team stayed at my Airbnb while attending an international dune-buggy competition. Now he’s back in Caracas, Venezuela where a hostile government allows a humanitarian crisis to worsen daily. We talk on WhatsApp when his electricity works and I’ve helped him write the following account of his experience:

Op-Ed: The ASSU tries to chill free speech

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This past week, the ASSU debated a bill authored by the Director of Academic Freedom, Zintis Inde, that would force every student club to include a mandatory 120-word statement on all advertisements for their event. A paragraph-long statement may have to be included in every email, flyer and Facebook post regarding a speaker your club brings in the future, if this bill passes. If a club forgets to include the statement just four times over the span of two years, it could receive a “one year ban on funding,” according to an early draft of the bill. The statement itself is pretty basic: it notes that the ASSU does not necessarily endorse the speakers it funds, while simultaneously supports the value of free speech in campus dialogue. Even if we set aside for the moment the ethics of compelling groups to include this lengthy statement, one must question the necessity of the requirement itself.

Letter to the community: Thank you for recognizing and affirming the veteran community

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Thank you, Senator Matthew Wigler, and the whole of the 20th Undergraduate Senate for passing the recent Resolution to Better Serve Veterans at Stanford. Your unanimous vote affirming student veterans is momentous and reflects great credit on the character and culture of the Senate and students it represents. Your comprehensive resolution, if acted upon, will increase meaningful diversity, enrich the education of all students, and ensure veterans become a more visibly valued component of Stanford’s extraordinary community.

Op-Ed: A force for the final frontier

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You’re enjoying a sunny afternoon stroll through White Plaza, having actually decided to attend your CS lecture, when flashy posters catch your attention. Uncle Sam mouthing, “We want you!” and wagging his patriotic finger? Not interesting. But wait, what’s he wearing? A white spacesuit in place of his navy blazer, above the slogan “Join the Space Force, see the galaxy!”