Katie Keller – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Tue, 14 Feb 2023 03:28:06 +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 Katie Keller – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Keller: What drives The Daily? https://stanforddaily.com/2019/06/16/keller-what-drives-the-daily/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/06/16/keller-what-drives-the-daily/#respond Sun, 16 Jun 2019 07:06:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1155868 I came to Stanford looking for a student community as full of intellect, energy, creativity and civic commitment as I hoped to be when I graduated. When I started at the Daily my sophomore year, I knew I had found it. I found a new art form in journalism — a unique craft that marries interpersonal communication and writing to express a narrative that strikes satisfyingly at the truth. And I found peers at the Daily whose dedication to this craft was unbridled and infectious. I was instantly hooked.

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I came to Stanford looking for a student community as full of intellect, energy, creativity and civic commitment as I hoped to be when I graduated. When I started at The Daily my sophomore year, I knew I had found it. I found a new art form in journalism — a unique craft that marries interpersonal communication and writing to express a narrative that strikes satisfyingly at the truth. And I found peers at The Daily whose dedication to this craft was unbridled and infectious. I was instantly hooked.

One of the first things I noticed about The Daily was that at any given time of day or week of the quarter, you could always find someone at the House working on a story. People could be in an abyss of midterm exams and assignments, and yet something still called them to keep reporting, keep writing, keep perfecting their words and keep hitting overly optimistic deadlines. As I watched Daily staffers work longer and longer hours, I wondered what exactly it was that motivated them. It fell outside the usual incentives I recognized — money, academic units, prestige — but, whatever it was, I was beginning to sense that it was a powerful force. While this energy sometimes created dysfunctional workaholism and burnout in the newsroom, it was undeniable that there was something inimitably wonderful about the experience of student journalism that kept The Daily running.

As I moved from a staff writer to a news editor and eventually to co-managing the magazine, I began to feel this drive permeate my own core. Crafting a story from a nascent idea into a robust and beautiful piece of journalism uniquely satisfied my need for a creative outlet. Conceptualizing The Daily as a medium for creative expression helped me start to understand what was driving these students to pour themselves into the organization.

Like me, the people I met at The Daily cared deeply about the experiences and perspectives of others. Whether I was interviewing the chair of the Board of Trustees about University policy or chatting with fellow students about the subtleties of Stanford social circles, I loved how The Daily encouraged me to learn from my community. In our efforts to eliminate bias from our stories, we aimed to take an egalitarian and nonjudgmental approach to our sources’ diverse perspectives. I learned to keep an open mind, communicate with a wide range of individuals and find comfort in the grey areas and the nuance. For me, reporting became an interpersonal art form.

Ultimately, I believe this passion for individual narrative is an expression of Daily staffers’ genuine care for civic improvement. We are simultaneously big thinkers and incrementalists, visualizing sea changes in our opinions and highlighting reform at its very grassroots in our newsroom. I remember spending long nights at the House agonizing over the 2018 midterm elections, as well as weekly happy hours discussing the Stanford administration’s efforts to improve student life. I connected with my Daily friends through our shared belief that individual experiences matter, and that by highlighting these narratives we might inspire our community to make changes that would improve the lives of others.

Beyond this more civic drive, I think my fellow staffers and I are motivated by the uniquely gratifying experience of writing itself. There is joy to be derived from finding the perfect words and anecdotes to put together in creating a story. For me, this joy was amplified when I began working on the magazine and saw how graphic design can contribute to this craft. It’s difficult to describe the emergent property that comes from hours spent perfecting the words, structure and design of a piece, but it is what drives us.

Perhaps that property we strive toward is truth. We investigate and fact-check to present truthful information to our readers; we seek balanced and diverse sourcing to reflect the true range of opinions in our community; we include photos and graphic design that create a meaningful, cohesive and emotionally truthful reading experience. We don’t always succeed in these efforts, printing corrections and follow-ups when we realize we have erred. But expressing the truth is an alluring and addictive challenge for us that we share with journalists around the world.

The Daily fills the expressive need of innovative and perfectionist creators with a penchant for civic improvement. The paper was always as much for us as it was as it was for the rest of the Stanford community. Seeing our words, photos and design reflected in the paper or the magazine reminds us that our hard work was worthwhile. I am so grateful to The Daily for helping me find a creative process that fulfills me like nothing else, and for introducing me to other incredibly hardworking individuals — now lifelong friends — who share these values with me.

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Presidential hopeful Cory Booker’s intimate Daily columns on race, homosexuality and groping incident resurface https://stanforddaily.com/2019/02/01/presidential-hopeful-cory-bookers-intimate-daily-columns-on-homosexuality-and-groping-incident-resurface/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/02/01/presidential-hopeful-cory-bookers-intimate-daily-columns-on-homosexuality-and-groping-incident-resurface/#respond Fri, 01 Feb 2019 22:22:21 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1149074 On the occasion of Senator Cory Booker's presidential announcement, The Daily combed through its archives and discovered an intimate portrait of the former columnist’s personal development at Stanford.

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Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) ’91 M.A. ’92 announced that he will be running in the 2020 presidential election in a video on Friday morning. On the occasion of his announcement, The Stanford Daily combed through its archives and discovered an intimate portrait of the former columnist’s personal development throughout his time at Stanford.

Booker contributed over a dozen Daily columns during his year as a sociology Master’s student, writing that his experience as a columnist was “both cathartic and meditative, but most importantly… transformative.” As such, his articles serve as an invaluable window into the presidential hopeful’s early personal and political musings.

Meditations on personal growth

Booker’s candid, vulnerable and often apologetic columns discussed topics as personal as his dating life, his changing views on homosexuality and even a now-infamous admission to groping a female friend at a 1984 New Year’s party when he was 15 years old.

“Telling one’s own personal story is often the most powerful way to make a point, or, more importantly, to make people think,” Booker wrote in the introduction of his column titled, “So much for stealing second base,” which described the groping incident in detail.

“As the ball dropped, I leaned over to hug a friend and she met me instead with an overwhelming kiss,” he recounted. “As we fumbled upon the bed, I remember debating my next ‘move’ as if it were a chess game. With the ‘Top Gun’ slogan ringing in my head, I slowly reached for her breast.’” The woman pushed his hand away, he wrote, and the encounter ended shortly thereafter.

The same column included an emotional lamentation of cultural attitudes that sexual intercourse is achieved through “luck, guile, strategy or coercion.”

“I can find little clarity in the torment of emotions I now experience when even allusions to this issue are made,” his column reads. “All I have are poignant visions. I see that preceding all the horrors of rape are a host of skewed attitudes. I see my friends seeking to ‘get some’ or to ‘score.’”

Booker also expressed regret for his previous homophobic attitudes in an April 1992 column. He thanked his fellow peer counselor at Stanford’s Bridge Peer Counseling Center, a gay man, for showing patience in the face of his “condemnations” and admitted, “The root of my hatred did not lie with the gays but with myself.”

“I was disgusted by gays,” Booker wrote. “The thought of two men kissing each other was about as appealing as a frontal lobotomy.”

For Booker, these columns also presented an opportunity for introspection. In a March 1992 piece, Booker reflected on campus religious culture, and the evolution of his own beliefs. Booker lamented the fact that religious students on campus were made to feel embarrassed about their faith. In the piece, Booker describes one incident when a friend approached him in tears, upset that her roommates were judging her for her religion.

In response, Booker jokingly described concocting a plan for his friend wherein she would mount Hell’s Angels posters and leave unrolled condoms on the edge of the trash bin every day.

“Our Satanic Slut Plan never was initiated, but planning it gave us a good laugh and made us both feel better,” Booker wrote.

In one of his more intimate columns, Booker said that his love life caused him immense anxiety. He admitted that dating was “so overwhelming” for him that he would “go through about two or three shirts due to persistent pit pouring” before dates.

Later in the column, he provided his phone number and promised to randomly set up any interested callers on blind dates. In the conclusion of his column a week later, he thanked the “77 courageous people who responded to his friending experiment.”

Racial issues and political development

Booker’s intimate writing style allowed him to explore nuances of his own identity, which often intersected with broader political movements. His April 1992 column titled “This one ain’t a sermon” revealed his perspectives on his own racial identity, describing his childhood desire to fit in as the only black person in an affluent New Jersey suburb and his experiences “finding a home” in Stanford’s black community.

In the piece, Booker recalled his initial isolation from his black peers at Stanford, citing moments where he derided the black community for being “separatist and militant” and refusing to accept that “more change is made with love than with anger.”

However, upon realizing that “many black people on campus didn’t see me as a bastion of racial understanding,” Booker wrote about his active attempts to learn about the black experience, both through reading and learning from black peers.

“I gained a new consciousness,” wrote Booker. “I discovered the extreme self-hate I had for everything, from my physical features to a misinformed hatred of my history. From Stanford’s black community I was imbued with self-esteem and self-concept, without which I would be lost in mediocrity.”

This journey of self-discovery informed his subsequent opinions writings, which served as a medium for Booker to reflect on experiences of racial discrimination, build inclusivity across movements and grapple with his own privilege growing up.

A later Booker piece gave a raw recount of a traffic stop when six police officers in five cars surrounded his vehicle, guns drawn, because he “fit the description of a car thief.” The story provided an emotional take on the debate about racialized police violence of the early 1990s.

“How can I write when I have lost control of my emotions?” Booker wrote. “I’m a black man. I am 6 feet 3 inches tall and 230 pounds, just like [Rodney] King. Do I scare you? Am I a threat? Does your fear justify your actions?”

He followed the account of his harrowing traffic stop with broader meditations on the status of the black community in America.

“Poverty, alienation, estrangement, continuously aggravated by racism, overt and institutional,” he wrote. “Can you leave your neighborhood without being stopped? Can you get a loan from your bank? Can you be trusted at your local store? … Can you get a job? Can you stay alive past 25? Can you get respect? Can you be heard? NO!”

However, while Booker frequently mentioned racial inequalities in his columns, he also at times displayed guilt for not broadening his fight for social justice beyond issues of anti-black discrimination. In an April 1992 column, he expressed concern that Stanford’s black community was becoming “frightfully self-absorbed” in its advocacy, and that “the only race related issues that really ‘Fuel My Fire’ or move me to act vehemently are the ones which are directly relate[d] to me.”

Booker also warned against an America where “alarms, guards and fences are becoming commonplace,” a prelude to his consistent calls for reforming America’s prison system throughout his political career. As a New Jersey senator, he sought to craft legislation that would have changed penalties for nonviolent crimes and reduced prison sentences, though neither effort became law.

More generally, his columns reflect a passion for elevating racial minorities and the poor that would become a core tenet of his political career. As mayor of Newark, New Jersey, he famously lived in Newark’s impoverished inner city in an effort to stay closely in touch with his most vulnerable constituents.

Booker still resides in this neighborhood, pointing out in his presidential campaign announcement video that he is “the only senator who goes home to a low-income, inner city community: the first community that took a chance on me.”

By May 1992, a month before he was set to graduate, Booker wrote about having established at Stanford a “Cory Booker Party Line,” with views like “Respect women,” “Gays are OK, too” and “Black people need justice.” However, he questioned whether his commitments to these ideals were genuine, rather than “shallow manifestations of acceptance without internalization.”

As the column concludes, he continued to ask how best to fight against a society wrought with “racists,” “sexist people,” “people steeped in hypocrisy” and “injustice abounding” to ultimately make his mark on the world.

“As my ambition rages, as I seek to change the world,” finished Booker, already on his way to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, “Where shall I begin?”

 

Ellie Bowen contributed to this report.

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu and Berber Jin at fjin16 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Columbae mural to be painted over due to restrictions on “historic” houses https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/31/columbae-mural-to-be-painted-over-due-to-restrictions-on-historic-houses/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/31/columbae-mural-to-be-painted-over-due-to-restrictions-on-historic-houses/#respond Thu, 31 Jan 2019 08:23:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1148969 Campus Planning has informed Columbae that it will paint over a front door mural it had confiscated from the co-op over the summer, Columbae leadership told The Daily.

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Campus Planning has informed Columbae that it will paint over a front door mural it had confiscated from the co-op over the summer, Columbae leadership told The Daily.

The co-op’s front door was replaced over the summer due to a rule that prevents external painting on “historic” houses such as Columbae. The mural was returned to the house on Sunday and will remain until the end of the week so that the community can bid the painting farewell.

According to resident Ben Gaiarin ’19, members of the Columbae community met with representatives of Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) and Residential Education (ResEd) before painting the mural last spring in preparation for the co-op’s annual spring concert, “F*ck the Man.” Gaiarin said R&DE and ResEd were willing to work with Columbae in the co-op’s plans to decorate but were concerned about how Campus Planning would respond.

These concerns prompted R&DE and ResEd to suggest options for the mural that were less permanent than painting directly on the wall should renovations become necessary, Gaiarin said. R&DE spokesperson Jocelyn Breeland told The Daily that they discussed options such as painting it on a canvas or another “contained” surface such as an interior door or a bathroom partition.

Gaiarin said that Columbae saw R&DE and ResEd’s suggestion of painting the mural on a door as the “go-ahead” and began painting their front door shortly after the meeting. The mural, which was created with the help of local artist Evelyn Anderson, featured a selection of images based on photographs of residents, along with an image of a dove and an image of two hands planting a seed. Residents say it represents Columbae’s tradition of creating art on the walls and symbolizes the co-op’s commitment to uplifting communities of color.

“It was this really beautiful coming together of the community around building this new image of the house,” Gaiarin said, referencing Columbae’s efforts in recent years to strengthen its commitment to racial inclusivity and social justice. “It was a collection of images that really represented, I think, what the house is about.”

However, when Columbae residents went back to meet with R&DE and ResEd after the mural was painted, R&DE and ResEd representatives expressed frustration with the lack of explicit communication, along with concern about how Campus Planning would respond.

Breeland wrote in an email to The Daily that attendees of the original meeting had discussed the Residence Agreement’s prohibition on painting interior or exterior areas of campus housing. They also discussed the fact that the Columbae house’s “historic” designation would necessitate input from Campus Planning, the group in charge of maintaining and preserving historically significant architecture on campus.

Our understanding was that students would consider our suggestions and provide us a specific proposal for the mural to review,” Breeland wrote.

In hindsight, Gaiarin expressed regret that his co-op had not confirmed that this was a viable option with R&DE and ResEd.

“We were in kind of a jam for time, so with that half-baked permission, we decided to go ahead,” he said. “I think that there was a lack of responsibility on the part of the [Columbae] folks that were involved in the discussion because [the administration was] very much willing to work with us to make it happen.”

According to Breeland, R&DE then confirmed with Campus Planning that the mural would not be permitted.

We have explored alternatives, such as turning the doors around so the mural was on the interior,” Breeland wrote. “This, we learned, is not possible.”

Over the summer, Campus Planning replaced Columbae’s front door with an unadorned white one and now plans to repaint the door with the mural on it. According to Gaiarin, it would cost the house $5000 to buy the painted door back and preserve the original mural. Instead, the house is in the process of recreating the mural on canvas, he said.

In a follow-up email to The Daily, Gaiarin wrote that while Columbae “certainly made some mistakes” and that ResEd and R&DE “do not deserve to be heavily criticized” for their handling of the situation, the controversy “does provoke some alarming questions” about the University’s priorities when it comes to housing.

“For one, how can the University expect to be an institution that encourages students to practice artistic expression if maintaining the campus’ ‘country club’ aesthetic is always prioritized?” he wrote. “Wouldn’t students need a space to practice such expression without needing to feel confined by the University’s haute standards? And if that space isn’t in their own residence, then where?”

In his email, Gaiarin also criticized Campus Planning’s prioritization of the Columbae house’s historical status over current residents’ efforts to make the house a more inclusive space than it has been in the past.

“The house’s history is largely tied to its occupants, a sorority and later a co-op that have both historically been white and wealthy,” Gaiarin wrote. “In recent years, Columbae has made an intentional choice to make their community a space that actively uplifts the voices of POC residents and students.”

“Is history about keeping a door white and made of a specific variety of wood?” he continued. “Or is history about recognizing that our narratives are constantly evolving and that we are empowered to shape those narratives to affect the way we live today?”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Q&A: James Wang reflects on teaching design thinking at East Palo Alto Academy https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/28/qa-james-wang-reflects-on-teaching-design-thinking-at-east-palo-alto-academy/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/28/qa-james-wang-reflects-on-teaching-design-thinking-at-east-palo-alto-academy/#respond Mon, 28 Jan 2019 09:35:00 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1148769 In an after-school EPAA class, Wang and other volunteers from Stanford and StreetCode — which focuses its work in communities of color — teach the students design thinking and practical engineering skills.

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In partnership with local tech-training nonprofit StreetCode, James Wang ’20 is pioneering an effort to bring engineering and design principles developed at Stanford to students at East Palo Alto Academy (EPAA), a charter school in the historically low-income Silicon Valley suburb.

In an after-school EPAA class, Wang and other volunteers from Stanford and StreetCode — which focuses its work in communities of color — teach the students design thinking and practical engineering skills. As the class’s ongoing project, they take the students through the ideation process developed in the d.school to develop technology that makes life easier and more accessible for individuals in their community with physical disabilities.

The students then develop a prototype of their technology and present it to venture capitalists in an at the end of the school year. The class won the competition last year, earning more than $2,000 for their invention of a cane with high-visibility lights to assist individuals with impaired vision in walking safely at night.

This year, course volunteers and participants are working with Abigayil Tamara, a local community member who uses a wheelchair, to design a sensor to make navigating parking lots easier for her and others who use wheelchairs.

In conversation with The Daily, Wang discussed his experience teaching the class and shared some insights into the burgeoning design education field in East Palo Alto.

 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): So what exactly did you guys invent?

James Wang (JW): Basically, the device the students are working on is a sensor that you can attach to the side of a disability van that notifies people if they’ve parked in front of an access ramp. These vans have an eight-foot ramp so that someone using a mobility chair can get in and out of [the van]. So, even if you park in a handicap spot, if someone parks next to you, you can’t get in or out of your car.

We’re working with a community partner named Abigayil, and she has faced this problem for a while. We took the students through the whole ideation process, and they figured out that this is one big problem that she faces in her life. So they’re building this sensor that you can slap on the side of a car, and if another car blocks it, it’ll beep and flash, saying “warning, you’re blocking a disability access ramp.”

TSD: What has the ideation process been like? What sorts of other ideas did the group come up with before settling on the sensor?

JW: It is inspiring and hilarious. It reminds me of how I was when I was in high school, and it warms my heart. I remember in the ideation process when we were first figuring out what kind of problem we wanted to tackle in Abigayil’s life, and the problem of parking came up. The students recalled that she said that people blocked her parking space. Their initial ideas were so funny — “oh, let’s build a giant robot arm that deploys out of the top of the car and picks the other one up and tosses it away,” or “we’ll put a V-12, 600 horsepower engine in her wheelchair so that she doesn’t even need a car; she can just drive around at 80 miles per hour in her wheelchair.”

TSD: How do you think that East Palo Alto’s location, as a low-income community, factors into StreetCode’s work?

JW: One of the overarching missions of StreetCode is to carve out a niche in the Silicon Valley for the residents of East Palo Alto. Not only do they deserve to take a slice of the pie here; they’re also being pushed out at an unprecedented by gentrification. It’s horribly unjust for Amazon and Facebook to go into East Palo Alto — and even for Stanford — and to have its members completely displace people in the community.

I see this class, StreetCode and EPAA working to prepare students to participate in the tech ecosystem here so that they can have a voice and they can get what rightfully partially belongs to them.

East Palo Alto is traditionally seen as an underprivileged community that is at some sort of deficit when it comes to education and technology. However, every single middle school in East Palo Alto has a makerspace, which, as far as I know, is pretty unprecedented. I had never seen it. The students who are coming into my makerspace at the high school [level] are familiar with the tools already; they know what 3D printing is; they know what laser cutting is. I went to Palo Alto High School, and I didn’t know how to do that.

In a way, East Palo Alto is more willing to make more bold educational decisions. I don’t know why, but if I were to make a guess, it would be because they don’t have the helicopter parents of Palo Alto that impart so much inertia into the education system. The amount of innovation that I’ve seen in the East Palo Alto education system and the amount of care that I’ve seen the administrators and teachers give to their students in some ways far exceeds what I saw when I went to Paly [(Palo Alto High School)].

TSD: Do you think this class has made the students more interested in pursuing engineering in the future?

JW: They’re definitely enjoying it, and I think a lot of them want to be engineers. We’ve had some students move on to research internships doing database engineering; a lot of our students want to do entrepreneurship and start their own small companies. We have students doing super advanced projects, [like] designing electric scooters and drones.

But the point of my program is not to create engineers — that’s not the sole purpose. I see socio-emotional development and being able to to persistently tackle an issue without losing focus or losing motivation as the most important trait that you can instill in a student. And I facilitate that through project-based learning and STEM, just because it’s hands-on and gratifying. But I sort of see this whole technology thing as a Trojan horse to bring in these other skills that I think are more important.

TSD: How did you get inspired to pursue engineering education in the nonprofit space?

JW: [Going to Palo Alto High School] was a big influence for me…  I hated Paly so much. I had the worst experience there. I had friends who committed suicide there, and I struggled with a lot of mental health issues. I was miserable. To this day, I don’t think I’ve experienced the chronic dread and disillusionment as I felt at Paly.

When I was in high school, I thought a big portion of it was how dysfunctional I saw the education system to be. My opinion on this has changed slightly, but in high school I would have told you that we are learning skills that are not used in industry; we are learning skills that are sometimes heuristics that have since been proved wrong … and I really hated that.

So, I felt like if I was going to complain so much about education in high school, I had better do something about it afterward. I joined StreetCode my freshman year and started the design program, and we’ve been teaching at EPAA for a while now.

I don’t want to get too futuristic and romantic about the importance of education, but to me, updating and improving the education system is one of the most important challenges that we have to face in the next 20 years. I think what that requires is students to have a more deliberate education where they’re not just getting math and science crammed down their throats, but they’re [learning] to appreciate what there is in life and to be able to creatively and emotionally express themselves. I think our education system is not really preparing students for that now, and I think that’s really important.

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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TDX housing restored after University discovers ‘procedural flaw’ in SOE guidelines https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/26/tdx-housing-restored-after-university-discovers-procedural-flaw-in-soe-guidelines/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/26/tdx-housing-restored-after-university-discovers-procedural-flaw-in-soe-guidelines/#respond Sun, 27 Jan 2019 03:55:49 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1148754 The Stanford Office for Student Affairs reviewed its decision and discovered a procedural flaw in the guidelines provided to the Greek organizations preparing their reports.

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The Office of Student Affairs reversed its decision to revoke Theta Delta Chi’s (TDX) on-campus housing starting in the 2019-20 school year due to a “procedural flaw” in the fall 2018 Standards of Excellence (SOE) report. A memo communicating the decision was sent to the presidents of Greek organizations by Vice Provost for Student Affairs Susie Brubaker-Cole early Saturday evening.

“We deeply regret the anxiety and stress created by this situation,” Brubaker-Cole wrote to former TDX president Erik Ubel ’19 and current president Nico Garcia ’20.

According to Brubaker-Cole’s email, TDX received a score of “meets expectations” on its SOE report, making the fraternity eligible to keep its house.

Originally, the fraternity had been told it received a score of “needs improvement” for what would have been the fourth year in a row. According to Garcia, the fraternity’s score put the fraternity on “grounds for removal.”

The Stanford Office for Student Affairs reviewed its decision and discovered a procedural flaw in the guidelines provided to the Greek organizations preparing their reports. Specifically, the office decided that it had not clarified to the chapters that their score would be dependent on the scores of other chapters.

“We believe it is unfair for chapters to be judged by a criterion that is not clearly articulated in the university’s procedures,” Brubaker-Cole wrote in her memo.

Although TDX’s raw SOE score fell within the “meets expectations” range, in comparison with other chapters, its score was dropped to “needs improvement,” which resulted in the decision to unhouse the fraternity.

The Office for Student Affairs confirmed that this procedural flaw has “not affected any matters involving other Greek organizations this year or in the past.”

Since Residential and Dining Enterprises’ (R&DE) Jan. 18 decision that TDX would lose its housing, a petition written by TDX inviting Stanford community members to provide testimony supporting the fraternity garnered 1,400 signatures. The fraternity began gathering these signatures in preparation for an appeal of the decision to Residential Education (ResEd), which now will not be necessary.

Garcia said he believes the petition “absolutely” influenced the Office of Student Affairs’ reversal of its decision.

“The petition spread across campus very quickly,” Garcia said. “We received overwhelming support … We were the only ones who actually saw the responses, but the noise it created on campus was loud enough for the University to hear.”

In her email to Greek leadership, Brubaker-Cole wrote that Student Affairs is “supportive of Greek life at Stanford.”

Many Stanford community members have shared their concern that campus social life appears to be in a state of decline,” Brubaker-Cole continued. “Vibrant social life on campus is critical to a thriving and healthy campus community and to the personal health, well-being and success of students. We have begun to engage students in designing solutions, and more opportunities for engagement and planning are in the works.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu and Erin Woo at erinkwoo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Coast guard members miss first paycheck due to government shutdown https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/16/coast-guard-members-miss-first-paycheck-due-to-government-shutdown/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/16/coast-guard-members-miss-first-paycheck-due-to-government-shutdown/#respond Wed, 16 Jan 2019 08:00:31 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1148300 All 42,000 Coast Guard members — including approximately 4,000 Coast Guard members in the Bay Area — missed their first paycheck of 2019 yesterday as a result of the ongoing federal government shutdown.

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All 42,000 Coast Guard members — including approximately 4,000 Coast Guard members in the Bay Area — missed their first paycheck of 2019 yesterday as a result of the ongoing federal government shutdown. Like other unfunded government agencies, the Coast Guard has been operating on a limited basis during the shutdown, though active members have been working without pay to complete missions deemed necessary.

The shutdown is entering its fourth week, making it the longest on record. It has left the majority of federal agencies without a budget, putting thousands of workers deemed “nonessential” on furlough but requiring certain essential employees, such as Coast Guard servicemen and TSA staff, to continue working without pay.

The Department of Defense is funded during government shutdowns, but the Coast Guard — unlike other branches of the military — is housed within the Department of Homeland Security and thus lacks the funding required to pay its employees. The Coast Guard was able to make a one-time emergency payment to its members on Dec. 31, 2018, but the money has since run out.

According to Brandyn Hill, a spokesperson for the local 11th Coast Guard District, the Coast Guard serves a vital role in ensuring safety in the bodies of water that surround the Bay Area. The Guard regularly conducts search and rescue operations for boats in distress; aids in navigation for large commercial ships that come into Bay Area ports; marks safe water for ships using buoys, sound systems and lighthouses and maintains crews on standby to respond to urgent ecological challenges such as maritime oil spills.

During the shutdown, though, the Coast Guard must limit its activities — only pursuing missions crucial to “providing for national security, protecting life and property and protecting the environment,” Hill wrote in an email to The Daily.

The longer the shutdown lasts, the more difficult it will become for the Coast Guard to maintain mission readiness,” Hill continued.

While members of the Coast Guard can expect to receive back pay for the missed paychecks when the government reopens, the current lack of pay can create dire situations for families who depend on each paycheck to pay bills. Coast Guard leadership even released a guide suggesting that furloughed civilian employees might hold a garage sale or babysit to make up for missed income, naming bankruptcy as a “last option.”

The Coast Guard has since taken down the guide, saying in a statement that it “does not reflect the organization’s current efforts to support its workforce during the lapse.”

According to Hill, the nonprofit organization Coast Guard Mutual Assistance has been offering no-interest loans to junior members to pay for immediate needs, and banks and local communities are stepping up to provide financial support. The head of the Coast Guard, Commandant Admiral Karl Schultz, announced yesterday that Coast Guard Mutual Assistance received a $15 million grant from the United States Automobile Association to be distributed to the Coast Guard’s workforce.

Anja Cangemi, president of the East Bay Coast Guard Spouses Club, said local Coast Guard families have been hit especially hard by the shutdown, given the high cost of living in the Bay Area.

“It’s definitely one of the most expensive places in the country, so for military families, it tends to be a financial hardship, especially when you don’t receive your paycheck,” Cangemi said.

Cangemi, whose husband has served in the Coast Guard for 18 years, moved to Alameda with her family in 2017, where they will stay for the duration of her husband’s two- to four-year tour in the Bay Area. She said that the frequent relocation common among military families, who have to move as often as every two years, can make it even harder to lean on relatives during times of financial hardship.

“We’re originally from the East Coast, so we have no family support here in the area,” Cangemi said. “So trying to find things like childcare tends to be not only costly but a hardship on families.”

The East Bay city of Alameda, where the Coast Guard base is located, has largely rallied around its military families during the government shutdown. Small businesses, such as a coffee shop called The Local, have hosted donation drives to collect necessary items that Coast Guard families might not be able to afford without their paychecks. Cangemi said that a recent drive provided food for 186 families, who were each able to take four to five grocery bags’ worth of canned goods, groceries, diapers and other necessities.

Cangemi expressed gratitude for the support from the local community, which she called “heartwarming.” Still, she emphasized the hardship that the shutdown has imposed on Coast Guard families like her own.

“The situation is definitely a stressful one for our military families,” she said. “We’re not unknown to stresses that we deal with, considering the lifestyles we lead, but this is an unnecessary stress to add to our already stressful situation.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Border Patrol vehicle spotted on campus sparks concern https://stanforddaily.com/2018/12/11/border-patrol-vehicle-spotted-on-campus-sparks-concern/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/12/11/border-patrol-vehicle-spotted-on-campus-sparks-concern/#respond Tue, 11 Dec 2018 17:13:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1147791 Student sightings of a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle at the Oval Monday afternoon set in motion a wave of concern for the safety of undocumented students and workers on campus. The reason for the vehicle’s appearance on campus remains unclear, though no students or workers are known to have interacted with Border Patrol agents thus […]

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Student sightings of a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle at the Oval Monday afternoon set in motion a wave of concern for the safety of undocumented students and workers on campus. The reason for the vehicle’s appearance on campus remains unclear, though no students or workers are known to have interacted with Border Patrol agents thus far.

News of the vehicle sighting spread quickly. A widely circulated email, sent to the Diaspora listserv, all RAs on campus and multiple individual dorm listservs, stated that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had been spotted on campus. However, eyewitness Sreeram Venkatarao ’21 said that the car in fact was emblazoned with “US Customs and Border Protection,” indicating that it was a Border Patrol vehicle instead.

Though ICE and Border Patrol are both agencies that enforce US immigration policy, ICE is tasked with carrying out deportations. Border Patrol, meanwhile, aims to prevent unauthorized entry at or near the border.

Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) spokesperson Bill Larson also said that the van was likely affiliated with Border Patrol rather than ICE, though he was unable to confirm. He said that Border Patrol agents may have been on campus to meet with administrators or assist international students with visas. As of about 6:00 p.m. Monday, Larson said that the vehicle had left campus.

“I immediately found out about it from my dorm group chat, because I live in Casa Zapata, and there was a lot of concern,” said Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) Senator Rodolfo Salazar ’21.

“Everyone is trying to spread information about what to do if there is an incident of someone being pulled over or questioned,” Salazar continued, referencing Border Patrol’s practice of verifying immigration status during vehicle stops.

Salazar said that he promptly reached out to President Marc Tessier-Lavigne to see if he knew Border Patrol was on campus. Megan Pierson ’82, chief of staff to Tessier-Lavigne, told Salazar that while the president was traveling on business, she and her colleagues were “looking into the matter.”

In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson E.J. Miranda reiterated Pierson’s statement, writing that the University has “no information on this matter but [is] in the process of looking into it.”

“So far, it just seems like none of the administrators knew what was going on,” Salazar said. “There is general concern about student safety on campus … If Border Patrol is able to come on campus without informing any administrators, where is the line drawn in regard to who can actually come on campus?”

Stanford does not list a specific policy regarding whether or not immigration enforcement agents are allowed to come onto campus on their websites that outline resources for undocumented students, though the university “does not inquire about immigration status in the normal course of its duties” and “will not participate with other agencies in immigration enforcement activities unless legally required to do so.”

According to Salazar, residents of Casa Zapata also tried to reach out to the staff in Stern Dining to see if they could notify other R&DE employees of the Border Patrol sighting, worrying that they or their family members might be undocumented and at risk of legal consequences.

“I think it’s important to make everyone on Stanford’s campus aware of their presence, even if we’re not entirely sure about who was here and why they are here, just to make sure that everyone is protected,” Salazar said.

Since the election of President Trump two years ago, activists at Stanford have been attempting to make Stanford a “sanctuary campus,” urging the administration to put in place policies to protect undocumented students and workers from federal immigration enforcement. While President Tessier-Lavigne declined to label Stanford as a sanctuary campus in February 2017, the administration pledged to keep students’ and workers’ records private and connect students in need of legal support with the resources they need.

“The university continues to be committed to the safety and wellbeing of everyone in our community, of all backgrounds and immigration status,” Miranda wrote to The Daily.

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Watergate journalist Bob Woodward discusses the Trump presidency https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/09/watergate-journalist-bob-woodward-discusses-the-trump-presidency/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/09/watergate-journalist-bob-woodward-discusses-the-trump-presidency/#respond Fri, 09 Nov 2018 08:49:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1146629 Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Bob Woodward gave a talk on investigative journalism and the Trump presidency, which he referred to as “a pivot point in history,” Thursday night in Cemex Auditorium.

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Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Bob Woodward gave a talk on investigative journalism and the Trump presidency, which he referred to as “a pivot point in history,” Thursday night in Cemex Auditorium.

Former Washington Post editor and current communication lecturer RB Brenner hosted the event, which was part of the communication department’s 53rd annual Carlos Kelly McClatchy Symposium.

Woodward — who is currently an associate editor at The Post — has worked with the publication since the beginning of his career, when his reporting with Carl Bernstein on the Watergate scandal drove him to immense fame and won him and Bernstein a Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

Woodward later received a second Pulitzer for his coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a story on which he was the lead reporter. Woodward has also published 18 books, most of which have been about the office of the presidency and the most recent of which was his bestselling profile of President Donald Trump, “Fear.”

Woodward spoke at length about Trump, taking care to focus on the president’s policies rather than his demeanor. He said that Trump’s decision-making poses a great economic and foreign policy threat to America, especially with regards to immediate policy issues such as his large corporate tax cuts, tariff war with China and $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

“People say [Trump’s presidency is] not normal — I don’t worry about it not being normal,” Woodward said. “No president is normal. He was elected to not be normal; that shouldn’t be the index … [But] the old order is disintegrating; it is being supplanted.”

“There is something immovable about [Trump] on some of these really important foreign policy and economic issues,” he added.

He referred to the president’s approach to such matters as a “gamble” and asked, rhetorically, if a question from Brenner about whether Trump understands the separation of powers was “a question or a joke.”

Along with his criticism of Trump, Woodward expressed disappointment that the media has largely kept pace with Trump’s mercurial tendencies, as opposed to devoting more resources to long-term investigative pieces — the bread and butter of his own journalistic legacy.

“The problem in the media culture is the impatience and speed — Trump leads everyone around, and everyone takes the bait,” Woodward said, noting that the president has an “astonishing ability to seize the news cycle.”

“We cover his tweets as if [they] are major news… We’ve lost our capacity to really dig and understand the details,” he added.

Brenner asked Woodward to comment on the recurring comparison between the current Russia investigation and Watergate, which Woodward defined as Nixon’s “wars on the media, the system of justice and, in the end, on history.”

In response, Woodward reflected on a conversation he had with Sam Ervin (D-NC), who chaired the Senate Watergate Committee from 1973 to 1974. Woodward recalled Ervin telling him that Nixon was motivated by a “lust for political power.”

“I don’t know whether there is criminality … that relates to Trump,” Woodward said. “But if you are looking for a description of what drives him, I think it is a lust for political power.”

“By his own acknowledgement, he is a man who understands lust,” Woodward added, pausing amid laughter from the crowd. “He is a man who understands power. The title of the book, ‘Fear,’ comes from him telling me, ‘Real power is — I don’t like to use the word — real power is fear.’ And the lust for political power is dangerous.”

Woodward was hesitant to make predictions about the outcome of the Russia investigation. When asked about Trump’s recent firing of now-former attorney general Jeff Sessions — which has been compared to Nixon’s infamous “Saturday Night Massacre,” when he fired then-special prosecutor Archibald Cox — Woodward said the development could deeply imperil Trump’s presidency.

“The key word there is ‘could’ — well yes, it could,” he joked. “You know, Martians could land tomorrow. That’s the kind of inflammatory speculation that I do not know what it means. It definitely could be a crisis, the [special counsel Robert] Mueller investigation. [But] I think Trump knows enough to not make Nixon’s miscalculations.”

Anu Pugalia, a Palo Alto resident and longtime fan of Woodward’s, was among the audience members at the talk. He said that Woodward’s cautions against speculation resonated with him given the unpredictable nature of current events.

“Speculation is not a good thing,” said Pugalia. “We’re talking about Attorney General Sessions being fired and what will happen with Mueller — like [Woodward] was saying, nobody knows. He’s more focused on reporting something after it happens and digging up the facts.”

Woodward also provided insight into his own journalistic process of establishing rapport with senior officials, often granting them anonymity and working “from the outside in” to verify the information they provide him.

“I’ve done this for 47 years and I’ve never once gone to a White House briefing, because I knew I was not going to learn anything,” he said, adding that he learned from his Watergate reporting to instead “knock on people’s doors at night” to gain trust and personal insight from those in positions of power.

Such anecdotes left an impact on Pugalia, who expressed admiration for Woodward’s journalistic methodology.

“You just get a sound bite at a press conference, but if you really want to dig deep, you have to do the other things that he talked about, like going to somebody’s house at 11 at night,” Pugalia said. “That’s what makes him a great journalist.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

This article has been updated to reflect Archibald Cox’s correct role as special prosecutor. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that he served as the attorney general. The Daily regrets this error.

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Palo Alto voters strike down Measure F https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/07/palo-alto-voters-strike-down-measure-f/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/07/palo-alto-voters-strike-down-measure-f/#respond Wed, 07 Nov 2018 09:39:22 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1146417 In the midterm elections yesterday, Palo Alto voters decisively struck down Measure F, the local ballot initiative aimed at curbing healthcare spending that Stanford vehemently opposed.

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In the midterm elections yesterday, Palo Alto voters decisively struck down Measure F, the local ballot initiative aimed at curbing healthcare spending that Stanford University and Stanford Health Care vehemently opposed. Of the 11,762 counted ballots as of late Tuesday night, 78 percent of voters opposed the measure, while 22 percent supported it.

The measure would have forced local healthcare providers, including Stanford Hospital and various independent doctor’s offices in the city, to cap charges at no more than 15 percent more than the industry-established cost of the services provided. It was largely backed by Service Employees International Union United Health Workers (SEIU-UHW), the labor union that represents over 1800 workers at the Stanford University Medical Center and other healthcare providers across the state.

Though the ballot measure was not directly related to labor issues, SEIU-UHW viewed it as a prime opportunity to influence what they see as excessive costs in the Palo Alto healthcare market. They argued that Stanford Hospital’s yearly profits in excess of $200 million were inconsistent with the organization’s status as a nonprofit hospital.

“This is about transparency [and] letting people understand how much [they] are being charged and why [they] are being charged so much more than the clinic down the street or in the neighboring community,” Wherley told The Daily last month. “This is our chance as an organization to get healthcare costs under control.”

Stanford Health Care argued that their high operating budget was necessary to maintain any cost savings and that the bill provided would only be relevant to insurance companies, without changing healthcare costs for patients.

“I want to emphasize: This initiative actually does nothing to limit the prices charged to patients with insurance coverage,” said President and CEO of SHC David Entwistle in an interview with Stanford News. “Nothing in the initiative improves health care quality or patient safety. And nothing makes care more accessible to low-income and vulnerable groups.”

Palo Alto City Council also voted unanimously to oppose the measure in a June meeting, citing the bureaucratic burden that the measure would have placed on the city government. Palo Alto City Hall would have been in charge of enforcing the measure. The Palo Alto Online issued a vehement editorial opposing the measure in late September.  

Many small-scale healthcare practitioners also opposed Measure F, with many saying that the lost revenue as a result of the bill would have been so detrimental that they would have had to move their practice to a different municipality.

“The truth is, this ballot measure will limit my ability to have a viable dental practice because of my ZIP code,” local dentist James Stephens told the City Council earlier this year.

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Californians vote on 11 statewide propositions https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/07/californians-vote-on-11-statewide-propositions/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/07/californians-vote-on-11-statewide-propositions/#respond Wed, 07 Nov 2018 09:38:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1146436 On Election Day, California voters elected Democrat Gavin Newsom as their new governor over Republican challenger John Cox and decided the fate of 11 high-stakes statewide propositions affecting issues from children’s hospitals to rent control. Five propositions were passed, four were rejected and two had yet to be called early Wednesday morning. Political analysts kept […]

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On Election Day, California voters elected Democrat Gavin Newsom as their new governor over Republican challenger John Cox and decided the fate of 11 high-stakes statewide propositions affecting issues from children’s hospitals to rent control.

Five propositions were passed, four were rejected and two had yet to be called early Wednesday morning.

Political analysts kept close watch on the congressional races in Southern California, which played a pivotal role in Democrats’ successful efforts to regain control of the House of Representatives.

Nationwide, voters in 37 states weighed in on a total of 157 ballot measures on election day.

Propositions approved

Despite garnering fewer campaign contributions, Proposition 2 was passed, which will divert $2 billion from California’s Mental Health Services Act toward constructing approximately 20,000 units of supportive housing for people with severe mental illnesses who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

There are over 134,000 people living on the street in California, and as many as a third have an untreated mental illness.

“It finally releases the use of money that was previously already essentially gathered by the state in the aftermath of the passage of the millionaire’s tax a while ago,” said co-president of Stanford Democrats Gabe Rosen ’19.

“I think it’s great that that money can now go to people who actually need it and be put to a great purpose to assist some of the most vulnerable members of California’s homeless population,” he said.

Voters chose to approve Proposition 4 as well, which raises $1.5 billion in bonds to fund construction and expansion at California’s 13 children’s hospitals.

One of the beneficiaries of this proposition is Stanford Children’s Health, which runs the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and looks to receive $135 million in funding from the measure.

Chief medical officer at Stanford Children’s Health, Dennis Lund, said he was “thrilled” with the positive outcome.

“The funds provided by Prop 4 will allow us to move forward with much needed redesign and improvement plans for our neonatal intensive care unit,” Lund said. “Along with bringing in new technology, we will be able to offer families more privacy and a better family-centered care experience overall.”

Though Californians changed their clocks back last Sunday to end Daylight Savings Time, they embraced year-round daylight saving time in a landslide approval of Proposition 7. This approval will give the California State Legislature the authority to vote to end the biannual time change.

The reform, which proponents say will promote energy efficiency and reduce workplace injuries, will still need a two-thirds vote from the California State Legislature.

“At first glance [Prop 7] may appear to be a pretty quixotic ballot measure, addressing Daylight Saving Time of all things,” Rosen said.

“But the rationale really is there,” he added. “If it can assist the state in even a marginal capacity to reduce electricity consumption, it makes sense in that way. It is a small step toward helping the state achieve its greenhouse gas emission goals.”

Proposition 11, which passed by over a 20 percent margin, limits the scope of a 2016 decision by the California Supreme Court that made it unlawful for security guards to be forced to remain on call during breaks.

This measure was supported by ambulance operators and opposed by United EMS Workers, a labor union that represents 4,000 EMTs in California. Paramedics and ambulance workers who oppose the proposition say that they fall under this category and deserve such protections.

Proposition 12, which requires all egg-laying hens to be cage-free by the end of 2021 and requires farmers to give a minimum amount of space to calves and pigs, passed by a comfortable margin.

Stanford People for Animal Welfare (PAW) and California Democrats supported the proposition while Stanford College Republicans (SCR) and the California G.O.P. oppose the measure.

Responding to the outcome, Stanford PAW President Yelena Mandelshtam ’19 said the group encourages the passage of legislation to protect farm animals in California.

“We are very happy with the outcome of this vote, as it shows that a majority of California voters believe that farm animals should not live their lives in cruel confinement,” said Mandelshtam.

Propositions rejected

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the hotly contested Proposition 10, a ballot measure to allow local municipalities to expand rent control, in a victory for its opponents who made over $74 million in cash contributions to the ballot measure.

Stanford Democrats, who had mirrored the California Democrats in their support of Prop. 10, expressed disappointment that the proposition was rejected.

“Coming from New York City, I have seen the impact that rent control has had on maintaining a level of equity within the city’s housing stock,” said Rosen.

“[The failure of the proposition] removes a tool from the policy toolkit that legislators would have had to address given the affordability crisis that California is facing, especially in the Bay Area,” he added.

Stanford Coalition for Planning an Equitable 2035 (SCoPE 2035) were also “disappointed” with Prop 10’s defeat, which many of its housing advocacy partners supported, according to SCoPE 2035 member Matt Nissen ’20.

Hoover Institution research fellow David Henderson, who appeared in a television advertisement for the No on Prop 10 campaign, responded that it was a “great victory” that makes economic sense.

Prop 10 would have made housing even more scarce and more expensive, especially for more-mobile people,” Henderson said. “It would have helped the few who already have apartments and plan to stay there at the expense of property owners and prospective renters.”

There was a high-stakes campaign around Proposition 5, which voters decided not to pass. It would have allowed elderly and disabled homeowners to move in California and keep their existing property tax rate, with a possible adjustment.

Schools and local governments would each lose over $100 million in annual property taxes early on and about $1 billion per year as a result.

In a win for liberals, Proposition 6 also was rejected late on Tuesday night, leaving a 12-cent per gallon gas tax in place and rejecting an increase in the vehicle license fee. The proposition was slated to reduce funding for public transportation, roads and highways.

Proposition 8, which would have capped profits of kidney dialysis providers to 15 percent above the industry-defined cost of service, was rejected by a significant margin.

It affects 80,000 Californians experiencing kidney failure who need dialysis three times a week to cleanse their blood. It became the most expensive ballot measure in the state’s history, with supporters and opponents contributing a total of $130 million.

Propositions not yet called

Proposition 1, which would direct $3 billion toward the building and preservation of affordable rental housing in California, was too close to call at press time, with the “yes” vote leading 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent, with 47 percent of precincts reporting.

The proposition would additionally approve $1 billion worth of loans to veterans for the purchase of homes and farms.

Stanford Democrats supported the proposition, claiming that “its explicit funding for transit-oriented and mixed density development, among other provisions, will go a long way toward establishing a larger affordable housing stock.”

On the other hand, SCR opposed Proposition 1 because they believe it will have a negligible impact on California’s housing shortage.

Proposition 3 was also not yet called early Wednesday morning. The $8.9 billion bond measure was slated to fund environmental projects, including dam repairs, restorations of watersheds such as San Francisco Bay and wildlife protection.

The proposition comes in the wake of California’s record-breaking drought. Although the drought officially ended in September, it shrunk water and crop supplies, harmed wildlife and cost farmers billions in revenue.

Contact Michael Espinosa at mesp2021 ‘at’ stanford.edu, Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu and Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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After exhaustive registration efforts, student voter turnout in Tuesday midterms expected to spike from prior elections https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/06/after-exhaustive-registration-efforts-student-voter-turnout-in-tuesday-midterms-expected-to-spike-from-prior-elections/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/06/after-exhaustive-registration-efforts-student-voter-turnout-in-tuesday-midterms-expected-to-spike-from-prior-elections/#respond Tue, 06 Nov 2018 19:25:41 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1146327 On Tuesday — the day of the 2018 midterm — Stanford students registered to vote in Santa Clara County will be able to cast their ballots at any of five locations on campus: Tresidder Union, the Haas Center for Public Service, Stanford West Apartments, Escondido Elementary School and Nixon Elementary School. The polling places will […]

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On Tuesday — the day of the 2018 midterm — Stanford students registered to vote in Santa Clara County will be able to cast their ballots at any of five locations on campus: Tresidder Union, the Haas Center for Public Service, Stanford West Apartments, Escondido Elementary School and Nixon Elementary School. The polling places will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m., as required by California election law.

On-campus polls should expect to be especially busy today, as Stanford students have registered to vote at unprecedentedly high rates in this election. According to co-director of Stanford Votes Antonia Hellman ’21, the organization has registered 2,074 people for the election — a significant spike from 1,438 in the 2016 presidential election, and just 820 in the 2014 midterms.

“We not only made it to the count that we had for the 2016 election, but we actually got it by more than 600 registrations, which is huge,” said Hellman, saying that it was “very, very rare” to get more turnout for a midterm election than a presidential one. “There was a lot of excitement around the presidential election, but it did not translate into registration, at least on many college campuses.”

The movement to get Stanford students registered to vote has been particularly active this year, in spite of Stanford students’ history of low voter turnout. Though millennial voter turnout in the 2016 election was low across the board, Stanford fared particularly poorly on this front. Fewer than 50 percent of students voted in 2016, below the average for higher education institutions. Fewer than one in five voted in the 2014 midterms.

In collaboration with other on- and off-campus organizations, like Stanford in Government and the League of Women Voters, Stanford Votes has aimed to make voting as easy as possible for Stanford students over the course of the quarter. Having polling places in well-trafficked areas such as Tresidder and the Haas Center, said Hellman, should make voting convenient for students registered in Santa Clara County. Stanford Votes also has been providing resources such as postage and printing services for students mailing in absentee ballots.

“We just wanted to make things as easy as possible, because voting can seem kind of difficult,” said Hellman.

Hellman expressed hope that the strong political opinions held by young people would translate into better turnout from this demographic.

“We’re the ones who are going to be living in the future of America, and it’s kind of sad if we don’t actually take advantage of the opportunity that we have to shape what that America looks like,” Hellman said. “There are a lot of people out there who have really strong political opinions and don’t vote, and that doesn’t make sense to me — if you believe in one way or another about politics, then you should feel powerful enough to go out and vote.”

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Election 2018: The Stanford Daily’s Voter Guide to California’s Ballot Propositions https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/29/election-2018-the-stanford-dailys-voter-guide-to-californias-ballot-propositions/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/29/election-2018-the-stanford-dailys-voter-guide-to-californias-ballot-propositions/#respond Tue, 30 Oct 2018 06:06:46 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1145849 This article is the second in a two-part series of voter guides leading up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections. Hover over the plus signs in the graphic below for a summary of the propositions and then click on the embedded link for more information about the campus and public debate. On Nov. 6, California’s […]

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This article is the second in a two-part series of voter guides leading up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections.

Hover over the plus signs in the graphic below for a summary of the propositions and then click on the embedded link for more information about the campus and public debate.

Election 2018: The Stanford Daily’s Voter Guide to California’s Ballot PropositionsOn Nov. 6, California’s voters will weigh 11 ballot propositions in addition to electing officials and representatives to the House and Senate. Billions of dollars are at stake as voters decide whether to direct money towards affordable housing, road infrastructure, children’s hospital and other initiatives. If passed, the propositions effectively alter the law under California’s Constitution.

Though the propositions number one through 12, only 11 propositions remain on the ballot; the California Supreme Court removed the Calexit-inspired Proposition 9 from the ballot in July. The measure, which asked the government to divide California into three states, reportedly raised  “significant” questions about its legal validity.

“We conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election,” the Court wrote.

4 out of the 11 propositions on the ballot are bond measures, which ask voters to approve or deny additional funding.

As of early October, 1,214 Stanford community members have registered to vote, StanfordVotes co-director Antonia Hellman ’21 reported to The Daily. This marks a significant increase from last year’s midterm, where 800 people registered from Stanford.

Voter enthusiasm for the 2018 midterm elections is also unusually high across the nation, according to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center. Political analysts, citing the high primary turnout, suggest that the Trump presidency has spurred the surge of self-reported interest in the elections.

Following The Daily’s coverage of local and state races, this voter guide breaks down each of the 11 propositions and gauges the current political and campus debate surrounding them.

This table illustrates the positions of California’s Democratic and Republican Parties on the November 2018 ballot propositions.

Election 2018: The Stanford Daily’s Voter Guide to California’s Ballot Propositions

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu and Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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New York Times chairman discusses digital media, presidential election coverage https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/26/new-york-times-chairman-discusses-digital-media-presidential-election-coverage/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/26/new-york-times-chairman-discusses-digital-media-presidential-election-coverage/#respond Fri, 26 Oct 2018 07:42:41 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1145717 Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., current chairman of The New York Times Company and former New York Times publisher, spoke about polarization and hostility toward the media on Thursday night in Cemex Auditorium.

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Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., current chairman of The New York Times Company and former New York Times publisher, spoke about polarization and hostility toward the media on Thursday night in Cemex Auditorium.

The event was co-sponsored by the communications department, John K. Knight Journalism Fellowships, Stanford Law School and Stanford Continuing Studies, and hosted by communications professor and former New York Times Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman ’70.

The overwhelming shift to digital media in recent years was a key focus of Sulzberger’s remarks. He cited the statistic that, of The Times’ 3.8 million current subscribers, almost three million only read the paper in digital form. He also spoke to the challenges that The Times has faced in monetizing this new type of readership; while ad sales constituted almost all of the paper’s profit before the digital revolution, he said that circulation now pulls in the majority of its revenue.

“In terms of the digital revolution, it was being able to find a way to embrace the fact that the business model was shifting in a dramatic way,” he said. “Whole structures that had been set up to support a very profitable business of printing the paper full of ads and getting it to your door – that model was coming undone. And that was very hard.”

Though Sulzberger confirmed that The Times benefited from an increase in readership after the 2016 election – which many in the business refer to as the “Trump Bump” – he said that the president’s hostile stance toward media is “dangerous” and “very destructive to democracy,” going so far as to call it “slander.”

Sulzberger recalled admonishing Trump’s anti-media rhetoric to the then-president-elect’s face when the two met in late 2016.

Pointing to a signed photograph of Richard Nixon, he said to Trump, “That was the last president who took on a free press – look what happened to him.”

Covering Trump’s mercurial statements and actions has also been a challenge at The Times, Sulzberger said. He explained that the decision to refer to Trump as a “liar,” given his proclivity for making false statements, was one that went all the way up to Executive Editor Dean Baquet. 

“When he knowingly states a falsehood, when that falsehood is brought to his attention and he acknowledges that it’s a falsehood and then states it again and again, that’s lying,” Sulzberger said. “It’s about intent.”

Sulzberger comes from a long line of New York Times leadership; his great-grandfather bought the paper in 1896 as it was facing bankruptcy, and each generation since in the family has served as publisher. At the end of 2017, Sulzberger announced that he would be ceding his role as publisher to his son, Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger.

Sulzberger spoke proudly of his family’s dynastic tradition at the Times, saying that their connection to the institution and connection to each other has helped maintain this longstanding unity. Taubman, who worked closely with Sulzberger, relayed an anecdote in which, in an interview with George W. Bush, Sulzberger joked to the president that one thing they shared in common was that they both had inherited their roles from their fathers.

“He did not think it was funny at all,” said Sulzberger, amid laughter from the audience.

Sulzberger discussed some of the managerial decisions he has made over the course of his career. Taubman notably asked Sulzberger about his controversial choice to oversee the dismissal of two executive editors at The Times, Howell Raines and Jill Abramson. Sulzberger said he would not be comfortable discussing the specifics of those decisions, but did say that each was made largely due to the editors’ management styles.

Sulzberger also addressed The Times’ recent decision to publish an anonymous op-ed by a senior member of the Trump administration that detailed the measures Trump’s staff members have taken to block what they see as the president’s most dangerous behavior. Sulzberger said that only four people – not including him – know  who wrote the piece, but added that he is confident in the vetting process undertaken by those individuals.

“On the news side, we run anonymous sources all the time – sometimes, that’s the only way you’re going to get the information you need,” said Sulzberger. “It’s very rare to do it for an opinion piece, because for opinions it’s important to know the context.”

“We had to make sure that this was a serious enough person in the organization, at a senior enough level, that were it ever to come out who this person was … that everyone would say, ‘Okay, that made sense,’” he continued.

Despite the challenges facing The Times and other news organizations, Sulzberger predicted that time will ultimately be the solution to the country’s polarization, adding that he is “more than sanguine that the truth would prevail.”

John Woodfill Ph.D. ’92, who was also in the audience, said that he appreciated Sulzberger’s optimism that “things would fix themselves.”

Woodfill added that the challenges Sulzberger discussed “seem like such a critical issue right now, with questions about fake news and newspapers and the Trump presidency,” saying that the event was a timely one to address these issues.

“Our country splits apart and comes back together,” Sulzberger said, citing examples of immense discord such as the Civil War and the era of McCarthyism. “I have great faith in this country and great faith in all of us.”

 

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that The Times’ “executive editorial board,” rather than the executive editor, has considered the use of the term “lie” in the paper’s news coverage of Trump. The Daily regrets the error.  

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Stanford Hospital, union spar over healthcare initiative https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/10/stanford-hospital-union-spar-over-healthcare-initiative/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/10/stanford-hospital-union-spar-over-healthcare-initiative/#respond Wed, 10 Oct 2018 07:29:52 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144656 Debate over Measure F, a Palo Alto ballot initiative that aims to curb healthcare costs in the city, has intensified as the November election approaches.

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Debate over Measure F, a Palo Alto ballot initiative that aims to curb healthcare costs in the city, has intensified as the November election approaches.

The measure would give the city of Palo Alto the authority to mandate that hospitals and other medical service providers reimburse patients and insurance companies who are charged more than 15 percent above the industry-established cost of the services provided.

Sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) — the union that represents over 1800 healthcare workers at the Stanford University Medical Center — Measure F collected over 3500 signatures of support in a petition submitted to the City of Palo Alto in May. It only needed 2407 to qualify.

Potential impacts on quality of care

Stanford publicly expressed opposition to the measure, positing that it threatens “Stanford Health Care’s ability to provide top-quality health care to patients from Palo Alto and across the region,” according to a statement published in Stanford News.

Stanford claims that Measure F wouldn’t cut health care costs for insured patients. Instead, SHC warns that the proposal would slash their budget by 25 percent, forcing them to significantly cut back on staff and possibly terminate many of their health care services and programs.  

President and CEO of Stanford Health Care (SHC) David Entwistle explained in a Stanford News Q&A that the measure does not factor in additional expenses to the cost of care, such as technology and management expenses, that are critical to its health care provision.

In an email to The Daily, SHC Chief Communications Officer Stephanie Bruzzese conveyed SHC’s view that Measure F would force it to “reconsider how to use the new hospital building [and] eliminate plans to retrofit current facilities.”

Sean Wherley, the spokesman for SEIU-UHW, maintained that the measure is necessary to hold local health care providers and the city of Palo Alto accountable for what the union sees as habitual over-charging for health care services.

“This is about transparency [and] letting people understand how much [they] are being charged, and why [they] are being charged so much more than the clinic down the street or in the neighboring community,” Wherley said. “This is our chance as an organization to get healthcare costs under control.”

Wherley pointed out that though Stanford Hospital is registered as a nonprofit, it continues to turn a profit each year. A 2016 study found that it was in fact one of the top 10 most profitable hospitals in the country, bringing in a profit of $224.7 million in 2013. According to SEIU-UHW, Stanford Health Care reported a $234 million profit last year.

“We are saying, ‘you’re a nonprofit; you are supposed to be serving the community’s needs; you are not supposed to be padding your bank account,’” Wherley said.

According to Bruzzese, these resources are necessary to maintain Stanford Health Care’s top-notch specialists, facilities, research and community benefit program. She wrote that SHC reinvests “100 percent” of their profit margin by the year’s end.

“To be a leader in patient care, we must continuously reinvest in our care delivery system — including highly trained specialists, the latest technology and a new $2.1 billion hospital that complies with seismic safety standards,” she wrote. “Our operating margin allows us to make the investments we need to maintain the highest level of excellence in care, training and research.”

Entwistle also refuted the notion that Measure F would promote health care accessibility and lower patient costs in the community.

“I want to emphasize: This initiative actually does nothing to limit the prices charged to patients with insurance coverage,” he said. “Nothing in the initiative improves health care quality or patient safety. And nothing makes care more accessible to low-income and vulnerable groups.”

Bruzzese explained that this is because the measure would force health care providers to reimburse insurance companies for excess costs without requiring that the savings be passed on to the patients.

Effect on small practices and the city

Palo Alto’s many smaller health care clinics would also be impacted financially by Measure F, and critics fear that these providers may move their practice out of the city if the initiative goes into effect.

James Stephens, a dentist who has been practicing for 36 years in Palo Alto, told the Palo Alto City Council that he likely would move to Mountain View if Measure F is passed.

The truth is, this ballot measure will limit my ability to have a viable dental practice because of my ZIP code,” Stephens said.

Other small-scale health care practitioners, such as pediatric dentist Chris Lee, argued that the blanket 15 percent cap on markup does not take into consideration the many nuances involved in medical care and billing. He explained to the City Council that his pediatric work is often far more time-consuming and costly than what insurance will cover due to children’s common anxiety about receiving dental care.

Providing quality services is complicated, and dental billing isn’t as simple as drill, fill and bill,” Lee said.

Measure F has also been criticized for creating a potentially unreasonable burden for Palo Alto. The Palo Alto Weekly editorial board wrote that the measure would “impose unreasonable and expensive burdens on local government and taxpayers.”

Palo Alto City Council members voted unanimously on June 11 to oppose Measure F, citing a lack of adequate bureaucratic infrastructure to regulate the enormous quantity of healthcare charges coming from Stanford and other local health care providers. However, they also voted unanimously to certify the petition that SEIU-UHW coordinated, which confirmed that the measure would appear on the November ballot.

“We’re not equipped to handle this,” City Manager James Keene said at the meeting. “We need to recognize that this has been dropped on us.”

Bruzzese agreed that the measure would be excessively costly for the city of Palo Alto.

“Under Measure F, the city would be required to enforce a new and complex health care regulation, which will require a significant investment of staff time and millions in taxpayer dollars,” she wrote. “This new drain on city resources will siphon money away from other critical public services, such as fire and law enforcement.”

Wherley expressed doubt that Measure F would impose such a large administrative burden on the city.

“That’s an exaggeration, one fed to [City Council] by the health care providers,” Wherley said. “[The health care providers] are already having their books tightly audited and reviewed. This is not going to require an investment of hiring multiple staff; the real work has already been done as part of the requirement of operating a health care entity.”

City Council staff also published a report summarizing the myriad implementation costs and constraints that the measure would impose on the city government, as well as the importance of the medical sector to the Palo Alto economy.

“If the Initiative Measure passes … residents who use affected medical providers could experience a decrease in their health care costs,” the report read. “If these service providers left Palo Alto, however, those cost reductions would not occur, and city residents would need to travel further to obtain medical services.”

The City Council report swayed some members of the Stanford Coalition for Healthcare Reform (SCHR), an activist group on campus that had previously supported Measure F.

“We support the organizing being done by SEIU-UHW, and we’re thankful for all of the work that they’ve had, but there are divisions in our coalition along that measure,” said Hannah Zimmerman ’21, an organizer of SCHR. “Everyone supports institutional change, and while I personally will support the measure, I can’t force divisions into my coalition when we have so much room to do so much important work on health care activism.”

Sarah Chen ’21, another organizer of SCHR, added that the group plans to shift its focus to on-campus institutional health care reform as opposed to the citywide measure, calling this local activism a “better approach to improving Stanford Hospital.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Mountain View curbs free food at Facebook https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/02/mountain-view-curbs-free-food-at-facebook/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/02/mountain-view-curbs-free-food-at-facebook/#respond Tue, 02 Oct 2018 08:05:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144197 As internship recruiting season gets underway, Stanford’s many tech hopefuls will have to consider an unusual policy at Facebook’s soon-to-open Mountain View office space: no fully-subsidized cafeterias will be allowed in the office.

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As internship recruiting season gets underway, Stanford’s many tech hopefuls will have to consider an unusual policy at Facebook’s soon-to-open Mountain View office space: no fully-subsidized cafeterias will be allowed in the office.

The offices, which will house about 2,000 employees and are due to open in late 2018, are part of the San Antonio Center, a mixed-use development on the corner of El Camino and Showers Drive that encompasses office space, restaurants, retail stores and apartments. The City of Mountain View’s decision to curb corporate cafeterias in this space represents an effort to protect San Antonio Center restaurants, who would face steep competition with the renowned gourmet food Facebook offers its employees for free.

“This was our way of making sure that these restaurants have demand during all the peak times that they need to survive financially,” said Chris Clark ’05, a member of Mountain View City Council who served as mayor in 2014. “The housing [at the San Antonio Center] supports them, giving them an evening crowd and a weekend crowd, but that alone won’t be enough to support them if they don’t have any daytime traffic.”

Shonda Ranson, the communications coordinator for the city of Mountain View, clarified that the corporate cafeteria ban was not a city-wide policy; rather, it was implemented as part of the recent redevelopment for the San Antonio Center in particular. She expressed hope that the San Antonio Center’s location and design would make the policy easier for Facebook employees to navigate.

“[The San Antonio Center] is right next to a train station — there’s no reason for people to even bring cars in the area and no reason to have to leave the complex to get food,” Ranson said. “It was designed in a very specific way to reduce traffic and to make the neighborhood successful and appealing for people who live and work there.”

According to a survey conducted by Bridging Education Ambition and Meaningful Work (BEAM) in 2017, almost 20 percent of Stanford graduates go into computer science roles, with giants like Facebook, Google and Microsoft topping the list of destinations. Companies like these, in their effort to recruit the best newly-minted tech talent, have made fancy and fully subsidized meals the new normal in Silicon Valley — Dropbox’s free cafeteria even employs chefs with experience at Michelin-starred restaurants.

Clark, who also serves as the Chief Operating Officer at the San Francisco based artificial intelligence company OpenAI, was understanding of the steep labor market competition that tech companies face and how much perks like free food can help attract talent. He voted against the cafeteria provision, though he says he “certainly saw the concerns” of his fellow councilmembers.

“At my day job… we feed our employees for free, twice a day,” Clark said. “It makes it really difficult to compete in a marketplace if you don’t offer free food.”

According to Clark, there is some flexibility in the San Antonio Center policy, and Facebook will be allowed to propose an alternate solution to balance the needs of the local businesses with its culture of employee benefits. He said that he expects Facebook to propose a “hybrid” structure, such as vouchers to local restaurants or opening the cafeteria to the public.

Harrison expressed Facebook’s intent to maintain an open dialogue with the City of Mountain View to come to a mutually beneficial solution.

“We are committed to being a good neighbor, and remaining respectful and mindful of how we approach our expansion,” he said. “We’re working hard to develop a community friendly and viable food service option for the Mountain View office.”

Though Mountain View is the first Silicon Valley city to limit subsidized corporate food, other municipalities may follow close behind. Over the summer, San Francisco Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Ahsha Safaí proposed a city-wide ban on new construction of new employee cafeterias, fueling the ongoing tension between small, local businesses and the the city’s burgeoning tech industry.

Clark worried that San Francisco’s proposed policy could produce too much backlash from the tech industry to be worthwhile, instead advocating that cities follow Mountain View’s case-by-case approach to regulation.

“If there is a particular area where there are significant issues retaining restaurants, maybe [cities] can come up with a provision for that specific area, and work with the developer just like we did,” Clark said. “But an outright city-wide ban will backfire.”

Many of the restaurants in the San Antonio Center are starting to create plans to market to the new Facebook employees in the complex, according to Ranson. She said that the Milk Pail Market, an independent grocery store that had been at risk of going out of business during the Center’s redevelopment project, was in talks with Facebook about creating prepackaged meals geared toward employees looking for a quick midday bite.

“A lot of small, independent restaurants had been impacted when some of these companies went in-house with their food offerings,” Steve Rasmussen, the owner of Milk Pail Market, told The San Francisco Chronicle this summer. “I think collaboration is vital, and it makes total sense.”

 

This article has been updated. A previous version inaccurately stated that Chris Clark was the Chief Operating Officer at Y Combinator, instead of at OpenAI. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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After Stanford affiliate offers gripping testimony of assault, Supreme Court nominee remains unswerving in denial https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/27/after-stanford-affiliate-offers-gripping-testimony-of-assault-supreme-court-nominee-remains-unswerving-in-denial/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/27/after-stanford-affiliate-offers-gripping-testimony-of-assault-supreme-court-nominee-remains-unswerving-in-denial/#respond Fri, 28 Sep 2018 02:13:25 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144041 In diametrically opposed but equally emotional testimony, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Bay Area-based and Stanford-affiliated research psychologist Christine Blasey Ford, faced off in a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. The explosive hearing, in which senators questioned Ford and Kavanaugh for almost nine hours in total, will play an important role in the votes of key senators in the Senate-wide confirmation vote scheduled for Friday.

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In diametrically opposed but equally emotional testimony, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Bay Area-based and Stanford-affiliated research psychologist Christine Blasey Ford, faced off in a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. The explosive hearing, in which senators questioned Ford and Kavanaugh for almost nine hours in total, will play an important role in the votes of key senators in the Senate-wide confirmation vote scheduled for Friday.

The confirmation of the embattled Kavanaugh, which was thrown into turmoil when Ford and two other women accused the judge of sexual assault, would give him a lifelong seat on the Supreme Court and create the most conservative bench in generations.

Since Republicans hold a thin 51-49 majority in the Senate, they cannot afford to lose more than one vote to ensure the Kavanaugh nomination. Republican senators Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine all said that they would determine their votes after the hearing. Some red-state Democrats, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, also have yet to determine how they will vote.

Stanford’s take

Members of the Stanford community have remained divisive on the issue of Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

Michele Dauber, the Stanford Law School professor who has been an outspoken critic of public figures accused of sexual misconduct, questioned why Republicans were so willing to defend Kavanaugh when there were plenty of other equally conservative, less controversial judges who could be more easily confirmed.

“I can’t understand [Republicans’] attachment to him because there are plenty of other Republican judges who are anti-choice and pro-business … including some women, who have never been, nor will ever be, credibly accused of sexual assault,” she said. “The only way I can explain it is that the Republican party in this country simply does not care about violence against women — just does not care.”

Dauber said that, if Republicans confirm Kavanaugh, “they are basically signing their death warrants.”

In a subsequent statement to The Daily, Dauber clarified that she meant that Republicans would sign their “political” death warrants, and did not intend any overtones of violence.

“I think they will lose the midterms — they will definitely lose the House and might even lose the Senate — and might really damage their standing with women for a generation,” she said.

Prior to the hearing, the Stanford College Republicans released a statement on Facebook praising Kavanaugh for his pro-life beliefs and vehemently criticizing Democrats’ attempt to stop his confirmation.

For the left, the vicious attempt to sink Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has NEVER been about genuine concerns over sexual assault allegations: rather, it has always been about protecting the ‘right’ of the wicked and selfish to murder children,” they wrote.

“Republicans must stand firm, and confirm Brett Kavanaugh,” the Facebook post continued. “To do otherwise is to acquiesce to those who act solely out of a desire to protect the ‘right’ to kill.”

Meanwhile, Gabe Rosen ’19, co-president of Stanford Democrats, praised Ford for the “immense courage” she showed in testifying.

“The harrowing details that she recounted of her sexual assault bring to light the fundamental deficiencies of this administration’s nominee for the Supreme Court,” he said. “It’s my sincere hope that he’s removed from consideration for the court and prevented from receiving a vote — a vote, I’d like to remind people, that Merrick Garland was denied during his nomination years ago out of pure partisanship.”

As students across campus tuned into the news to watch the testimonies of Ford and Kavanaugh, The Women’s Community Center (WCC) opened its doors to the community in solidarity with students who might find the hearings distressing. Offering tea, snacks, crafts and lunch, WCC hoped to provide space and resources to members of the community troubled by the public sexual assault scandal.

The hearing

Ford spoke first in the hearing. She opened her testimony with a prepared statement, published by The New York Times yesterday, in which she admitted that she was “terrified” to be testifying but nevertheless recounted details of her assault. She claimed that Kavanaugh groped her, tried to remove her clothes and covered her mouth to stop her from screaming at a high school party and in the presence of his friend, Mark Judge.

Brett’s assault on me drastically altered my life. For a very long time, I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone the details,” she said. “I tried to convince myself that because Brett did not rape me; I should be able to move on and just pretend that it had never happened.”

Asked by Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) how sure she was that Kavanaugh was the man who assaulted her, she said that she was “100 percent” certain.

Democratic senators frequently framed their questions in the context of gratitude to Ford for her courage in coming forward.

“You are speaking truth that this country needs to understand,” Cory Booker ’91 M.A. ’92, a New Jersey Democrat, told Ford, “and how we deal with survivors who come forward right now is unacceptable… Your brilliance, shining light onto this — speaking your truth — is nothing short of heroic.”

Booker has been a prominent figure in the opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination, at several points releasing documents from Kavanaugh’s past that otherwise would likely have been kept confidential by the Judiciary Committee. An opinion piece Booker wrote for The Daily in 1992 — wherein he used a memory of groping a drunk friend at 15 to illustrate the role toxic masculinity plays in rape culture — has also resurfaced amid his vocal criticism of Kavanaugh.

Republicans’ line of questioning, which was conducted by the Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell who they retained for the hearing, focused more on clarifying the details of the assault. Mitchell asked Ford to approximate the location of the event on a map and asked her how she got to the party, six miles away from her house, if she could not yet drive. Ford could not recall who drove her to the party.

As Ford’s part of the hearing concluded, Senator Grassley submitted to the record three sworn statements from Kavanaugh and two other alleged party attendees claiming no knowledge of the incident. In response, Senator Blumenthal objected, saying that these individuals should all be called forward to testify if their statements were to be submitted. Other Democratic senators moved to submit letters attesting to Ford’s credibility in addition.

Kavanaugh began his statements after Ford finished her testimony. Visibly angry, he accused Democratic senators of orchestrating a “grotesque and coordinated character assassination,” calling the confirmation process a “circus.”

“This allegation was unleashed and publicly deployed over Dr. Ford’s wishes,” he said. “And then, and then — as no doubt was expected, if not planned, came a long series of false, last-minute smears designed to scare me and drive me out of the process.”

“I am innocent of this charge. I intend no ill will toward Dr. Ford and her family,” he continued. Fighting back tears, he recounted that his young daughter had suggested the family pray for Ford the night before the hearing. “That’s a lot of wisdom from a 10-year-old,” he said.

During Kavanaugh’s testimony, Mitchell continued to ask questions on behalf of Republican senators. She began her line of questioning by asking Kavanaugh if he committed the acts that Ford alleged; Kavanaugh responded “no” to each detail, denying ever having been in a room with Ford and Judge or ever having any sexual contact with Ford.

From the Democratic side, Dick Durbin (D-IL) pushed Kavanaugh to ask White House council Don McGahn to have the FBI prove his innocence.

“If there is no truth, the FBI investigation will show that,” Durbin said. “Are you afraid that it might not?”

Kavanaugh responded that he was “telling the truth” but refused to ask for the FBI investigation, saying that the Judiciary Committee was responsible for investigating.

As the emotional valence of the hearing continued to increase late in the day, Lindsey Graham fervently defended Kavanaugh.

I cannot imagine what you and your family have gone through…. I hope the American people can see through this sham,” Graham said to Kavanaugh. Turning angrily on Democrats, he accused the left of wanting to “destroy this guy’s life, hold this seat open and hope you win in 2020.”

Though Ford was the first woman to come forward accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, two others have since followed her lead. In an article on Sunday, The New Yorker reported an allegation by Debbie Ramirez, Kavanaugh’s former classmate who accused the judge of exposing himself to her at an alcohol-soaked college party.

Following the Ramirez allegation, Julie Swetnick came forward alleging that Kavanaugh was at a high school party where she was sexually assaulted by many male attendees, and that Kavanaugh targeted girls at the parties to assault by spiking their drinks with disorienting drugs. Julie Swetnick is represented by Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer who has risen to national prominence as the scandal has come to light.

Under questioning from Feinstein, Kavanaugh doubled down on his denial of these allegations as well, calling them a “farce.”

“This has destroyed my family and my good name,” he said. “This has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit.”

 

This article has been updated to provide additional detail on Rachel Mitchell’s role in the hearing and to clarify a statement from Stanford Law professor Michele Dauber. 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Calexit supporters relaunch campaign with proposals to create Native American nation https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/27/final-hf-calexit-supporters-relaunch-campaign-with-proposals-to-create-a-north-american-nation/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/27/final-hf-calexit-supporters-relaunch-campaign-with-proposals-to-create-a-north-american-nation/#respond Thu, 27 Sep 2018 07:03:22 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1143965 CalExit, the most recent movement calling for California’s secession from the United States, gained momentum following the 2016 presidential election, which Donald Trump won despite the state of California voting 61.5% for Hillary Clinton.

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CalExit, the most recent movement calling for California’s secession from the United States, gained momentum following the 2016 presidential election, which Donald Trump won despite the state of California voting 61.5 percent for Hillary Clinton.

The movement, part of a broader campaign called Yes California, had been viewed by many as more of a fringe group in the past, but the troubled relationship between California and President Trump helped get CalExit trending on social media in the months following the election.

The Stanford Democrats have no official position on the Calexit proposition and have not discussed the movement before, according to its vice president, Matt Wigler ’19, who is also an ASSU senator.

“I think the idea of CalExit is ridiculous,” Wigler said, voicing his personal opinion. “Neither the state nor the country would be as whole — nor would either be as prosperous — without the other.”

Wigler also suggested there are ties between the Yes California campaign and Russian “anti-globalist” groups. Its founder, Louis Marinelli, spends at least some of his time in Russia and works with a group suspected to have links to the Kremlin.

“It’s also worth noting with suspicion the support the Kremlin appears to have put into propping up CalExit buzz as part of its broader campaign to sow division and discord across our nation,” Wigler said.

Offering their official statement on secession, the Stanford College Republicans (SCR) expressed their disappointment with the movement.

“The Democrats tried secession in 1860 because they didn’t like the outcome of a presidential election and the fact that it would force them to recognize life and liberty,” wrote SCR member Philip Eykamp 20 in an email to The Daily. “We’re disappointed that some Democrats in California want to repeat history in 2020.”

Despite two unsuccessful attempts in the past, those behind the CalExit movement have sought once again to place a referendum on California’s membership of the union on the statewide ballot. To be put up for a statewide vote next year, the proposal needs more than 365,000 signatures by Oct. 17.

As the deadline fast approaches, Yes California has revamped its tactics.

In July, for instance, the group introduced an additional objective to its campaign. Not only will Yes California push for independence, but it will also campaign to construct an “autonomous Native American nation” that encompasses half of the independent state from the border of Mexico to the state boundary shared with Oregon.

“Why not do something to right some of the wrongs of the past to the native American people, and give them back their land?” Marinelli said.

Earlier this month, Yes California made another change to its strategy, postponing its ballot referendum approach in favor of convincing Republican states to support their breakaway efforts.

The new approach is to persuade 25 of the 31 Republican-held legislatures to adopt “consent to secede” resolutions, and then place the independence question before Californian voters.

“We are going to rely on the deep hatred for California that exists in red America,” Marinelli told the Washington Times.

Yes California hopes gaining consent from red states will reassure Californians that the movement is constitutional. CalExit faced questions of legitimacy after the California Supreme Court pulled a related proposal, known as Cal 3, from the November 2018 state ballot. Launched by Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Stanford alumnus Tim Draper ’80, it would have split California into three while retaining the state’s place in the union.

Nevertheless, Yes California’s dreams of secession are unlikely to become a reality, as the majority of Americans oppose efforts to split the nation.

While CalExit has convinced some Californians, there is also little appetite for it statewide. According to Hoover Institution’s State Poll from January 2017, 25 percent of Californians support independence from the union, 58 percent oppose and 17 percent are unsure.

 

This article has been updated to incorporate additional comment from the Stanford College Republicans.

An initial headline for this article inaccurately referred to the new Yes California campaign as one to create a ‘North American’ nation, rather than a Native American nation. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu and Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu

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Palo Alto community rallies around Kavanaugh accuser https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/24/palo-alto-community-rallies-around-kavanaugh-accuser/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/24/palo-alto-community-rallies-around-kavanaugh-accuser/#respond Mon, 24 Sep 2018 08:26:14 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1143826 Hundreds of Palo Alto residents rallied around one of their own in a candlelight vigil, held on Sunday night in a public display of solidarity for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the Palo Alto research psychologist who is preparing to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday regarding her accusation of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

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Hundreds of Palo Alto residents rallied around one of their own in a candlelight vigil, held on Sunday night in a public display of solidarity for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the Palo Alto research psychologist who is preparing to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this Thursday regarding her accusation of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The vigil, organized by Orchard City Indivisible, the Enough is Enough Voter Project and other local activist groups, took place on the corner of El Camino and Galvez on the edge of Stanford’s campus.

Palo Alto locals lined the streets, carrying banners and candles and chanting their support for Ford. Cars honked in solidarity, eliciting cheers from the crowd. The local YWCA chapter set up a table where attendees wrote thank-you letters to Ford. Members of the Palo Alto High School band also performed an impromptu set, their snare drums and trombone adding to the clamor of the protesters.

According to organizer Vicky Blaine Mason, an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people were in attendance. Demonstrators packed all four corners of the intersection of Galvez and El Camino, with traffic guards attempting to hold the crowd back from spilling into the street.

“We were overwhelmed with the turnout and also really impressed with the positive energy that was there,” said Mason. “We really appreciated that people were there to support Dr. Ford in a positive way and calling out to trust survivors and believe women.”

Ford, a professor of clinical psychology at Palo Alto University who teaches in a consortium with the Stanford psychology doctoral program, claimed that Kavanaugh attacked her in 1982, while the two were in high school in Maryland.

In a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein ’55 (D-CA), Ford detailed her alleged assault, an event that she says made her fear for her life. 

Since publicly revealing her sexual assault story, Ford has received harassment and death threats. Together with her family, she has left her private residence and arranged for private security.

Kavanaugh issued a flat denial of Ford’s claim, saying that he would “refute” the “false allegation” before the Senate Judiciary Committee “in any way the committee deems appropriate.”

So far, four witnesses who Ford claims attended the high school party where she was assaulted, including Kavanaugh himself, have denied that the assault occurred. Leland Ingham Keyser — one of the witnesses and Ford’s high school classmate — claims neither to have known Kavanaugh nor to have attended the event. Kavanaugh also plans to hand calendars from 1982 over to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he says show no evidence of the party that Ford’s letter describes.

Following days of negotiations with members of the Senate, Ford tentatively agreed to publicly testify on Thursday, which jeopardizes Kavanaugh’s previously next-to-certain confirmation.  

The vigil occurred just hours after a fresh set of allegations against Kavanaugh surfaced. As The New Yorker reported, Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh’s former college classmate, accused him of exposing himself to her at a party when the two were freshmen at Yale. Kavanaugh denied this second accusation, calling it a “smear, plain and simple.”

In a third allegation, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti subsequently wrote that he had “credible information” that Kavanaugh made a habit of targeting women with alcohol and drugs at high school parties in order to sexually assault them. At the time of publication, Kavanaugh has not yet responded to this allegation.

Mike Davis, the chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Avenatti via email “to advise of this information immediately so that Senate investigators may promptly begin an inquiry.”

Vigil attendee Robin Yeamans J.D. ’69, a local attorney who specializes in domestic violence cases, says that the additional allegations lend crucial credence to Ford.

“I deal with credibility all the time,” she said. “I used to do sex discrimination cases, but the judges would wipe them out. I wouldn’t even take a case unless there were other victims.”

“With these people, you know there are other victims,” Yeamans added. “That’s why [Senate Republicans] wanted to hold the hearings so fast. That’s the one thing they were right about — the truth was going to start coming out of the woodwork.”

Though similar vigils also took place tonight in cities around the country, including Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago, Palo Alto attendees felt that theirs carried extra symbolism as members of Ford’s local community.

“When we want to support people, we want to support them as close to their home as possible,” said Mason. “This is [Ford’s] community — where she lives and works. We wanted her to feel a sense of strong support all around her.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Hundreds of Stanford and local high school students rally for gun control https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/14/hundreds-of-stanford-and-local-high-school-students-rally-for-gun-control/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/14/hundreds-of-stanford-and-local-high-school-students-rally-for-gun-control/#respond Thu, 15 Mar 2018 05:57:54 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1138406 In the wake of the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida that left 17 students and faculty members dead, survivors of the shooting galvanized a national movement demanding gun reform. Exactly one month later, on Wednesday March 14, students at Stanford and in Palo Alto joined others around the country in a nationwide walkout for gun control.

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In the wake of the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida that left 17 students and faculty members dead, survivors of the shooting galvanized a national movement demanding gun reform.

Exactly one month later, on Wednesday March 14, students at Stanford and in Palo Alto joined others around the country in a nationwide walkout for gun control.

Stanford walkout

At 10 a.m., Stanford students gathered in front of Green Library for a rally in coordination with #Enough, an initiative organized by the Women’s March Youth Empower group. The rally was planned to last 17 minutes, in honor of the 17 people who died in the Parkland shooting, Hundreds of students in attendance chanted “We want change! Let the youth speak!” and “Ban assault rifles!”

Dominick Hing ’20, who spoke at the rally, attended MSD when he was a high school student. Hing declared that, as part of the Never Again movement, the group started by about 20 MSD students in the wake of the shooting, he and his friends “are going to do exactly what Stoneman Douglas taught [them] to do: change the world.”

“The gun lobby has bought out our politicians, but we’ll never stop fighting them,” Hing said. “We’re going to see them at the ballot boxes, in their offices and around the country at the March for Our Lives on March 24…We’re going to tell them, loud and proud, that our lives are not for sale.”

Chloe Stoddard ’21, a co-organizer of the walkout who also organized the Women’s March at Stanford in January, emphasized that the walkout stands against all gun violence, not just the Parkland shooting.

“We are tired of how gun violence disproportionately affects communities of color, women, the LGBTQIA community and other marginalized groups,” Stoddard said. “We are here to make our voices heard and to call upon our representatives to enact real and sustainable change.”

The walkout was co-sponsored by the Black Student Union, the Stanford branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Stanford American Indian Organization, MEChA (Stanford’s oldest Chicano/Latino community organization), the Jewish Student Association, the Muslim Student Union and the Asian American Student Association. Many of the students who spoke did so as representatives of these various campus cultural organizations.

“I would like to thank the youth, especially these incredible high schoolers who are leading a national movement in favor of gun control and removing the stranglehold of gun lobbyists on our nation’s politicians,” said Kojoh Atta ’20, co-chair of the Black Student Union’s political action committee and chair of the 19th Undergraduate Senate. “The act at Marjory Stoneman Douglas was an absolute tragedy and a travesty, and it both pains and frustrates me to say that this is not something new.

Atta expressed his belief that gun violence has a disproportionate effect on black individuals.

“When states fail to pass laws that effectively restrict access to illegal guns and instead enact laws to make it easier to buy and carry guns,” Atta added, “they fail to sufficiently value black lives and the lives of other Americans adversely affected by gun crimes and violence. Thoughts and prayers are not enough.”

Ciani Green ’18, president of the Black Student Union, said she was disappointed by the protest’s turnout.

“It was still a lot of people — maybe almost 300 — which is phenomenal,” she said. “But … my high school has way less people with us and I’m pretty sure they had more people out there. That kind of made me upset.

However, Green said the event itself was “inspiring,” adding that she was heartened to see enthusiasm from her peers who wanted to continue the political organization after the walkout.

“That’s always the goal. The rally is just [to raise] awareness, and getting actual action after is what we aim to do,” Green said.

For Marisol Zarate ’19, co-president of MEChA, gun violence is a personal issue. At the walkout she spoke about the impact of the San Bernardino shooting in 2015 on her hometown.

“I didn’t care about gun violence until it affected me, and I saw how it affected others,” Zarate said. “The end of gun violence can begin when it comes to your city, when it happens to your relatives, when your aunt is calling home frantically wondering why the hell everyone here is so damn complacent.”

Both Stoddard and Zoe Goldblum ’18, another co-organizer of the walkout, emphasized that activism surrounding gun reform should remain an active presence on campus beyond the walkout itself.

“I don’t want this to be the end,” Goldblum said. “I want this conversation to continue on Stanford’s campus. Whether that’s by starting a [voluntary student organization] or working to see what we as an institution can do to prevent gun violence, I think that there are a lot of things we can consider, and I look forward to taking the next steps.”

Members of Stanford in Government were also present at the walkout, where they helped students register to vote. When Matt Deitsch —who graduated from MSD in 2016 and who, at 20 years old, is the oldest founding member of the Never Again movement— spoke at Stanford on Monday, he stressed voting as the best way to enact meaningful change surrounding gun control.

“We have a march in almost every congressional district in this country right now,” said Deitsch. “To say that and to have that is awesome, but there’s voter registration at all of these marches… after this march we’re going to be going around the country registering people to vote, getting communities to be more educated on this issue, and making this the issue going into the ballot box.”

Green cited voter registration as a key action item on the movement’s agenda going forward, adding that the voter registration booths at the event were an important step toward increasing civil political participation.

“We’re hoping that more people get registered so when these types of laws come up we can vote against them…. Right now, that’s the biggest way of making an impact,” Green said.

Student activism in Palo Alto

Students from nearby Palo Alto High School (Paly) and Castilleja School also held demonstrations Wednesday morning, forming part of the nationwide walkout movement led by thousands of high school students. Hundreds of students gathered on the corner of Embarcadero and El Camino, where they rallied in support of gun control amid honks of support from morning commuters.

Much of the students’ rhetoric focused on maintaining the momentum of the current wave of gun control support. Warren Wagner, a junior at Paly who helped organize the walkout, emphasized the power he sees in this grassroots movement.

“No matter what the skeptics say, everybody here needs to make their voice heard if we want our democracy to work,” Wagner said. “So next time anyone tries to silence your voice because you’re just a kid, or because marching doesn’t do anything, then you must be doing something right.”

Wagner cited the recently-passed Florida law that raises the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21 and allows some teachers to carry arms as an example of the movement’s influence.

Lucy Carlson, a senior at Castilleja, echoed Wagner’s enthusiasm as she addressed the crowd.

“Those [Parkland] students have given us an opportunity,” Carlson said. “We need to take advantage of this opportunity — we can’t let this just be a moment in a history textbook that’s a footnote.”

The walkout hit particularly close to home for event organizer and Paly senior Louisa Keyani.  

“I know someone who goes to MSD, and seeing the firsthand reaction of a shooting especially, at a school, was especially impactful for me,” Keyani told The Daily. “In the past, I feel like these events have kind of been brushed under the rug very quickly, and seeing the students at MSD take a stand so quickly and gain such national attention… was really inspiring.”

In a letter issued to all Palo Alto high school communities prior to the walkout, principals from Gunn High School and Paly, in collaboration with Interim Superintendent Karen Hendricks, expressed their support for the local walkout.

“Although neither the schools nor the District can legally sanction a walkout, we applaud our students’ commitment to be on the forefront of driving social change on this topic and we support our students,” they wrote.

They added that while schools are required by law to take attendance, they do not consider it a “punitive measure.”

“There will not be any other consequences to students walking out other than taking attendance,” they wrote.

Students were not the only demonstrators. Local parent Laura Daschbach Pitchford spoke to the crowd about the death of her sister Michele Daschbach, who was killed during a California mass shooting in 2011.

“While Michele did not die in a school shooting, the tragedy — like any mass shooting — affected an entire community,” she said.

However, not all students agreed with the rally’s message. Paly junior Tucker Biorn clashed with campus security when he tried to drive his pickup truck — adorned with National Rifle Association and American flags — into the Paly parking lot following the walkout.

“They told me I couldn’t park in here, and I basically said that I’m doing it,” Biorn said. “What am I doing wrong? If this were a flag that said ‘gun control,’ they would not have said anything.”

While Biorn said he attended the walkout to pay tribute to the Parkland victims, he added that he remains skeptical about effectiveness of gun control.

“I stepped out of class to give my respects to the people who died,” Biorn said. “I feel bad for them — I wish that had never happened, but I don’t believe that banning guns will solve that.”

Castilleja’s Head of School Nanci Kauffman added that while many Palo Alto residents are in favor of gun control, diverse political discourse is a crucial component of students’ education, citing Castilleja’s curricular focus on fostering debate.

“The majority of our community would be in favor of some kind of gun legislation [or] gun control,” she said. “But at the same time, it’s built into our curriculum that students debate topics.”

Above all, Kauffman emphasized her pride for her students and their political action.

“I think this is a moment for our country to be really proud of the young people — how they are peacefully expressing their hopes and dreams on behalf of the safety of children of all ages,” Kauffman said. “Despite the unfortunate circumstances, it has felt really good to see young people organizing themselves and expressing what’s really important to them.”

 

Contact Erin Woo at erinkwoo ‘at’ stanford.edu and Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Chair of the Board: How Jeff Raikes’ roots will shape his role as head trustee https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/10/chair-of-the-board-how-jeff-raikes-roots-will-shape-his-role-as-head-trustee/ Sun, 11 Feb 2018 01:27:14 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?post_type=tsd_magazine_post&p=1136090 Decades before he was called to vote on divestment as a Stanford trustee, new Board chair Jeff Raikes ’80 protested the University’s investments in apartheid South Africa alongside other student activists. As a freshman in 1977, he was one of 294 students arrested at Old Union for a sit-in meant to pressure the Board of […]

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Decades before he was called to vote on divestment as a Stanford trustee, new Board chair Jeff Raikes ’80 protested the University’s investments in apartheid South Africa alongside other student activists. As a freshman in 1977, he was one of 294 students arrested at Old Union for a sit-in meant to pressure the Board of Trustees into rethinking a previous vote.

Stanford ultimately agreed to change its investment policy, but Raikes has since come to question the effectiveness of divestment as a strategy to advance social causes. Over the course of a career that has spanned technology, business and philanthropy — he has been both president of Microsoft Business Division and CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and now devotes his time to his own philanthropy — he has developed what he sees as a more a pragmatic approach toward social justice.

“The research suggests that the actual act of divestment doesn’t really have much impact,” he said. “What can have impact is increasing the awareness — and sometimes that’ll lead to things like product boycotts, [or] other things that stigmatize the behavior of companies.”

Slightly over half a year into his four-year term as chair of the Board, where he is now on the receiving end of students’ petitions and is an important figure in the running of the University, Raikes plans to draw upon the strategic leadership he has learned throughout his career to make decisions. His experiences at Stanford, in tech and at the helm of major nonprofits shape his priorities and tactics moving forward, even as he seeks to keep his Board role distinct from his other work.

“What we do in our philanthropy — that informs the perspective that I bring to the Board chair role, but the Board chair role is one in which I have to think very deeply and be supportive of the best interests of the University,” Raikes said. “My ultimate responsibility there is loyalty to the institution … the student body, as well as the faculty and the university leadership.”

“Stanford has grown dramatically in terms of its stature, not unlike my experience growing up with Microsoft,” he continued. “Specifically for Stanford, I think about the importance of making sure we continue to have a bold vision to move forward.”

The Board

As Board chair, Raikes leads the 33 trustees in their work supporting the long-term strategy and direction of the University.

The Board convenes five times per academic year on a volunteer basis to make decisions about the University’s endowment and properties. Raikes says the trustees’ most important work is to play a supporting role to the President and Provost, with whom they convene in an executive session each meeting.

“My number one goal, personally and as a member of the Board of Trustees, is to help make sure that President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Provost Persis Drell are as successful as they can be,” Raikes said. “They’re the ones leading Stanford.”

Raikes believes the role of the trustees, unlike that of full-time administrators, is to draw on their professional backgrounds and networks outside Stanford to make a contribution to the University. As a guest of Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, for instance, Raikes spoke with senators in Washington, D.C. in late January about the impact of the recent tax bill on universities such as Stanford, which will see a 1.4 percent tax on its endowment as a result.

“I had an opportunity to … give them an additional perspective on what the negative impact might be,” Raikes said. “And many of my colleagues on the Board have been doing the same thing.”

The Board’s fiduciary responsibilities encompass approving Stanford’s operating budget, its capital budget and all architectural campus improvements; this makes the trustees a target of many requests for changes in how funds are allotted. As they work on a new budget each fiscal year, their focus is the long-term wellbeing of the University and its endowment.

Broadly speaking, the trustees “have an opportunity to scope and shape Stanford to where it’s an even more impactful university around the globe,” explained former Board Chair Steve Denning MBA ’78, always with an eye to “long-term strategic issues.”

“[The trustees] work collaboratively with Persis and Marc in pushing the frontiers forward,” he continued.

Trustees also come into the spotlight on campus as the recipient of student appeals. Issues like University divestment from fossil fuels and private prison affiliates have brought student groups into conflict with the Board and lefts activists dismayed: One SU Prison Divest leader blasted the Board last fall for choosing “essentially to do nothing” in response to students’ petition. Raikes, on the other hand, contends he’s prioritized improvements in the Board’s overall investment responsibility process over individual divestment requests, both during his time on the Board Committee on Investment Responsibility, and now as Board chair.

Under his new leadership, the committee has been conducting a review to make sure its definition of “investment responsibility” still holds in the 21st century based on input from students, faculty, staff and alumni.

“We’ve got a lot of feedback, both from the Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing as well as the people who were submitting requests [for divestment],” Raikes explained. “And we said, okay, let’s take a step back and think about the Statement of Investment Responsibility, the process that we take and ways in which it might be changed or improved.”

He emphasized a quantitative approach to investment strategy reform: “What does the research evidence show? What may be the mechanism that is most consistent on these issues in terms of academic freedom, freedom of speech [and] robust dialogue?”

Still, Raikes said that student protests are valuable, even when they don’t change Stanford’s investment portfolio.

“I may disagree with what [student protesters] think is the right conclusion, but if their interest in that issue shapes a lifelong interest in issues of social justice, then that is what I am happy about,” he said.

Raikes’ measured response to calls for divestment, which Denning called “a delicate issue,” reflects a leadership style that he’s developed over the course of a long career.

“He’s obviously very experienced in terms of how you run organizations,” said Denning, who worked closely with Raikes during his transition into Board leadership. “[He] is very strategic, very thoughtful … someone who’s both quantitative and qualitative in terms of being pragmatic and testing things to make sure his intuition is correct.”

For Kenneth Nunn ’80, Raikes’ roommate for several years in college and fellow apartheid protester, activists’ achievements in the late 1970s remain “one of the most significant things” the two of them have accomplished. He believes such movements “opened the door to breaking the back of the apartheid regime.”

However, he acknowledged that adulthood comes with new concerns and an increased aversion to risk.

The thing about being a student, of course is … you have a tremendous amount of power as a student that you don’t necessarily have when you have a job or you have a career or a business or something like that, because there are all these externalities you have to be concerned about,” Nunn said.

“Students have the ability to express their opinions about things and get others who have concerns and have constraints to look at it,” Nunn added, “and perhaps see it through their eyes and perhaps expand themselves in that way.”

While the two friends may diverge in their opinions on divestment now, Raikes says it was his time at Stanford from 1976 to 1980 and his friendship with Nunn that first opened his mind to questions of justice and discrimination.

Stanford roots

For Raikes, starting college was a significant transition from his upbringing on a farm outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. His Midwest roots are still strong, though. Above his desk is a framed aerial shot of the farm, where he points out the house and the cattle feedlot with pride.

“As I like to say, growing up in Nebraska — growing up on the farm — I learned some of the most important values in my life: work ethic, passion for what I do,” he said.

“Going into Stanford — it complemented those values,” he continued. “But my world was opened. Expanded.”

Raikes’ white, rural upbringing differed greatly from that of Nunn, who is African-American — even though Nunn grew up close by in Omaha. The two became fast friends, and Raikes expressed gratitude for the open and honest dialogue that they were able to share throughout their time at Stanford.

“I mean, the white farm kid from Nebraska — you know, he could have just basically decided to ignore me,” Raikes said. “But instead he was willing to help me see … some of the biases, prejudices and awful language that I had learned growing up in a completely homogenous community.”

“We were less than 40 minutes apart. And we grew up in two completely different worlds,” he mused. “[Nunn] really helped me see a part of the world that had been invisible to me.”

Nunn, who now teaches law at the University of Florida, recalled his relationship with Raikes similarly. Raikes wasn’t exactly the rural farm boy you see in movies, Nunn said — Raikes had traveled, and his father ran what Nunn called a fairly “sophisticated” operation — but racial divisions meant that Nunn and Raikes came from highly separate worlds.

Amid a pushback against affirmative action, Nunn was struck by Raikes’ approach to racial injustice.

“It was interesting that, as a person who had access to privilege in the way that Jeff did, that he’s a person who I think gets race — gets its significance in American life and culture in a way that a lot of people do not,” Nunn said.

“Addressing racial disparities and sort of making our culture and society as a whole a richer and fairer society is something I think he’s committed too, because, I think, of what he experienced when has was at Stanford,” he added.

Raikes often says that in college, he got one-third of his education inside the classroom and two-thirds outside. He sought this other two-thirds in large part through his continued allyship with the Black community; he lived in Ujamaa for his latter three years at Stanford and worked as a resident assistant there during his senior year. (When Nunn decided that he would move to Ujamaa for his sophomore year, he told Raikes he was sorry to part and had enjoyed being roommates; to his surprise, Raikes happily came along).

“I can trace the work of the Raikes Foundation directly back to my experience of being roommates with Kenneth, living in Ujamaa [and] being a peripheral member of the Black community,” Raikes said.

Like many students coming to Stanford from rural school districts, getting used to the academics was tough for Raikes, who went to a small school where only 20 percent of his graduating class went on to college. He remembers receiving a 47 percent on his first calculus midterm of freshman year, after which he went to meet the professor, Peter Winkler, “thinking [he] should drop out of Stanford and go back to Nebraska.”

“I didn’t really have to study in high school and it kind of worked out OK,” Raikes recalled. “And so I thought I should read the textbook and calculus before the first midterm.”

To his shock, Winkler said that many of his Stanford classmates had already studied calculus in high school. Raikes had not. But with Winkler’s encouragement, Raikes stayed at Stanford — and aced the next midterm.

Raikes came to Stanford expecting to be a business major, which he said his father supposed would be useful for farm management. He was left briefly directionless when he arrived as a freshman and found out that Stanford had no undergraduate business school. He eventually designed a major that merged engineering, business and computer science under his mentor at Stanford, Professor Bill Linvill, who was founder and first chair of the engineering-economic systems department (now management science and engineering).

Raikes’ emphasis on computer science may seem close to a track that many current undergraduates take, but he was quick to qualify what CS meant in that era.

“Relative to today, that era was kind of the Dark Ages,” he quipped, adding that he “was part of the first class to work on a terminal, rather than punch cards.” In fact, CS wasn’t even its own department yet — it was housed in applied mathematics.

But like many students at Stanford today, Raikes quickly fell in love with computing.

“I was fascinated with the idea that you could use software to help you manage information,” he said.

He developed expertise in economic modeling using VisiCalc, which he described as “the grandfather of Excel.” And he first applied this computing to what he knew best: managing the family farm.

“In fact I did a series of spreadsheet products, like feedlot management and a feed ration calculator,” he explained. “Not only did it help on our farm, I actually turned that into a business and we sold those spreadsheet templates to other people. That was my passion.”

Raikes’ academic experience at Stanford came, he said, with adopting a “growth mindset” about some of the challenges he arrived with. His residential experience, on the other hand, taught him to put his background and personal obstacles in context.

“Today, I can look back and see that I had privilege: I’m a white heterosexual male who grew up in a middle class family with college educated parents. I was riding the up escalator,” he said. “I was not running up the down escalator.”

Raikes still remembers an early encounter with racial profiling while visiting a convenience store with an African-American friend — Raikes had kept his hands in his pockets as he walked in without a second thought, but his friend saw the frightened store owner reach for his gun, fearing that the pair was armed. “Don’t ever do that again,” his friend told him later.

Raikes’ education about discrimination and race stuck with him. Today, he and his wife donate to the Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity program (CSRE) at Stanford, and he remains a staunch defender of the ethnic theme dorm.

The philanthropic enterprise

Upon entering the Raikes Foundation headquarters in Seattle, where Raikes currently devotes the majority of his time, one can quickly get a sense of the approach to leadership Raikes hopes to project. Dozens of buzzwords are painted in blue cursive all over the front wall — “risk-taking,” “collaborative,” and “YOUTH” jump out — and snippets of conversations about “growth mindsets” rise above the white noise of raindrops hitting the windows.

According to Executive Director Erin Kahn, the Raikes Foundation broadly aims to improve outcomes for low-income and marginalized youth by improving education, expanding learning opportunities and ending childhood homelessness. Kahn emphasized the foundation’s focus on supporting the coordination between private, public and nonprofit sectors to build systems that support children effectively.

“Part of the unique role that philanthropy can play is what some people refer to as innovation capital,” Kahn explained. “A lot of our work, you know, takes advantage of the fact that we can be nimble; we can take risks and we can make investments that are hard for the public sector [and for which] there are no market forces [in] the private sector.”

Raikes’ strategic approach to philanthropy might sound sterile. But Nick Tedesco, who worked as a program officer at the Gates Foundation under Raikes’ leadership, said Raikes got his big start in philanthropy precisely because the Gates believed that business know-how could help to power their philanthropic enterprise.

“Bill and Melinda [Gates] respected the approach that [Raikes] took in business, and wanted to be able to apply that to their philanthropy,” Tedesco said. “Which is something that you’re seeing in the [philanthropic] sector more broadly: You’re seeing a lot more of this business acumen that is being leveraged to accomplish social good.”

Though he is known as a strategist and planner, longtime colleagues and friends have also described Raikes as something of a risk-taker. He took the helm at the Gates Foundation in September 2008, in the heat of the financial crisis that rocked the philanthropic sector. Even though the foundation’s endowment fell, its grantmaking grew by 10 percent in 2009 under Raikes’ leadership.

In a 2010 interview with the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Raikes explained the decision as a calculated risk.

“You want to try as best as you can to invest in building short-term momentum,” Raikes said, “but recognize that you have to conserve enough of your resources to deliver on very big, audacious, long-term goals.”

The Gates and Raikes foundations were part of a new wave of business-minded philanthropy in the late 1990s and early 2000s that saw the logic of entrepreneurship applied to the work of giving. Journalists coined the terms “venture philanthropy” and “catalytic philanthropy” in response, and the approach has drawn criticism for emphasizing metrics and measures visible to the foundations at the expense of issues that might matter more to recipients.

For his part, Raikes described his philosophy simply as a synthesis of compassion and reason.

“Philanthropy is a journey, and in the journey you will often be led by your heart. You have a passion, or you see something in society that draws your heart to it,” Raikes said, a sentiment he’s espoused in other interviews over the years. “But you also need to pair it with the mind.”

Raikes as Chair

Raikes says his career in philanthropy has allowed him to lead based on his “own personal philosophies on a lot of issues.” As board chair, though, the long-term good of Stanford as an institution must take priority over his own personal agenda.

“I wear two hats,” he said. “I wear the Raikes Foundation hat and I wear the Stanford University Board Chair hat, and when I wear that Board Chair hat, I have to set aside my own personal philosophies might be or political views might be. At the end of the day, Stanford and universities have to be a platform for academic freedom and for freedom of speech.”

Raikes thinks of the Board as a “thought partner” for University leadership — a “sounding board – to poke when appropriate and to cheer when appropriate.” It’s a relationship he’s seen from both sides in his career, as a trustee himself of the Raikes Foundation and with his close work alongside trustees Bill and Melinda Gates as CEO of the Gates Foundation.

“[Raikes is] respectful of the role of trustees: we’re a collaborative, collegial, cohesive body that’s quite driven to make Stanford an even better university in the future,” said former Board Chair Denning. “But at the same time, he’s someone who understands that trustees have one role, and the president, provost and leadership team have another role. They run the University day to day; we kind of shape at the edges.”

Raikes emphasized that the priorities and approach that he’ll pursue on the Board differ from his approach to philanthropy in that the former has less leeway for individual ideology in decision making. But his role as Board Chair calls for the same big-picture approach that Raikes’ other roles have required, in that doing what he believes to be best for the entire system of Stanford often means making decisions that can’t possibly be ideal for all stakeholders.

Recent controversies on campus have brought this challenge to light for Raikes — in particular, he cited conservative writer Robert Spencer’s highly disputed speech.

“We stand at the Raikes Foundation for exactly the opposite of [Spencer’s views],” Raikes said. “But with my Stanford hat on, I have to recognize that having these discussions, having that dialogue is important. While I certainly support free speech, I think there is an interesting challenge in trying to decide whether something is free speech versus hate speech.”

“That’s the kind of issue we wrestle with — fortunately, we have a great philosophy department with people who think a lot about ethics,” he said with a laugh.

“I obviously have my views on social issues that the students care about,” he allowed. “[But] what the Board can do is to encourage the University to have a robust platform for dialogue… so you’ll find me actually encouraging other views into the dialogue that may be different than my own.”

Salazar, Raikes’ Office 365 collaborator, noted Raikes’ willingness to risk possible controversy if he thinks it will do good for the organization.

“My bet if I need to predict anything, it’s that [Raikes] would be willing to take some more social risks,” he said.

Even though not all groups can benefit immediately from decisions made by the Board and University leadership, Raikes says he has continued to prioritize gathering input from all the sources he can.

When Raikes was appointed Board chair in January 2017, he took a “listening tour” among Stanford faculty, administrators and students as well as his peers at other institutions. During his transition into his new role, Raikes and the rest of the Board have also devoted time to synthesizing input from thousands of University stakeholders for Stanford’s long-range planning process, which Raikes says will play a large role in his work in the coming years. University leaders received over 2,800 ideas from the Stanford community; Raikes himself submitted seven proposals.

“I probably had 1.4 percent market share of the alumni submissions — seven of 500,” Raikes said with a laugh. “I wanted to participate in the process, see what it was like. I find it very rewarding.”

His ideas ranged from an undergraduate program in multicultural leadership development to promoting continuing education for alumni — who, he predicted, will be changing careers much more frequently as technological change accelerates.

Raikes also proposed a program called Cardinal Pathways that he hoped would support students who wanted to pursue careers in the nonprofit sector and in global health and development. After seeing his daughter, Gillian Raikes ’16, take on a social-sector job in Nairobi, Kenya, he was inspired to help others with similar interests find postgraduate experiences like hers.

“She and many of her friends who are interested in the social sector found it hard to get into these kinds of opportunities early in their career,” he explained. “And so they end up going to high-tech companies or something like that, because that’s the only view of a career path they have.”

As the outgoing Board Chair, Denning expressed concern about the current political climate toward higher education and the difficulties that might pose for Stanford as Raikes tackles his new role.

“There is more disruptive change in the world today than there has been in recent memory,” Denning said. “Federally funded research has been in decline in certain areas, the fact that we have a tax on large endowments — I mean, it demonstrates the role of universities in our society are not well understood and not well appreciated.”

“In fact, [universities] provide an enormous benefit to us collectively, and I don’t think we’ve been as effective as we could have been in communicating what those benefits are,” he added. “Because if people understood, then we wouldn’t be having some of these adverse impacts.”

As Board Chair, part of Raikes’ task is to represent Stanford to the outside world to poise the university for future growth — a prospect that he is optimistic about.

“Stanford’s on an incredible trajectory,” Raikes said. “The level of talent that we bring in terms of students — undergrad and graduate — and faculty is, you know, the best it’s ever been.”

Raikes admitted that one of the ideas he submitted to the long-range planning committee was “a little selfish”: his proposal that Stanford establish itself as a leading provider of lifelong learning opportunities, so that graduates like himself can continuously ready themselves for career changes and learn about new fields.

“Gosh, I wish I could be a student again,” he said with a smile. “It’d be amazing.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Trustees talk land-use, concerns about GOP tax proposals https://stanforddaily.com/2017/12/08/trustees-talk-land-use-concerns-about-gop-tax-proposals/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/12/08/trustees-talk-land-use-concerns-about-gop-tax-proposals/#respond Fri, 08 Dec 2017 13:46:12 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1134549 The Board of Trustees convened earlier this week for its second meeting of the academic year, discussing Congressional tax proposals and their possible effects on higher education as well as the University’s land-use plans.

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The Board of Trustees convened earlier this week for its second meeting of the academic year, discussing Congressional tax proposals and their possible effects on higher education as well as the University’s land-use plans.

Of primary concern to the Board was the detrimental impact that both the House and Senate’s recently-passed tax proposals would have on Stanford’s budget. In order to finance other tax cuts, Republican representatives and senators have proposed a 1.4 percent tax on endowment income for the wealthiest universities — a category that would include Stanford. As the trustees learned, the imposition of this tax would cost Stanford about $25 to $40 million dollars per year — the equivalent of 500 to 800 scholarships.

Jeff Raikes ’80, who began serving as chair of the Board this summer, criticized the tax plan for its potential to reduce students’ accessibility to financial aid, not only at Stanford but at all of the country’s top universities.

“The 30 universities that are being targeted… have been the most generous in applying financial aid because of how effectively we use investment income from the endowment to support education and research,” he said.

The House tax plan would also take a serious financial toll on graduate students by turning their tuition waivers into taxable income. Though this provision to change tuition waivers is not present in the Senate bill, Raikes said that the trustees are “trying to be vigilant” on the issue of graduate student finances.

Graduate students as well as University administrators have both been advocating against the proposed tax overhaul. On Thursday, amid growing student concerns, the Provost and Vice Provost for Graduate Education fielded questions at a town hall, and the Graduate Student Council along with other campus groups have rallied in opposition to the bills.

Raikes stressed that Stanford needs to “make the case that education and research really are very critical parts of the economic success of our country – on supporting the health, culture, and the opportunities for young people.”

“We’re going to do what we can to stay on top of this and try to make sure that whatever is the final bill coming out of Congress…it is more supportive of higher education than the current bill,” he added.

The trustees also provided preliminary feedback on the status of Stanford’s long-range planning process, through which the University solicited input from its various stakeholders last year. Steering groups focused on different aspects of Stanford and composed of faculty, deans and other members of University leadership have now consolidated the 2,800 ideas submitted through the long-range planning process into “white papers”; the steering groups have presented these white papers to the Executive Cabinet of the University and plan to publish their work for the community in February.

“[The long-range planning process] has been a very inclusive, crowd-sourced approach that has generated so many ideas and proposals,” Raikes said, adding that the Board plans to spend its April retreat focused on the plan’s next steps.

Additionally, the Board discussed Stanford’s application for an updated Santa Clara County General Use Permit, or GUP, which would allow Stanford to use its land for the construction of new housing and academic buildings from 2018 to 2035.

As a part of the process, Stanford must submit an Environmental Impact Report on its proposed land use; the University is currently gathering public input on its draft. City officials in Palo Alto and Menlo Park recently requested extra time to review Stanford’s report in a move that an administrator called “unwarranted.”

Raikes emphasized the importance of continuing to improve Stanford’s housing and facilities for students while minimizing the environmental and financial impact of campus changes on Stanford’s surrounding community.

He expressed particular pride in Stanford’s continued goal to add no “new net commute trip[s]”  even as the campus grows. According to Raikes, the Stanford community’s commitment to car-free commuting options has made it possible for Stanford to expand over the past decade while not increasing the number of vehicles on the road, lessening net environmental and economic effects.

The trustees’ academic focus for the meeting was Stanford’s contributions to deepening research in the digital humanities, an interdisciplinary field. In addition to visiting the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Board members heard research presentations about the application of data science and computing technologies to the humanities from Jure Leskovec, associate professor of computer science, Elaine Treharne, the director of the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, and Caroline Winterer, the director of the Stanford Humanities Center.

These scholars’ interdisciplinary work “showed the leading edge innovation that we’re applying to the humanities and the arts,” Raikes said.

Finally, the Board celebrated the service of Vaughn Williams JD ’69, whose 10-year term on the Board will come to a close in January of 2018. Williams, a partner at the international law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates, served as the leader of the Trustee Committee on Audit, Compliance and Risk for six years.

Williams is “just a fabulous person,” Raikes said. “Anything [he] took on, he did exceptionally well.”

Williams’ service to the University will continue after his board term ends, Raikes noted — with his membership in the Stanford Arts Advisory Council, the board of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and other committees.

As just the second African-American student to graduate from Stanford Law School, Williams has worked hard to strengthen the University’s interactions with students and alumni of color, Raikes said.

“We’re going to continue to benefit from his efforts for many, many years,” Raikes added.

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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The Daily and the Court: The legacy of Zurcher v. Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/08/the-daily-and-the-court-the-legacy-of-zurcher-v-stanford-daily-copy-ep/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/08/the-daily-and-the-court-the-legacy-of-zurcher-v-stanford-daily-copy-ep/#respond Wed, 08 Nov 2017 22:04:53 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1131536 It’s rare that a college newspaper creates a nationwide constitutional controversy, but that’s exactly what happened in 1971, when The Stanford Daily was the plaintiff in a lawsuit that eventually reached the Supreme Court of the United States.

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It’s rare that a college newspaper creates a nationwide constitutional controversy, but that’s exactly what happened in 1971, when The Stanford Daily was the plaintiff in a lawsuit that eventually reached the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Daily sued the chief of the Palo Alto Police Department, James Zurcher, after he led a search of Daily offices in an attempt to find photographic evidence that would assist the department in prosecuting protesters who had clashed with police officers during a sit-in at Stanford Hospital.

To Zurcher, his search of The Daily’s offices felt wholly necessary to the execution of justice. But to Daily staffers, it felt like an attempt to co-opt the press into serving as an instrument of the justice system.

During an era in which the relationship between citizens and authority was already difficult and occasionally explosive, The Daily found itself in a precarious position: caught in the middle of this dynamic while trying to maintain journalistic autonomy.

What ensued went far beyond a conflict between protesters, police and The Daily’s photography team: The incident put the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press in direct conflict with the Fourth Amendment’s provisions that give police officers with probable cause the right to search for incriminating evidence.

The controversy assumed the national stage over eight contentious years of legal action, a crushing loss for The Daily at the Supreme Court, national uproar from journalists and elected officials and finally, Congress’s passage of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which prevented such searches from happening in the future without a subpoena.

Though surely not as canonical as a Roe v. Wade or Brown v. Board of Education, Zurcher v. Stanford Daily and the legal questions it raised continue to challenge constitutional scholars to this day, especially given the changing nature of the journalism industry.

The case began humbly, with a small group of students that decided to challenge an injustice it felt it had faced. But it escalated as the students learned that they had just scratched the surface of a deeper tension inherent to news-gathering organizations in democratic societies.

 

Era of protest

The protest at Stanford Hospital that set Zurcher in motion was not an isolated incident; the late 1960s and early 1970s saw a high concentration of political activity at Stanford, driven by a growing rift between students and authority.

“Starting around [1966] or so, there was a lot of protest on campus,” said Felicity Barringer ’72, editor-in-chief (EIC) of The Daily a the time of Zurcher’s search. “The Vietnam War was going on, and that was sort of the undercurrent of everything: the belief that the University was supporting an immoral war,” by holding military recruiting events on campus, among other issues.

It was certainly a busy time to work at The Daily. Clashes between student protesters and their adversaries — University administration officials and the police — were only getting more chaotic and dramatic as time went on, and The Daily had the challenge of reporting for the student body as a neutral third party.

As the protesters’ clashes with authority became more and more contentious, the University struggled to hold those students who contributed to violence accountable for their actions.

Gradually, the administration began employing its own photographers to create visual records of the demonstrations for its internal disciplinary procedures. These photographers were extremely unpopular among the protesters, and it was often nearly impossible to distinguish them from photographers working for news organizations like The Daily.

“If you had your eye behind the viewfinder of a camera in a raucous situation, trying to focus on the activity, trying to get the lighting right, the focus right and everything else, you’re not in a position to defend yourself if someone says, ‘Don’t take my picture,’” Barringer explained. “So, at that point, photographers are terribly vulnerable… Being a photographer at a demonstration became a loaded occupation.”

Margie Freivogel ’71, who preceded Barringer as EIC, decided with her editorial board that The Daily needed to do something to protect its photographers and its relationship with protesters. They decided to implement a policy that they had seen other local newspapers use: Going forward, they would destroy any possibly incriminating photos that could be used in court.

It was Freivogel’s hope that by publicizing this policy, The Daily might regain the trust of student protesters, who wouldn’t have to worry that Daily photos might be used against them in University disciplinary hearings or even criminal proceedings. At the very least, she hoped that the policy would “make people at least think twice about throwing rocks at our photographers [during protests].”

“We didn’t want to be an arm of the court, defense or prosecution,” Barringer said.

From Barringer’s point of the view, the policy allowed The Daily to preserve its tradition of uncensored reporting.

“We [could] write and print whatever seemed to best express the news of the day without fear or favor… without caring what would come of photographs in which people could be identified,” she said.

 

A bloody protest

On April 9, 1971, demonstrators from the Black United Front and the Chicano student organization MEChA held a joint sit-in at Stanford Medical School, protesting the firing of a black janitor and the denial of tenure for a Chicano professor. They barricaded themselves in a second floor hallway in protest and had a bloody clash with the police officers who tried to get them to leave.  

Covering protests had become a routine part of the experience of Daily reporters by the time the conflict at Stanford Medical School arose in April 1971. So when they learned of the protest and heard that the police were going to show up, Daily staffers were more than ready to report on the controversy.

As it turned out, though, the eventual clash between protestors and the police resulted in an unusual level of violence.

“When the police stormed in — and our photographer was right behind them taking pictures of them storming in — the demonstrators went out the other side, viciously swinging clubs at the police,” Barringer said.

Along with two dozen demonstrators, 13 police officers were reported injured. The police department wanted to know who was responsible, and officers thought The Daily might have some answers.

 

A surprise search

According to Barringer, the police knew about The Daily’s policy of destroying potentially incriminating photos, but that didn’t stop them from quickly obtaining a search warrant and searching the entire building. In the search, they did not find any photographs that would benefit legal cases against participants in the sit-in.

Charlie Hoffman ’73 MBA ’76, who eventually succeeded Barringer as EIC, was in the Daily office working on an article when the search occurred.

“Palo Alto Police came diving in late at night,” Hoffman recalled. “They were flying through [the files on the desks]. There was paper everywhere.”

“[The police] were extremely thorough,” Barringer said. “We were kind of shell-shocked.”

Barringer and the rest of the leadership team at The Daily knew they would have to take action.

“We looked at each other and said, ‘We need a law professor. This can’t be legal,’” Barringer said. “If what is in our offices is essentially open to becoming evidence in court… we cease to be a journalistic organization and become an information gatherer… for legal proceedings.”

According to Barringer, she and her staff were motivated to take legal action against the police department not only to address the incident at the Daily, but also to protect other news organizations from surprise police searches in the future.

“There was nothing [we] could do to prevent the search, but we did feel as though there was something we could do to shine a light on it, to challenge it and ideally to make sure it didn’t happen to anybody else,” she said.

 

Early legal success

When Daily staffers looked further into the precedents for the search, they could not find another instance in which police had searched a news-gathering organization with only a search warrant, as opposed to a subpoena.

They decided to seek legal counsel from Anthony Amsterdam, who taught at Stanford Law School at the time, and he referred the case to Bob Mnookin and Jerry Falk, two young attorneys at a San Francisco law firm. The three legal experts agreed with the students’ analysis: They had a sound case that the police’s actions toward the press had violated the First and Fourth Amendments.

“My first reaction… was that it was outrageous, that they never would have done to The San Francisco Chronicle, much less The New York Times, what they did to The Daily,” said Falk, who still works as a lawyer in San Francisco. He remembers thinking that they “had a winning case for a subpoena-first rule.”

On the other hand, Mnookin, now a professor at Harvard Law School, recalls having some early reservations about how the arguments would be perceived.

“I was offended by what [the police] had done, but I did not think it would be an easy case,” he said. “There really had been some violence in terms of the demonstrations… and it was reasonably clear that The Daily might well have some photographs that might well be relevant.”

But despite Mnookin’s qualms, any early forecast of the case’s strength appeared quite prescient through the first two rounds of the suit. The Daily officially filed suit on May 1971, and in October of the following year, Federal District Court Judge Robert Peckham issued a summary judgment in The Daily’s favor. He opined that such searches of press organizations “are impermissible in all but a very few situations” under the First Amendment.

The police department appealed the decision, but the historically liberal San Francisco-based court of appeals issued an even stronger ruling in The Daily’s favor, going so far as to hold the police department responsible for The Daily’s legal fees.

“We got a to-die-for decision in the appellate court,” Barringer said, further musing that perhaps “that decision was so good and so much in our favor that the Supreme Court thought, ‘Maybe we ought to look at this.’”

 

A ‘crushing’ loss

The Supreme Court’s decision to take the case at all cast a pall over The Daily’s celebration of its second win.

The Supreme Court “didn’t take [the case] to hand out awards to the district court and the court of appeals,” Falk wryly explained. “They took it because they had doubts about it.”

Indeed, The Daily’s early legal success did not last through the case’s eventual hearing in the country’s highest court. The Supreme Court issued its 5-3 ruling in favor of Zurcher in June 1978 with Justice Byron White issuing the majority decision.

According to the opinion of the Court, the majority cohort of justices held that “the Court should balance the competing values of a free press and the societal interest in detecting and prosecuting crime” and stressed that the “Fourth Amendment [does not contain] an implied exception for the press.”

“Some [justices] thought, ‘Well, it’s only reasonable that if there’s evidence showing who those [protestors] were, [the police] should be able to find it’ — especially since they went to the magistrate and were authorized to search,” said Bob Percival J.D. ’78 M.A. ’78, who began clerking for Justice White in 1978 and became very familiar with White’s perspective on cases like Zurcher.

“The police seemed to have conducted themselves very well. They didn’t mess up the offices of The Daily, they put everything back, they didn’t find anything.”

He further explained that the justices in the majority were concerned with the appellate court’s award of attorney’s fees against the police, a precedent that they believed might inhibit police from trying to enforce the law.

“The justices thought this [was] kind of an overreach to punish the police for what they, in good faith, thought was lawful behavior and when they acted reasonably,” Percival said.

Justice Potter Stewart’s dissent, on the other hand, gave more weight to the infringement of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press than to the ability of police officers to pursue evidence.

Stewart wrote that a police search of a newsroom not only “will inevitably interrupt its normal operations and thus impair or even temporarily prevent the processes of news-gathering,” but would also threaten the press’s ability to promise confidentiality to sources, which is “necessary to ensure that the press can fulfill its constitutionally designated function of informing the public.”

Falk did not mince words as he described his disappointment with the majority’s ruling.

“To this day, I think I am more bitter about losing this case than anything else I’ve ever done,” he said. “It was a huge injustice.”

Falk reflected that unintended interpretations of The Daily’s policy of destroying possibly incriminating evidence may have cost them the vote of Justice Lewis Powell, who would have swung the decision in The Daily’s favor. According to Falk, Powell “found it offensive” that The Daily could use the policy to destroy specific evidence that it thought might get subpoenaed.

“He [was] right, of course; if you destroy evidence in response to a subpoena, it’s a crime,” Falk allowed. “But that wasn’t the intent of the [policy].”

For the then-former Daily staffers who had been a part of this legal process since its inception, the defeat in the Supreme Court confirmed their worst nightmare: setting Supreme Court precedent against journalistic privacy instead of in favor of it.

“It was crushing,” Hoffman said. “The last thing we wanted was a judicial decision to the negative on this issue.”

Hoffman commented that while the decision did not immediately affect The Daily’s regular operations, the staffers were “disturbed” by the “horrible precedent” that the ruling set that could be applied to other instances of police infringements upon press confidentiality.

Freivogel, who described the entire process as “exhausting, chaotic [and] heart-wrenching,” remembered having a similar worry about the possible unintended consequences of their suit.

“Everyone is always trying to be careful about what cases they bring so that they don’t create a bad precedent,” she said. With a wry laugh, she recalled the reaction of the staffers: “‘Oh gosh, what have we done?’”

 

Legislative remedy

Outrage over the ruling reached far beyond Daily staffers and their legal counsel: Journalists around the country were quick to condemn it and advocate for a legislative remedy. A New York Times opinion piece warned that “if the free press is eroded in the name of justice, justice will surely be eroded next,” and a column in The Washington Post declared that there was “a critical need to overrule the Supreme Court to protect the innocent again from public abuse.” A Los Angeles Times columnist even joked darkly that the right to privacy had been so threatened that “even your mattress is no longer safe.”

But despite having lost in the Supreme Court, things started to look up for The Daily as the journalistic privacy issue moved from the judicial branch to the legislature. Many politicians agreed with the journalists who had expressed opposition to the Zurcher ruling, seeing the need to keep the press separate from the legal system as much as possible.

“Shield laws” intended to curb searches of third parties like news-gathering organizations in legal proceedings were quickly proposed, and within a year, many states had passed such laws. The Justice Department also quickly adopted a similar internal policy that discouraged federal prosecutors from seeking unpublished materials from the press in prosecutions.

This legislative response culminated in Congress’s passage of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980. The law established what lower courts had proposed in the Zurcher case: the requirement of a subpoena to search newsrooms for their unpublished materials.

President Jimmy Carter’s signing of the law let The Daily’s advocates breathe a sigh of relief; though not by the means they had initially expected, their lawsuit ended up fomenting positive progress toward the preservation of the autonomy and confidentiality of journalists.

“The most important impact [of bringing the lawsuit was to raise the issue [and call] attention to what Zurcher had done,” Mnookin said, adding that he felt relieved that Congress “essentially cut back the breadth of the Supreme Court’s decision… and [redressed] the balance toward the direction we wanted.”

 

Privacy Protection Act applied

Establishing this subpoena-first rule with the Privacy Protection Act proved to be an important step toward regulating the often tense relationship between the press and prosecutors. In fact, this issue resurfaced multiple times for Freivogel during her long career as a journalist.

Freivogel worked as the news editor for St. Louis Public Radio in 2014 during the massive demonstrations in protest of Michael Brown’s shooting, which occurred a few towns over in Ferguson.

Not long after one particularly serious protest, the radio station received a subpoena from the City Attorney requesting all of the reporters’ notes, audio outtakes, photos and the like. Political unrest, grassroots social movements and police turning to journalists for help with prosecutions? Freivogel had seen this movie before.

“It took me right back to the same principle,” Freivogel said. “You don’t want your reporters and photographers to be seen as gatherers of evidence for the authorities.”

Because of the Privacy Protection Act, police officers couldn’t enter the newsroom with a search warrant alone as they did in The Daily office in 1971. According to Freivogel, requiring the police to acquire a subpoena preserved St. Louis Public Radio’s agency and confidentiality by allowing the two parties to discuss the merits of the request, outside the heat of the moment.

Though challenging the subpoena in court did not end up becoming necessary — it was eventually dropped — the organization could have challenged it in court. The guarantee of that right, she said, was an important accomplishment in itself.

However, that the fact that they even received the subpoena is cause for concern, Freivogel said. To her, the incident represented the legal system’s lack of respect for the merit of the free journalistic process and the chilling effect that the system’s actions can have on free journalism.

“The federal justice department has a guideline that basically says they’ll only go to reporters as a source as last resort,” she pointed out. “And [the St. Louis City Attorney] had not gotten even close to seeing if that was the case here.”

 

An uncertain future

Freivogel’s déjà vu may be emblematic of continued tensions in the relationship between the media and the government. But while those tensions may not be going anywhere, the relationship itself has surely changed in the years since The Daily’s Supreme Court case as the media continues to expand into new frontiers.

The onset of the Digital Age has made it less clear whom the Privacy Protection Act actually protects. As both Freivogel and Percival noted, the country’s press has shifted from legacy media to a fluid space to which everyone can contribute.

According to Percival, applications of the Privacy Protection Act are much more complex today, given that the situation the law was written to prevent — a police search of physical files and photo negatives — feels glaringly antiquated.

“[The Act was written] in an era when the only way [for the police] to get the photographs was to actually look in the files of newspaper,” Percival said. “Today, everything would be on social media.”

The rise of the Internet and proliferation of online media organizations have also led to an expansion of the newsmaking profession beyond traditional journalists.

“Anybody can be a reporter and can reach everybody through digital media,” Freivogel said. “Now, you get into the question of, ‘Who is the press?’”

It would have been difficult at the time to predict the ways the media would change in the years after the Zurcher decision, and it remains to be seen if any new legal precedent will arise in response to these changes. But the principle for which The Daily advocated at the Supreme Court remains a central tenet of the modern journalism industry: that privacy and autonomy are paramount to the preservation of the free press.

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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New Board of Trustees chair addresses housing and hospital projects https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/03/new-board-of-trustees-chair-addresses-housing-and-hospital-projects/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/03/new-board-of-trustees-chair-addresses-housing-and-hospital-projects/#respond Wed, 04 Oct 2017 06:14:37 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1130626 On Tuesday, Stanford’s Board of Trustees met for the first time this academic year to discuss topics including a new graduate student housing project at Escondido Village and the recently-completed Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Leadership transitions were also a theme, with Jeff Raikes ’80 presenting on his preparations for his new position as chair of the board and University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne reporting on the long-range planning process launched under his leadership.

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On Tuesday, Stanford’s Board of Trustees met for the first time this academic year to discuss topics including a new graduate student housing project at Escondido Village and the recently completed Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Leadership transitions were also a theme, with Jeff Raikes ’80 presenting on his preparations for his new position as chair of the board and University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne reporting on the long-range planning process launched under his leadership.

New Board of Trustees chair addresses housing and hospital projects
New board chair Jeff Raikes ’80 (KATIE KELLER/The Stanford Daily).

In July, Raikes succeeded Steve Denning MBA ’78, whose term was extended for an unusual fifth year to aid in the University’s presidential transition from John Hennessy to Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Raikes emphasized his gratitude toward Denning for his service, which he called “very strategic [and] very visionary,” and expressed his desire to continue Denning’s uncompromising drive for constant progress.

“We all love this institution. We think it’s in a good place, but we want it to be in an even better place in the future,” Raikes reflected. “So in order to do that, we need to be bold, and we need to have a big vision. Steve [Denning] really emphasized that.”

As part of his transition to Board chair, Raikes has been conducting what he calls a “listening tour,” in which he conducted over 50 one-on-one and small-group meetings with a diverse set of Stanford’s stakeholders: student government leaders, academic deans, former presidents and even his counterparts from other institutions. According to Raikes, these meetings are part of the process of learning how to best execute his new role.

Raikes said that the listening tour provided him with important information on how University leaders perceive the Board and how their interactions with the Board have been productive or impedimentary in the past. While the tour made for “some very long days,” Raikes spoke with enthusiasm about the “energy” and “exciting ideas” that sprang from the meetings.

One takeaway that Raikes emphasized was the challenge of rising housing and transportation costs in the Bay Area, which make it difficult for Stanford to attract faculty, support staff and graduate students.

During its meeting, the Board achieved a partial construction approval for the new Escondido Village graduate housing, which will house 2000 students in four buildings. This construction project, which will be the largest in Stanford’s history, is slated to begin in November with plans to open in September 2020.

“Getting our graduate students housed on campus, whenever possible, is very important,” Raikes said, adding that he hoped the space would allow for “community among the graduate students” while “preserving open space for recreation.”

The Board also took a tour of the new Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, which was recently completed and will open early next year. Several Board members expressed excitement about the facility, which Raikes described as “technologically advanced, family friendly, and environmentally stable.”

“My personal takeaway was just how much they had put into the important touches for the family,” Raikes said, calling the hospital a truly “healing place.”

He described a few examples of the hospital’s design elements that are intended to diminish children’s fear, such as constellations on the ceilings of imaging rooms and a special anesthesia mask linked to a high-tech video game – when the patients breathe into the mask, they get to watch an animation of a dragon breathing fire.

“The most acute cases [will] tend to be at this hospital,” Raikes said, adding that the new hospital “put in the kinds of touches that I know will make a difference in the lives of children while they’re getting healthy,” Raikes said.

The Board also heard from President Marc Tessier-Lavigne as he provided his annual report on Monday morning. Tessier-Lavigne emphasized his desire to remain “visible, connected, transparent and engaged” during his second year as president, a goal he has pursued by meeting with “hundreds” of students and faculty thus far.

Tessier-Lavigne’s first year has taken him beyond Palo Alto: He made frequent trips to Washington DC to lobby for continued federal funding for academic research and commented that the outlook is reassuring. While the White House proposed cuts in research funding, Congress recently approved an addition of $2 billion to sustain federally-funded research.

“It’s a turbulent time in politics in our country,” Raikes said, adding that Tessier-Lavigne’s advocacy for federal research funding had not only been “reassuring for leadership [at Stanford],” but also represents “a recognition at all levels … that federally funded research in this country is a very important part of what creates jobs and economic growth.”

Raikes expressed optimism that this “successful” presidential transition has set the University up well for addressing future action items, such as the long-range planning process. Last year, students and faculty submitted more than 2800 ideas, and the University has begun the process of organizing, refining and prioritizing these goals for Stanford’s future.

“Many of the ideas [that were submitted] were important examples of continuously improving this university, incremental improvements,” Raikes said. “But we also need to step back and say, ‘what are those big ideas?’”

Raikes commented that the large-scale process is likely to involve complex choices and trade-offs, but said he has “great faith in the leadership of the institution” and the “energy and ideas” of Stanford’s students, faculty and staff.

 

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Effort to recall judge in Brock Turner case continues amid debate https://stanforddaily.com/2017/09/26/effort-to-recall-judge-in-brock-turner-case-continues-amid-debate/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/09/26/effort-to-recall-judge-in-brock-turner-case-continues-amid-debate/#respond Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:10:40 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1130246 While the recall campaign continued to achieve success in fundraising and petitioning under the direction of Stanford Law School professor Michele Dauber, it was met this summer with increasingly frequent challenges from a growing campaign in support of retaining Judge Persky.

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Public debate over the potential recall of Judge Aaron Persky ’84 M.A. ’85 — who sentenced former Stanford student Brock Turner — intensified over the past summer. While the recall campaign continued to achieve success in fundraising and petitioning under the direction of Stanford Law School professor Michele Dauber, it was met with increasingly frequent challenges from a growing campaign in support of retaining Judge Persky.

In June 2016, Judge Persky handed down a controversial six-month county jail sentence for Turner, who was convicted of sexually assaulting an intoxicated and unconscious woman outside a Stanford fraternity party. Many people in the Stanford community and across the country responded to what they perceived as a lenient sentence with a strong public backlash. Turner served half his sentence and was released in September 2016 for good behavior in jail.

Last year, opponents of Persky’s sentence began a judicial recall campaign, citing Turner’s specific case as well as what they call a pattern of bias against victims of gender-based violence.

“Shortly after [the Turner sentence], I started getting calls from women, lawyers and some former judges in the county, saying that Judge Persky is an outlier, that he has a reputation, that he is known to be more lenient in these kinds of cases,” Dauber, Frederick I. Richman Professor of Law, recalled.

Dauber explained that she and her team of researchers “obtained [Persky’s] entire record” of court cases in order to take “a more systematic approach” to this accusation of bias. According to Dauber, they revealed that compared to his peers, Persky was “unequivocally” an outlier in terms of leniency toward such defendants.

Actions of Persky’s that critics see as problematic range from a 12 week, weekend-only jail sentence for domestic violence to a decision to delay an athlete’s domestic violence sentencing so that he could play football.

Persky’s defenders, on the other hand, argue that Persky has been unfairly targeted and that a recall would pose a threat to judicial independence, damaging judges’ ability to use their discretion for leniency. Supporters point out that, in sentencing Turner, Persky followed the recommendation of the probation department — a common practice of his, according to an Associated Press review of Persky’s rulings. A state commission — which Dauber criticized, noting that it is far less likely to discipline judges than similar agencies in other states — cleared Persky of wrongdoing and the pattern of bias critics allege.

So far, the recall campaign has raised $500,000 and has gained major endorsements from a wide variety of public officials, industry leaders and nonprofit organizations. The campaign achieved an important milestone Aug. 9, when it received permission from the county to begin collecting signatures on its petition to put Persky’s recall on the June 2018 ballot. The group’s goal is to get 90,000 signatures; so far, it has 22,000.

Legal complications

This effort was met immediately with legal opposition from Persky himself, who filed a lawsuit intended to halt the petition just a few hours after the recall campaign was green-lighted for signature collection. The lawsuit calls into question citizens’ right to recall judges through the grassroots process that Dauber’s campaign has followed. Persky argued that only the state should have the power to recall.

While Dauber noted that her campaign worked “with the county for months and meticulously [followed] the requirements laid out in the Elections Code” in filing their petition, Persky’s lawyer, Elizabeth Pipkin, argued that “recall proponents have not complied with the California constitution,” since “recall campaigns [for judges] must be administered by the Secretary of State.”

Ultimately, the recall campaign was allowed to continue. Retired judge Kay Tsenin ruled in favor of the campaign 17 days after the lawsuit was filed, amid support from California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Judge Persky immediately appealed the decision.

Supporters of the recall campaign continue to criticize Persky’s “obstructionist” lawsuit, which Dauber called a “last-ditch desperate effort to avoid the election.”

“No one agrees with [Persky],” Dauber said of the case made in his lawsuit. “The county doesn’t agree with him, the secretary of state doesn’t agree with him, the attorney general doesn’t agree with him, [and] the trial court judge didn’t agree with him.”

Persky’s legal team maintains the legitimacy of its argument and does not plan to drop the matter even after the initial, unfavorable ruling.

“Even a great umpire calls a strike a ball from time to time,” Pipkin said. “We have appealed the decision and look forward to a hearing on this matter.”

Dauber, who called Persky’s appeal “frivolous” and a “waste” of taxpayer money, criticized Persky’s legal team for pursuing what she considers an attempt on Persky’s part to avoid standing for a recall election on his own merit.

“He’s just trying to stall and delay and waste money and time in order to avoid having this go to the voters,” Dauber said. “Because he knows that if this goes to the voters, he’ll lose.”

The anti-recall campaign

The legal pressure that Persky has put on the recall campaign is only one aspect of a larger effort to retain his position. The anti-recall campaign stepped up its fundraising efforts in the last few months, holding events such as an “Evening with Judges” to solicit donations from local attorneys. The Retain Judge Persky campaign’s midsummer financial disclosure statements show that the initiative has raised $128,000.

In a notable escalation of his anti-recall efforts, Persky recently hired the political consultant Brian Seitchik to assist his retention efforts. Seitchik is a former Republican Party operative whose experience includes running President Donald Trump’s Arizona campaign during the 2016 election.

The anti-recall campaign’s connections to the Trump campaign did not sit well with Dauber.

“Donald Trump bragged about committing sexual assault and then said all the women who came forward against him were lying,” Dauber said. “To be honest, I think that Persky hiring the Trump team tells you pretty much everything you need to know about his attitude about women and sexual assault.”

Opposition to the recall campaign has extended beyond Persky’s own efforts, however. Most notably, 95 California law professors recently signed a letter expressing their disagreement with the recall campaign and urging readers against signing its petition. As of last month, this cohort included 30 professors from Stanford Law School.

“The case for recall is misguided, ill-informed and frankly, the campaign has pushed a lot of distorted information,” saidRobert Weisberg JD ’79, Stanford Law School’s Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor and one of the signatories of the letter. “It’s a very powerful and somewhat cynical publicity machine.”

“Even the recallers would say that you should not recall a judge because you disagree with one or even a few sentences, but he or she has to be an outlier,” Weisberg explained. “And if we’re talking about sexual assault cases, I have not seen evidence that [Persky] is an outlier at all or that there is any independent evidence of bias.”

The signatories of the letter are backed by a cohort of prosecutors and defense attorneys who also oppose the recall campaign. In particular, they cite the opposition of Santa Clara County’s current District Attorney, Jeff Rosen — and the two DAs who preceded him — as evidence of the recall argument’s fallaciousness.

“Jeff [Rosen] obviously wanted a longer sentence [in the Turner case]; he said so,” Weisberg said. “Why is it that, as the letter indicates, the last 27 years of elected prosecutors in Santa Clara County … all have come out clearly against the recall?”

Dauber disputed the the claim that anti-recall efforts have full support from Santa Clara County’s elected prosecutors, citing Rosen’s refusal to let Persky hear a similar sexual assault case following Turner’s controversial sentence. Rosen publicly clarified that decision in a statement, writing that “after … the recent turn of events, [the District Attorney’s office] lack[s] confidence that Judge Persky can fairly participate in the upcoming hearing.”

“If [Rosen] believe[s] that [Persky] couldn’t participate fairly in a sexual assault of an unconscious victim, why isn’t that disqualifying for him as a judge?” Dauber asked. “It seems to me like Jeff Rosen is saying and doing contradictory things here.”

Weisberg believes many Stanford Law professors have publicized their opposition to the recall campaign partly out of a desire to separate the effort from the University.

“There is a fair amount of distress that the recall campaign and things said by the recall campaign were imputed to [Stanford] Law School,” he remarked, adding that “if more Stanford law professors opposed the recall than favored it … that should help disabuse the public of the notion that [the recall campaign] is Stanford Law School’s position.”

Weisberg noted that many signatories of the letter agree with Persky’s detractors that Turner’s sentence was too light, and he acknowledged the imperfections of the justice system.

“To say the system is imperfect and to say that victims are not well served — of course [that is true],” Weisberg said. “We’re a long way from where we should be — very very far.”

But Weisberg took issue with the recall campaign’s methods.

“Things should be done through general legislation,” he said, “rather than by targeting a judge who clearly acted within the law.”

Dauber criticized the notion that Persky ought to be immune from consequences because his actions were legal and defended the legitimacy of the recall campaign.

“Because something is lawful does not make it right or desirable,” Dauber said. “That is often the whole point of social movements — to challenge lawful arrangements that are not desirable. We have to end the culture of impunity for these offenses, and holding elected officials accountable for creating that culture and reinforcing it is a legitimate exercise of democratic accountability.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

An earlier version of this article incorrectly paraphrased Robert Weisberg, saying that he believed Turner was not brought to justice. In fact, Weisberg discussed overall imperfections he saw in the justice system. The Daily regrets this error.

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Community centers face financial, organizational uncertainty https://stanforddaily.com/2017/06/12/community-centers-face-financial-organizational-uncertainty/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/06/12/community-centers-face-financial-organizational-uncertainty/#respond Tue, 13 Jun 2017 06:00:06 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1129072 The centers are in flux following the sudden departure of Associate Vice Provost for Community Engagement and Diversity Nicole Taylor ’90, and funding for the next fiscal year fell short of VPSA’s requests and its offices’ expectations.

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Community centers face financial, organizational uncertainty
Community Centers are among the VPSA offices facing organizational uncertainty (MELISSA WEYANT/The Stanford Daily).

Amid various recent changes in University leadership, many campus centers reporting to the Vice Provost of Student Affairs (VPSA) have been facing financial and organizational uncertainty since January.

The centers, which aim to serve marginalized Stanford communities, were thrust into a new interim structure following the sudden departure of Associate Vice Provost for Community Engagement and Diversity Nicole Taylor ’90. Meanwhile, funding for the next fiscal year fell short of VPSA’s requests and its offices’ expectations.

The VPSA offices affected include the seven community centers on campus: the Asian American Activities Center, the Black Community Services Center, El Centro Chicano y Latino, Queer Student Resources, the Markaz Resource Center, the Native American Cultural Center and the Women’s Community Center. The Diversity and First-Generation Office (DGen), the Haas Center for Public Service and Student Activities and Leadership (SAL) make up the rest of the VPSA offices affected by Taylor’s departure.

Taylor, who left Stanford in January to become Deputy Vice President and Dean of Students at Arizona State University, oversaw the 10 aforementioned organizations as one collective VPSA unit called Community Engagement and Diversity. However, following her move, the Community Engagement and Diversity unit has been split up. Under the interim structure, the seven community centers have stayed together as one VPSA unit, but DGen, Haas and SAL report to separate Associate Vice Provosts (AVPs).

The previous structural combination of these offices under the umbrella of Community Engagement and Diversity was a relatively new initiative that Vice Provost for Student Affairs Greg Boardman put forth in 2015. Seeing a common goal among the 10 organizations to “[empower] students to lead in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic and pluralistic society,” Boardman decided to unite them and hired Taylor to lead the unit, according to the Community Engagement and Diversity website.

“A lot of what was in [the Community Engagement and Diversity] proposal was how to help these 10 units work together well, and how to support these units comprehensively with administrative, financial and operational infrastructure,” said Deborah Golder, the associate vice provost of Student Affairs currently overseeing the seven community centers under the interim structure.

“[Community Engagement and Diversity] brought all these small little shops into one big unit,” Golder said, adding that it “was a wonderful vision, but because Nicole left, there was no one shepherding that cause.”

Funding goals not met

Many leaders in VPSA and in the Community Engagement and Diversity centers saw this collective initiative as a significant financial opportunity if the University Budget Group recognized the innovative spirit behind the unification and decided to invest. According to Golder, the doubt created by Taylor’s departure led to much more modest investment than the organizations had been hoping for, a characterization disputed by Lisa Lapin, vice president for university communications.

“There were no new positions funded in any area,” Lapin said. “In part because of flat performance of the endowment and in part because some money is being set aside for the outcome of the long-range planning initiative and the priorities that emerge.”

Golder expressed VPSA’s previous hope that the community centers would be next in the Budget Group’s “cycle” of investment, citing the great need for more funding in that area.

“[Community center funding] got some traction this year, but not at the level that we would have had if we didn’t have this level of discontinuity in leadership,” she continued.

Although former Community Engagement and Diversity offices did not receive the level of funding they had expected, some centers did have some favorable outcomes in this year’s budget plan. For example, the Markaz, which serves the Muslim community on campus, received three more years of full funding beginning on September 1.

Additionally, the DGen office received a “significant allocation,” according to Golder. Half of DGen’s allocation was made up of base funds, which will be matched in future years. This will be DGen’s first allotment of base funding; in previous years it received the entirety of its funding through one-time grants that must be renegotiated each year. This year, only half of DGen’s funding is through one-time grants.

The move to base funding can make a world of difference when it comes to the ability of centers to plan for the future and expand.

“Some of the challenges when you’re working with one-time funds is [if a center wants] to launch a program,” Golder explained. “You don’t want to launch a program that you want to do annually if you don’t know you can pay for it after the first year.”

The same difficulties of long-term planning apply to staff growth as well.

“Say you need to hire a staff person,” Golder said. “It’s really hard to hire someone to work on a one-year contract, because the cost of living is so high.”

Dereca Blackmon ’91, associate dean and director of the DGen office, expressed that she and her team were excited and grateful for the base funding. They plan to use the funds to pay half of their staff and to extend the longevity of the office indefinitely.

Even so, the DGen office needs more funding in order to fully serve the Stanford community, according to Blackmon.

“We were doing more with less, so what we were asking for was enough [funds] to do what we were already doing,” Blackmon said. “Sometimes it is to [the DGen office’s] detriment that we go above and beyond what our resources are, because then I think people expect us to keep functioning in these dysfunctional ways.”

Blackmon lamented a lack of transparency between the VPSA organizations and the budget office, calling this “disconnect” the “hardest part of the process” of sustaining the DGen office.

“Having to look at the entire campus and decide who should get what money is a really hard job for anyone,” Blackmon said. “[But] it is frustrating that sometimes we sit down with people who make the [budget] decisions and they really don’t know what we do.”

She reflected that Taylor’s former leadership had been helpful in bridging that communication gap but stressed a need for continued confidence in VPSA offices on the part of University leadership even in Taylor’s absence.

“[Taylor] did enormous work in helping us speak better about the collective impact of what we do,” Blackmon said. “It’s not that we did anything differently, she just helped us talk about it differently. … So, when I was able to talk to the Budget Group I [said], ‘Look, Nicole isn’t here, but the same work is happening.’”

Student organizing

Students who care deeply about the Community Engagement and Diversity offices, including the community centers on campus, have long recognized the need for increased funding from the University.

These sentiments led Julian Peña ’17, a current Resident Assistant in Casa Zapata, to begin organizing a student grassroots coalition in May with the aim of raising awareness for the need to increase community center funding.

The coalition, which as of yet does not have a name, began in support of funding for El Centro Chicano y Latino in particular and has since expanded its focus to all the community centers on campus.

“I’ve been trying to get this rolling for a while,” Peña said. “We’ve all always desired to increase community center funding, but we have not yet done anything [until now].”

In their first two weeks of action, the coalition has begun drafting a long-range planning proposal to communicate the need for increased community center funding to the administration. The proposal will focus on the long history of the centers’ support for marginalized students through academic support and tutoring, mentorship, community-specific counseling and community building.

“Many students describe [community centers] as a home away from home — the one place at Stanford where they feel understood and welcomed. I get that, and I feel that way too,” Peña said, adding that “community centers contribute to Stanford’s intellectual vitality and support students of color.”

Alpha Hernandez ’19, another member of the coalition, spoke about her experience advocating as a 2016-17 senator for the allocation of ASSU discretionary money to community centers, an effort she described as “disjointed.”

“There always were people working on [allocating funds to community centers],” Hernandez said. “We just never were able to come together.”

Hernandez explained that even when the funds were allocated, there was still “very little that senators really could do except for make noise to the administration.” The University Budget Group, she indicated, could allocate much more money to the community centers than ASSU’s smaller discretionary funds allow.

“Our immediate goal is to have Stanford take responsibility for [permanent community center funding] so the community centers can focus their attention on the important things like planning and executing their vision — not scrambling for money,” Peña said. “I don’t think we’re asking for anything new, actually. I think we’re asking the administration to catch up with the work we’ve been doing without their support.”

Continuing cooperation

Along with funding uncertainties, the 10 offices formerly part of Community Engagement and Diversity continue to wonder what the future will hold for them in terms of organizational structure and VPSA leadership.

“The interim is weird,” Golder said. “We are trying to sustain the good work the centers have always done, making sure they have the infrastructure and support they need in the short term and then trying to set vision for what we think should be next.”

Faith Kazmi, associate dean and director of the Women’s Community Center, echoed Golder’s sentiments about the changes in VPSA leadership.

“When Nicole left, many of us [in the Community Engagement and Diversity units] were disappointed because we were looking forward to her leadership through a longer period of time,” Kazmi said.

However, Kazmi also stressed her confidence in the work community centers have been doing without Taylor’s leadership.

“We’ve been able to do a good job with the current resources we have and been able to maintain partnerships. … and we have continued to, and in some ways grown, our ability to work as a cohesive unit,” Kazmi said. “We’ve had to describe the work that we do many times to different parts of the Stanford community, and so we are in the stride right now of being able to share our story and how we impact students.”

In addition, Kazmi expressed optimism about the future of the Community Engagement and Diversity offices.

“I think it’s a really exciting time on campus,” Kazmi said. “The president, the provost, the vice provost and the entire campus are reimagining how things could work. And I think that’s not unique to our unit.”

Kazmi added that the 10 centers continue to work together, even in the absence of a formal structure uniting them. Leaders in these spaces hold regular meetings in which they discuss administrative and policy issues, Stanford’s long range planning and the U.S. political environment at large.

Furthermore, Kazmi acknowledged the challenging opportunity to restructure the VPSA organizations under the changing university leadership, with Taylor’s departure, Vice Provost Boardman’s retirement at the end of the year and the entry of a new president and provost.

“While we are all still doing a really great job of managing our respective centers, managing change and response within our centers, we are all looking forward to the certainty that comes with knowing what the structure is going to look like… once [Boardman] retires in August,” Kazmi said.

Despite the current uncertainty, many leaders, including Blackmon, see this turnover as an exciting opportunity to improve the VPSA organizations.

“My entire upline is changing,” Blackmon said. “When I talk to my mentors and colleagues about it, we can either look at that as terrifying or exciting. But the messaging that I’m getting from everyone makes me excited.”

Blackmon also emphasized the progress she has already seen in administrators’ attitudes toward Community Engagement and Diversity offices, even in Taylor’s absence.

“We’re talking about diversity and inclusion more than ever before,” she said. “We [even] have a president who’s first-gen,” she said. “So there’s a hopefulness that happened under [Taylor] but that is continuing under the new administration: that our work is going to be valued, and that our input are going to be respected. And I think that’s exciting.”

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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West Lag dorms to house support animals next year https://stanforddaily.com/2017/05/24/west-lag-dorms-to-house-support-animals-for-undergraduates/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/05/24/west-lag-dorms-to-house-support-animals-for-undergraduates/#respond Wed, 24 May 2017 07:59:30 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1127968 The first floors of Eucalipto and Granada dorms will be the first two dorm-style areas on campus to accommodate support animals. Previously, students who required this accommodation were generally limited to apartment-style housing.

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West Lag dorms to house support animals next year
Nina Horowitz, a graduate student with a chinchilla, praised the University’s decision to make two floors in undergraduate dorms open to students’ support animals (KEVIN HSU/The Stanford Daily).

Starting in the fall of 2017, undergraduates will be allowed to live with approved support animals on two designated floors of West Lagunita Court.

Stanford Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) and its partners announced the new policy on May 8. Mounting demand for these accommodations in traditional dormitory housing mainly drove the effort, according to R&DE.

The first floors of Eucalipto and Granada dorms will be the first two dorm-style areas on campus to accommodate support animals. Previously, students who required this accommodation were generally limited to apartment-style housing, like Mirrielees.

Though R&DE operates on a case-by-case basis in granting these accommodations, it believes that the pre-clearance of these two floors will have a positive impact upon students requiring a support animal, R&DE spokesperson Jocelyn Breeland wrote in an email to The Daily. With more availability for undergraduate students to live with their support animals, R&DE hopes to approve even more accommodations than it could in the past.

R&DE policy defines a support animal as “an animal that provides emotional or other support/assistance that alleviates one or more identified symptoms or effects of a person’s disability.”

These animals differ from service animals, such as guide dogs or seizure alert dogs, which are generally permitted to reside in any residential building not already designated as animal-free.

Students trying to bring a support animal to campus must undergo a more rigorous assessment by the Office of Accessible Education (OAE) than individuals with service animals. And even if students’ support animal requests are approved, the scarcity of housing where support animals can live poses another challenge in making accommodations.

In designating new dorms that are pre-approved for support animals, R&DE “wanted to make sure that students with support animals could experience life in a residence hall with other student residents,” Breeland wrote.

Breeland added that Eucalipto and Granada had the necessary “strong ventilation systems and nearby outdoor spaces … [to] lessen the impact on other residents.”

West Lag dorms to house support animals next year
(KEVIN HSU/The Stanford Daily)

Student support

Sam Alexander ’17 recently received approval to bring a support animal to campus next year, a change that he anticipates will improve his experience on campus.

“I’m definitely looking forward to having [a support animal] in terms of making the experience even just a little bit better here [and] coping with different social and academic rigors throughout the year,” Alexander said.

While Alexander plans to live in Munger next year, he thinks that the policy regarding Eucalipto and Granada would create “a more tangible way to accomplish” the task of providing students with the accommodations they need.

“If students already know ahead of time that [living with support animals in Eucalipto and Granada] is an option, if the awareness gets out there … it will make [these accommodations] more possible,” Alexander continued.

Nina Horowitz, a first year graduate student studying bioengineering who keeps a support chinchilla named Mabel in her on-campus studio in Escondido Village, was also pleased to hear of the new policy for undergraduate students.

“I cannot possibly overstate [the importance of having a support animal],” Horowitz said. “Mabel means the world to me. When I come home at the end of the day and see her, it’s such a comfort, especially being so far away from home.”

Horowitz added that she “could see it being pretty devastating in some cases” if students were unable to find housing to accommodate their support animal.

According to Breeland, many students feel, like Alexander and Horowitz, that creating support animal-approved spaces in Eucalipto and Granada will be a positive development.

However, Horowitz also had some concerns about how students with support animals and students without them would coexist. She stressed the need to specify animal-friendly spaces and allow students to self-select into them.

“In my building we have a lot of conflict between people who do and do not have animals, so I think to have [people with support animals] all in one space makes a lot of sense,” Horowitz explained. “And on the grad student side, they have sort of done that. My studio building is one of the primary places for emotional support animals.”

Staff concerns

The new support animal program may also present additional challenges for next year’s West Lagunita staff members in creating a balanced and healthy dorm community. Staff members were informed about the program on May 8, along with the rest of the Stanford community.

Cody Carlton ’19, who will be a Resident Assistant in Granada next year, expressed excitement that “some residents will be able to have support animals for certain needs, and [that] housing will be able to see how it works … and potentially roll it out to more residences.” However, he was concerned that the program might pose unintended risks that “might not [have been] well thought out.”

He noted that, because students who listed Granada as a residence choice on their Draw application were not notified of the support animal policy until the morning of May 8, students with trepidations about living in a dorm with animals had just a few hours to make changes to their application before the 6 p.m. deadline.

“Another [concern] is that residents with animals might not be comfortable with sharing their animal with others, but might feel obliged to do so,” Carlton said, adding that the staff will need to “[work] with the owners of the animals to understand the needs of their animals and [make] sure their privacy is still respected.”

Carlton also added that staff members may face additional responsibilities, given the addition of support animals to dorm life.

“I hope we can work together with Housing, our RFs and ResEd to make sure that the animals are comfortable and have their needs met,” Carlton said. “Because they are our residents too.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Trustees visit Harvard, MIT to discuss collaboration across institutions https://stanforddaily.com/2017/04/07/trustees-visit-harvard-mit-to-discuss-collaboration-across-institutions/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/04/07/trustees-visit-harvard-mit-to-discuss-collaboration-across-institutions/#respond Fri, 07 Apr 2017 07:44:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1125486 At its annual retreat held earlier this month, the Board of Trustees discussed ways to work together with peer institutions toward achieving a common goal of advancing knowledge, education and social good.

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The Board of Trustees returned from its annual retreat, held earlier this month, with what Board Chair Steven Denning MBA ’78 called renewed energy for collaboration across different disciplines and different institutions after a trip to Harvard, MIT and the life science research hub at Cambridge’s Kendall Square.

Denning, who will step down from his board post this summer, emphasized that the retreat was “informative” and “illuminating,” adding that the board members were pleased to have the opportunity “to see the impact that other institutions are having on the world.”

The trustees engaged in an array of academic discussions with faculty and administrators at the places they visited. Their overall aim was to find ways to work together with peer institutions toward achieving their common goal of advancing knowledge, education and social good.

“These universities appear to be the same but are quite different,” Denning said. “They have very unique objectives, personalities, characteristics, peculiarities and locations. This diversity gave the Stanford trustees ample room to learn from their peers at Harvard and MIT.”

Most years, the Board has its retreat near campus; its trip to Cambridge constituted part of a growing trend of inter-institutional collaboration at the governance level, according to Denning. The Board made its first farther-out retreat trip in 2010, when it traveled to Yale to discuss student life and arts.

According to Denning, this trend of exchange among different universities in the place of more traditional board retreats is mutually beneficial for traveling trustees and the universities that host them.

“We don’t view it as zero-sum,” Denning said. “They get better, and we can also get better. They view it as an opportunity to learn [as well].”

The April retreat began at Harvard with a session led by Provost Persis Drell about the importance of the modern American university, which board members felt was an apt way to underscore the value of their work.

“The American research institution is the envy of the rest of the world, and it’s something that we need to protect, enhance and sustain going forward,” Denning said. “This was a great opportunity to dig in and see that firsthand.”

In their ensuing panel discussions at Harvard, board members discussed their aim to renew traditional liberal education through curricular balance among the humanities, arts, social sciences and STEM fields. Vice Provost Harry Elam and Richard Saller, dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences and Kleinheinz Family Professor of European Studies, conversed with Harvard deans, advocating renewed emphasis on arts and humanities at Stanford, Harvard and peer institutions.

The Board then met with leaders of education and research at MIT, where conversations focused on two main themes: digital strategy in increasing educational access and newfound “nano” capabilities in the life sciences. Trustees discussed the entrepreneurial “maker” spirit that underlies these initiatives at MIT — an attitude that Stanford’s campus shares, Denning noted.

Continuing its discussions about advancement in the life sciences, the Board concluded its retreat with an overview of Kendall Square, a concentrated area of life science innovation that includes Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and various pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms.

Along with enthusiasm for their academic discussions, Denning said, the trustees came away from the retreat with new insights into the uniqueness of Stanford’s governance structure and approach in comparison with those of Harvard and MIT. Subtle differences in the organizational system of Stanford and its board might reflect cultural differences among the institutions at large, Denning observed.

“People talk a lot about the collaborative culture that exists at Stanford, and it [also] exists in a very cooperative and sound governance system that is quite different from that which is found at other universities,” he said.  “[This structure] has a profound impact on our ability to manage ourselves, organize ourselves and achieve the objectives we hope to achieve.”

Overall, Denning added, the trustees gained newfound energy for developing the University’s long-range planning effort, a yearlong initiative to chart Stanford’s future. These ideas are “still in the ruminating phase,” according to Denning.

“These trips are absolutely essential,” he added. “[Trustees]  learned more about [Stanford] than [they] learned about the other institutions, paradoxically.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller@stanford.edu.

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Post-election, students find new ways to engage in political action https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/17/post-election-students-find-new-ways-to-engage-in-political-action/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/17/post-election-students-find-new-ways-to-engage-in-political-action/#respond Fri, 17 Feb 2017 08:18:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1123235 As a burgeoning culture of anti-Trump political action takes hold at Stanford, some campus groups aim to make it easier than ever for students to influence politics at the federal level.

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As a burgeoning culture of anti-Trump political action takes hold at Stanford, some campus groups aim to make it easier than ever for students to influence politics at the federal level.

Stanford students’ willingness to engage in activism has increased following President Donald Trump’s controversial actions, according to a number of student leaders. The campus cultural shift has inspired students to create a political action website called CallToWin.org and galvanized the establishment of various events such as Political Action Parties at Columbae and a phone bank to stop the confirmation of Betsy DeVos. The shift has also augmented existing campus groups that engage in politics.

This diverse array of action and innovation shares common short-term and long-term goals. Immediately, the groups aim to facilitate students’ communication with their elected representatives through phone calls and letter writing campaigns in order to more effectively fight the Trump administration. Overall, however, they hope to contribute to the sustainability and coordination of the political left’s resistance effort.

Sam Kurland ‘17, Alex Feldman ‘17, Michael Rover ‘19 and Chapman Caddell ’20 are among the students most involved in the launch of CallToWin.org, the recent political effort closest to Stanford’s “techie” roots. The website allows users to search for the phone numbers of their senators and other representatives by just inputting their zip code. From there, CallToWin.org provides tips and scripts for making an effective phone call.

The CallToWin.org team, which Kurland approximated is “equally divided” between people doing coding work and people doing political research, has created an extensive database of information that has already registered users in more than 20 states.

“[The genesis of CallToWin.org] brought us to a place where we could offer something,” Rover said. “For some of us that was coding experience, and other people among us were very experienced with writing short issue statements.”

The diversity of backgrounds on the CallToWin.org’s team is reflected in the initiative’s target user group, which extends beyond those already experienced in political action.

“It’s really great if the tool helps people who are already calling to make more succinct and effective calls, but really the biggest win is when we get somebody to call for the first time,” Kurland said, adding that a main goal is to “lower the barriers” to getting politically involved.

Caddell added that CallToWin.org will greatly benefit from phone banking events, such as the one Bryce Tuttle ’20 hosted on Feb. 3 in an effort to stop the confirmation of DeVos. DeVos was appointed secretary of education in a historically narrow vote.

Tuttle strongly opposed DeVos because of what he calls her “complete disregard and misunderstanding of [student] disability rights.” His “hastily organized” phone bank sprung up in a moment of political urgency.

“I suddenly got a New York Times alert that the vote had changed to 50/50,” Tuttle recalled.  “I already knew hundreds of phone banks were being arranged across the country, so I decided that I wanted to arrange one here as quickly as possible. Within 20 minutes of having the idea, I left class and organized something.”

The event, which lasted an hour, was an “encouraging experience,” Tuttle said. An estimated 20 to 25 people made calls to their respective senators to voice their opposition to DeVos.

“I liked the idea that some extra phones were ringing in Capitol Hill because we were doing something,” Tuttle reflected.

However, Tuttle worried that the current wave of political activism will be short-lived without “a core group of politically active people” on campus to create “something concrete that’s organized and continually operating.”

Penelope Edmonds ’19, a regular participant in Columbae’s political action parties, also commented on the need for centralized organization of anti-Trump action to increase the sustainability of the movement.

“There needs to be a more widespread calendar of events happening on campus, [since] there are a lot of events that happen that just go under the radar,” Edmonds said, stressing the need to “create a channel to increase attendance at events.”

Even so, Stanford students’ increased activist spirit has been apparent to many existing student groups, who recently have been able to engage more students in political action.

Representatives from Stanford’s chapter of J Street U, an intercollegiate pro-Israel and pro-peace organization, had unprecedented success at a tabling event obtaining signatures on a petition opposing Trump’s pick for the U.S. Envoy to Israel, David Friedman.

“People are definitely more willing to sign petitions, call people and just come to the table more than they would before,” said Julia Daniel ’17, one of the students running the tabling effort. “People are coming up and are interested in what’s going on. I think there’s more mobilization.”

As a constituent of Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who joined Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) as one of two GOP senators who opposed DeVos’ confirmation, Kurland has seen firsthand how a groundswell of political action can make a real difference.

“That was really inspiring because it showed that people getting engaged on the individual level — just picking up the phone and taking one minute to make a call — ultimately flipped a vote in the Senate,” Kurland said. “We lost at the end of the day, but I do think Senator Murkowski and Senator Collins really illustrated there how important it is for folks to get engaged in this way.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Faculty join the fight to protect undocumented community members https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/13/faculty-join-the-fight-to-protect-undocumented/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/13/faculty-join-the-fight-to-protect-undocumented/#respond Mon, 13 Feb 2017 08:18:24 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1122869 A group of Stanford students and faculty have joined forces in an ongoing effort to make Stanford a safer place for undocumented immigrants. Galvanized by the election of President Donald Trump last November, student group Stanford Sanctuary Now (SSN) demanded that Stanford protect all students and staff at risk of deportation by keeping their immigration status private and providing them with legal assistance. In recent weeks, faculty members have also taken up SSN’s cause.

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Faculty join the fight to protect undocumented community members
(MICHAEL SPENCER/The Stanford Daily) Students participated in anti-Trump protests after the election, demanding that Stanford become a sanctuary campus.

A group of Stanford students and faculty members has joined forces in an ongoing effort to make Stanford a safer place for undocumented immigrants. Galvanized by the election of President Donald Trump last November, student group Stanford Sanctuary Now (SSN) demanded that Stanford protect all students and staff at risk of deportation by keeping their immigration status private and providing them with legal assistance. In recent weeks, faculty members have also taken up SSN’s cause.

 

Newfound collaboration

Amid negotiations between the University administration and SSN, the Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) issued a statement of support for the cause in January, followed by a letter signed by a group of 200 faculty members from various departments calling for more “assertive” response from the University.

The PWR letter demanded that Stanford avoid disclosing information to Immigration and Customs Enforcement about the immigration status of students, faculty or staff, provide financial and legal resources to individuals in danger of deportation, as well as explicitly adopt need-blind admissions for undocumented and international candidates.

Selby Schwartz, a PWR lecturer who spearheaded the collaboration with SSN, said the program’s support for the sanctuary campus movement was a logical extension of its “long political tradition of speaking in public.” Schwartz reiterated the program’s commitment to “supporting and affirming students, staff, their families and the broader community around Stanford and Palo Alto.”

According to SSN member Kari Barclay, a first-year Ph.D. candidate in theater and performance studies, the faculty initiatives bring much-needed solidarity and longevity for the sanctuary campus movement.

“Having [PWR faculty and instructors] support our demands, very specifically, has been great,” Barclay said. “We hope [their letter] can serve as a model for other departments, and even administrative offices, to sign onto.”

Barclay added that the 200 faculty members who signed the letter of support “very much saw the symbolism of the presented statements.”

Signed by faculty from multiple disciplines, the second letter presented a more emotional argument that contrasted with the legal specificity of the PWR letter, a contribution that SSN said added important rhetorical dimension to their platform. Faculty leader David Palumbo-Liu echoed the passionate tone of the letter.

“We cannot waste any time recognizing the kinds of threats the Trump administration presents,” Palumbo-Liu stated, adding that these issues “threaten both Stanford as an institution of higher education… and members of our community.”

The PWR department and the multidisciplinary faculty cohort joined SSN at their town hall meeting last week, which Barclay described as a visible step toward “building a coalition between different campus groups” and “putting these organizations in dialogue.” In the meeting, 115 student and faculty attendees discussed SSN’s platform, planned events in solidarity and prepared for future conversations with the administration.

 

University responses

The letters from students and faculty came in response to a perceived lack of specific policies that protect undocumented students at the University. While administrators have published a series of statements in response to mounting concern following the election and President Trump’s executive orders on immigration, SSN has sought more concrete proposals and action.

After the November election, the University published a statement reaffirming its support for the DREAM Act and DACA, two protective policies for undocumented students that Trump has threatened to abolish.

SSN said that they were pleased with the University’s tone in its statement, but had hoped to see more policy specifics. SSN provided more specific demands in late January, which first drew the support of instructors and faculty.

President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, along with then-Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82 and Provost Persis Drell, commented on these issues with a more detailed statement on Jan. 29. In the statement, they affirmed the University would use need-blind admissions for undocumented students, voiced support for federal legislation that would protect undocumented people and articulated core policy values of privacy and inclusivity.

“The University is deeply concerned about the potential impact to individual members of our community, and to our academic mission, of immigration restrictions,” wrote University spokesperson Lisa Lapin in an email to The Daily. She added that Stanford “has been actively engaged in addressing questions and providing resources to our community.”

The University’s statement was met with differing responses from the groups involved. Schwartz expressed optimism about the University’s stated goals, which she said was in line with her cause.

“I see a great deal of concern [from the University] about the effect of the executive orders and the possible intent to deport students,” Schwartz said.

Palumbo-Liu also commented that collaboration and cooperation with the University seemed within reach.

“I know the administration is doing… a lot of information-gathering to really see the dimensions of the problem, and so are our groups,” Palumbo-Liu said, stressing their collective need to “[work] out together the best ways to reach our common goals.”

However, members of SSN lamented that they have yet to see a detailed action plan from the University.

“The [University of California] system [president] Janet Napolitano [said] unflinchingly, ‘we are supporting our students,’” Barclay said. “Stanford said that, but there could be both improvements in policy and in tone.”

Barclay added that the latest statement has not fully addressed community members’ fears, especially those of campus workers.


Looking ahead

To bring about concrete policy outcomes, the sanctuary campus coalition aims to work with University administrators in continued negotiations. The coalition is currently preparing for a meeting with University administrators on Feb. 16. Barclay laid out various goals that SSN has for the meeting, the most pressing of which is communicating the longevity of their efforts.

“The challenge is going to be getting the University to see this as a long-term struggle — and a long-term collaboration — rather than a group of students who they can calm,” Barclay said. “There’s the image that we’re just a bunch of angry students who they can wait out.”

Barclay added that participation by faculty members, who are able to remain at Stanford and support the cause for the long-term, help SSN communicate the seriousness of their message.

“We have more people behind us than ever,” Barclay said. “And we’re not going away anytime soon.”

 

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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