Our Weekend Roundup is released every Sunday morning during the school year and features an engaging rundown of the news from the previous week in the form of a briefing. It also includes editors’ picks from other sections. This final edition of the 2019-20 school year came out on Monday due to commencement on Sunday. Subscribe here to receive emails like this.
Students and other community members are continuing to protest both in person and online, nearly four weeks after the killing of George Floyd placed a spotlight on the ongoing struggle against anti-Black racism and police brutality. Last Sunday, hundreds marched from White Plaza to Palo Alto City Hall. The protesters called for change around the country and at Stanford, urging the University to divert funding from campus police and invest more in African and African American Studies (AAAS), including departmentalizing the AAAS program and increasing funding to The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute.
Student organizers also constructed a memorial on the Stanford Oval, pictured above, to Black lives lost to police brutality and racial violence. More than a hundred markers each bear the name and face of a person killed. Two rows are dedicated to Black trans women and gender non-conforming individuals, in recognition of the disproportionate toll violence takes on those communities.
And activists are gearing up for other long-term efforts as well. On Thursday, around 100 people attended a town hall put on by StandFor, a new coalition centered on building in-roads between activist organizations at Stanford.
The trustees based their decision on whether investment in these companies met the “abhorrent and ethically unjustifiable” standard adopted in 2018 by the Stanford Management Company, the firm that manages the endowment. The “assertion that oil and gas companies have engaged in human rights violations” wasn’t enough to support a “blanket industry-wide” decision, Board Chair Jeff Raikes ’80 said, although specific companies can be considered on a case-by-case basis.
While Stanford currently has no direct holdings in the 100 companies identified by Fossil Free Stanford, the University indirectly invests in the fossil fuel industry through financial instruments such as index funds. Investments in fossil fuels make up less than 1.5% of the merged pool.
The trustees’ decision not to divest is in line with the Faculty Senate’s 28-11 vote against divestment, but comes despite student and faculty activism spearheaded by the group Fossil Free Stanford. Last week, more than 600 students and 100 faculty signed petitions asking the Board of Trustees to divest from fossil fuels.
Female faculty are reporting sexual misconduct within Stanford’s School of Medicine, blaming a culture of sexual harassment and sexism for what they say is an inadequate University response to allegations ranging from inappropriate touching to inaccurate, career-undermining rumors.
Their reports are in line with January 2019 survey results finding that 21% of female Stanford faculty had experienced “offensive, objectifying or discriminatory behavior” due to their gender. As a result, professors are considering leaving or have left the School of Medicine.
The student government executives released their end-of-year report, highlighting successes like increased voter registration and the COVID-19 relief fund.
No Stanford baseball players were selected in the the MLB draft for the first time in 49 years, though this year’s draft was shortened.
Redshirt junior Ben Hallock won the 2020 Peter J. Cutino Award, given to the nation’s top collegiate water polo player, for the second consecutive season.
If you have time today, check out one of our editors’ picks:
This is our last roundup of the 2019-20 academic year. Throughout the summer, we’ll continue to bring you Stanford coverage through our social media and our website, stanforddaily.com. We’ll resume regular email newsletters in fall quarter.
