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Notes -
The War at Stanford - The Atlantic
A few interesting things about this article:
The author is a sophomore student-journalist, and it's really good writing, by any standard. It turns out his parents are both top journalists. Nature vs nurture (vs high-status parents faking achievements by their kids to make them look good) is ambiguous, yet again!
One observation he makes that I hadn't seen in other reporting on campus protests, is that college admissions select for people who are "really good at looking really good," which includes strategic political posturing. This reminded me of my own experience at a high school that hyper-optimized for college admission, where I quickly became jaded by classmates openly-performative "activism." Are the elite student protestors my former classmates' gen-z counterparts? If so, how do my elite "betters" actually go on to do good things? Or, if the elite students are genuinely better than me, why are the people who are the best at looking the best mounting their (electrically conductive material, as required by this deliberately mixed metaphor) flagpole to the third rail? Or, is the sophomore student-journalist's observation true, but irrelevant, making this is just a really well-written, yet redundant, article about campus protests?
The Stanford administration banned calls for genocide, in response to the House hearing, but acknowledged to the reporter that this is illegal, due to a California statute requiring all universities to adhere to the First Amendment, not just public universities. I'm curious what the PR and legal discussions leading to this "ban" were, and what may result from it.
I feel this is good place to post recent events in Vanderbilt college. So a group of pro Palestine students decide to make a sit in and occupy a building. The university responds with the mildest possible measures (not letting them access bathrooms) instead of folding over and well - the protesters don't look that good when you ignore their crybulling.
https://vanderbilthustler.com/2024/03/26/inside-kirkland-hall-vanderbilt-divest-coalition-protestors-report-inhumane-treatment-amid-student-suspensions-and-arrest-of-reporter/
It isnt even that they weren't allowed access to restrooms... the building was closed (at least partially) due to construction, and the students had to shove past a security guard to get in. So it's more "You're not allowed to use the restrooms in the building you broke into (same as everyone else isn't allowed to enter and use them), but you can feel free to leave and use any other building on campus (like everyone else)."
Campus police also prohibited the people delivering Panera from entering the building to deliver it to the protestors (which, again, this building was in a somewhat-closed status unrelated to the protests).
It's also a bit ironic given that Vandy came out with a Free Expression Initiative a little while back, which I was heartily in favor of. I think overall, the admin has done a pretty good job of handling this, the overall Israel/Hamas conflict, and also the upcoming election.
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