Around 15 undergraduate students gathered in White Plaza Wednesday night to chalk messages protesting President Donald Trump’s executive orders, urging University leaders and community members to resist Trump’s actions on immigration, federal research and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
The students’ demonstration came amid a flurry of executive orders from the Trump administration that have upended higher education, government agencies and the private sector in recent days. The White House issued and then rescinded a sweeping freeze on federal funds, made swift changes to the federal bureaucracy, restricted gender-affirming care for young people and sought to dismantle DEI programs across government, education and business.
“[We] wanted to send a message that the conversation has to keep going, and the silence is not okay,” said Turner Van Slyke ’28, who organized the chalking. “We need to really critically examine the things that the Trump presidency is doing because…It hurts the people that we love, and our silence has the capacity to enable further damage to be done.”
University President Jon Levin ’94 said at a faculty senate meeting last week that Stanford would “need to review programs on campus that fall under the DEI heading” and that “some will need to be modified” in light of Trump’s order.
After the White House ordered a freeze on federal funding programs, including grants to universities, Levin, Provost Jenny Martinez and Dean of Research David Studdert wrote on Tuesday that “Faculty, staff, students, and post-docs supported by federal funding should continue their normal activities.”
Van Slyke said he was disturbed by a lack of institutional and community pushback against Trump’s restriction of federal funds, repeal of DEI initiatives and crackdown on immigration.
“The silence is pretty eerie,” he said. “The [university] administration has a chance to take a stand that both safeguards Stanford and sends a message early on that Trump can’t push people around.”
The Daily has reached out to the University for comment.
Students left messages in chalk on White Plaza, including phrases like “DEI Makes Stanford Stanford,” “Protect Trans Kids” and “Stanford, Don’t Acquiesce to Trump!” Another stated, “Most of the Power of Authoritarianism is Freely Given.”
Many of the participants, including Van Slyke, were residents of Stanford’s public service themed dorm Otero.
Jennifer Levine ’28, a columnist for The Daily, was disturbed by Trump’s actions targeting DEI programs in higher education.
“When the administration tries to take away funding for programs, or to discourage or make illegal teaching about certain things, that is deeply terrifying to me,” she said.
Amelia Overstreet ’28, another participant in the chalking, linked Trump’s targeting of DEI and critical race theory to a “clampdown on language that then snowballs into a clampdown on free speech in general.”
Overstreet said shutting down DEI initiatives could be the prelude to more “violent and extreme” actions by the Trump administration, including by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Federal agents have escalated mass deportations in major U.S. cities over the past week.
“What happens when we’re no longer allowed to alert people of ICE raids happening? What happens when we’re no longer allowed to spread information?” Overstreet said.
Van Slyke noted a contrast between the University’s position during Trump’s first administration and now. In 2017, Stanford and 16 other universities joined a legal brief that opposed Trump’s ban against people entering the United States from predominantly Muslim countries.
Former University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and provost John Etchemendy also wrote early that year, “policies that restrict the broad flow of people and ideas across national borders, or that have the effect or appearance of excluding people based on religion or ethnicity, are deeply antithetical to both our mission and our values.”
Both Levine and Overstreet said they hoped to continue demonstrating against the Trump administration, calling for a larger group of Stanford students to join them.
“We need to galvanize more people into being passionate so it’s not just a small few leading the charge,” Levine said.
Overstreet, a first-year student who hopes to volunteer with Stanford’s Sexual Health Peer Resource Center (SHPRC), said that White House policies could affect students’ involvement in campus programs.
“If we could raise awareness about how these dots could potentially connect…that could create a lot of passion towards raising awareness against the actions of the University in terms of the Trump administration’s rise,” Overstreet said.