ASSU President Sophia Danielpour and Vice President Kyle Haslett present to the Faculty Senate on Nov. 2. (Image credit: Harry Gregory)

University leadership discussed the tense campus climate amid the conflict in the Middle East, and the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) shared insights into students’ concerns about trust and student life on campus during the Faculty Senate meeting on Thursday.

“After condemning the terrorist atrocities of Hamas, the provost and I continue to work to maintain the safety and well-being of our campus,” said President Richard Saller in his remarks to the senate. “This involves a variety of measures, including a new security review, the education of the community about the roots of antisemitism, which we condemn. We’re also working to secure our Palestinian and Muslim communities, which have also been targeted with hate speech and are fearful.”

Stanford’s Threat Assessment Team and the Department of Public Safety (DPS) are working with law enforcement partners and outside experts to ensure campus security. DPS is also supporting security for campus centers and at campus events, and responding to individual concerns.

Provost Jenny Martinez said she and Saller have been meeting with Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, and Muslim community members, all of whom report fearing for their safety and concerning incidents rooted in antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Stanford stands against antisemitism and Islamophobia, and all forms of hatred and discrimination on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, or national origin, Martinez emphasized.

Martinez said she’s worried about the current environment’s chilling effect on speech, as some have become afraid of sharing their views for fear of harassment or doxxing, while others would like to learn more about the conflict but are hesitant to ask questions for fear they’ll be misconstrued.

The free expression of ideas necessarily includes protection for some forms of controversial and even offensive speech, both as a matter of Stanford’s policy on Academic Freedom and California’s Leonard Law, which prohibits private universities like Stanford from punishing students for expression protected by the First Amendment, said Martinez, who is also a legal scholar. However, some speech – such as threats, harassment, and incitement to violence – aren’t protected and won’t be tolerated.

Martinez invited the university’s community members to reflect on their shared responsibility to uphold the principles that make higher education work.

“That responsibility matters most not when discussing topics that are abstract, historical, or conjectural, but when addressing topics that involve acute human suffering and injustice,” Martinez said. “It is in these moments that we are most susceptible to inflict the very harms we have suffered upon others, to ignore, minimize, or rationalize the suffering of others differently situated but no less human, and to conflate violence with the very difficult work of seeking justice to be done and building a better world. Indeed, it is precisely in these moments that sound decisions reached in open deliberation with other thoughtful, compassionate decision-makers are most needed.”

The university is working with faculty to provide programming in coming weeks related to the history and context of antisemitism and Islamophobia to deepen understanding of the conflict.

Read Martinez’s remarks in full here.

ASSU Undergraduate Senate representative Dylan Ganesan shared that some students don’t feel that the university is doing enough to address harassment related to the Middle East conflict.

Martinez said the responsibility of responding to concerns about faculty primarily lies with school deans, and for issues between students, the Office of the Vice Provost for Students Affairs can provide resources.

She also cautioned that at times, the first information reported on an incident is not accurate. “Our first task in looking into any of these matters is to ascertain the facts, which often is not something that happens at the speed of social media,” Martinez said.

ASSU report

Students feel that Stanford’s identity and systems of trust have eroded, and this translates into unprecedented levels of distrust, tension, and disappointment between administrators, students, faculty, parents, and alumni, ASSU President Sophia Danielpour told senators in the ASSU executives’ annual report to the senate.

“It comes down to an overall engineering of the student experience and an overregulation of the student experience, which has disrupted … the character of Stanford that makes it so special,” Danielpour said.

In a presentation outlining students’ biggest concerns, Danielpour said that many strongly dislike the university’s neighborhood residential system. Students feel that it limits their housing options and harms the culture around the Row, which is “basically the undergraduate social hub outside Greek life,” Danielpour said.

The Office of the Vice Provost for Student Affairs has rolled out a task force to address concerns. However, it’s unclear who is on it, and students still feel left out, Danielpour added.

“Students on this campus are complaining that they can’t find community within the residential experience,” Danielpour said.

Students also feel like there is more focus on mitigating risk rather than developing community, said ASSU Vice President Kyle Haslett. He cited specific concerns about the university’s alcohol use policy and a rise in dangerous alcohol and drug use.

Students feel overly monitored and are fearful of the Office of Community Standards (OCS) process, Danielpour said. “It still pervades the student experience to the extent where we speak to alums, and they find that the Stanford experience now is unrecognizable, compared to what it used to be.”

Voluntary student organizations also face a complicated and costly process to host events, Haslett said.

“On the topics of overwhelming bureaucracy and outrageous charges, I think you’ll find many faculty and departments are very supportive of being offended by that as well,” said Brian Conrad, professor of mathematics in the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences .

Students also don’t view the university’s expanded use of campus security cameras as an effective approach to addressing safety issues, Danielpour said. Further, it’s unclear who can access the camera footage.

ASSU has worked with the Office of Student Affairs to address many student concerns by establishing programs, policies, processes, and community spaces. This involves programming on the Row to revive social life; sober programming at night; reducing barriers to the party registration process; and a review of community spaces to host activities.

The ASSU representatives said they would like to work with the administration to reduce bureaucracy; rethink the alcohol policy, the role of resident advisors, and mandatory reporting; and develop stronger delineations about rules and regulations for OCS. Also, ASSU would like to see more free and heavily subsidized spaces for students.

Stephen Stedman, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, asked if students would prefer to get rid of the neighborhood system altogether. Danielpour noted there were problems with the previous housing system too that were centered around nepotism, housing assignments, and community. ASSU’s proposals emphasize choice so students can live where they want and thus build community buy-in, she said.

Mehran Sahami, the James and Ellenor Chesbrough Professor in the School of Engineering and professor of computer science, urged more dialogue between the administration and students about space constraints. “We all know space is a huge issue on campus,” he said. “I think you see it from the student social side, we see it from classrooms, labs, a bunch of other things. And so I think there needs to be more transparency both ways so you can understand the larger set of constraints.”

Danielpour ended by appealing to the senators to be advocates for students. “We would love if you were a champion of the student experience in those conversations [on university committees], and really brought to bear some of the concerns that students are having in this era of Stanford.”