Stanford University has been vocally supportive of the impacted researcher — but not the person that does the research. Fears of institutional orthodoxy drive the apparent unwillingness to acknowledge mental and emotional damage that marginalized communities are currently experiencing.

In the past few weeks, we have received consistent communication about the University’s response to the Trump administration’s attacks on university research. However, we have heard next to nothing on DEI-related matters, with surface-level Faculty Senate quotes as the only communication. I understand the prioritization of research, given that the institution was founded on principles of cutting-edge progress and growth. However, the freedoms and well-being of the people that make it happen are also being attacked by federal actions. The disconcerting scarcity of information has left me feeling invisible and abandoned, forcing me to reevaluate my relationship with Stanford. 

My historical understanding of and connection to Black life in America significantly augments my interpretation of everything. Federally led or supported (even by indifference) assaults on Black Americans are not new; the current anti-DEI reactionary federal and state-level actions (i.e. executive orders, proposed legislation and Supreme Court decisions) are merely a continuation of the great American tradition. When Black Americans (or any marginalized group) seek to capitalize on the opportunities legally and illegally denied to us in the past, a large swath of more privileged (primarily white) Americans feel that opportunity is instead being taken from them. In this zero-sum game view of American society, progress comes at the expense of their own advancement by prioritizing “under-qualified” people of color. In 2024, American conservatives voted in a government that promises to bring America back to its “normal” greatness where Black and other marginalized communities are second-class citizens at best. I am both angry and saddened that these sentiments once again occupy the top levels of our government. This emotional and rational response is driven by my life experiences.

I grew up poor in the Deep South. Medicaid was my health insurance. Food stamps and free school lunch staved off hunger. Section 8 housed me. The Pell Grant was my college fund. I have been exposed to racial trauma and experiences that many feel are long in the past. 

I have been told that I got into Iowa State University because I was Black. I was called a “nigger” in the residence hall. My family and I were called “niggers” and referred to as monkeys in my wife’s rural Iowa community. A neighbor wrote “nigger” on my family’s car. I have been held at gunpoint by the police at 16, when they said I ran a stop sign (yet they didn’t give me a ticket.) More than one white person has told me that I look/was scary. Racist Steve King (R-IA) was my representative in undergrad. I have been followed in stores. White strangers touch my hair without consent.

I am only 32 years old. I have beaucoup experiences, including at Stanford, that would stand in stark contrast to the popular narratives around race relations. Many are blind to present-day racism because their privilege obscures it, or they believe racism ended in 1865, 1964, 2008 or 2020. My perception of present-day events and politics can never be divorced from my knowledge of history or my own experiences. I won’t neatly pack myself into the narrow box the University acknowledges and rallies around. 

I exist on campus not just as a researcher, teacher and mentor but also as a Black person. When Stanford refuses to speak internally, let alone publicly, about the attacks on DEI, I see the University for what it is: a place of incredible power and prestige more concerned with public image than the well-being of affected faculty, staff, postdocs and students that call Stanford home. 

I saw the writing on the wall when the Faculty Senate announced an amendment to University’s policy on institutional statements, which is firmly supported by the very wealthy Board of Trustees. University president Jonathan Levin ’94 made it clear in his inaugural address that Stanford’s “purpose is not political action or social justice” but to serve as the “university of the American frontier.” This historically insensitive analogy, given the violent history of America’s settling of the West, gives the impression that scientific progress can be siloed from ongoing harms to marginalized groups. The University’s repetitive use of “institutional orthodoxy” is a verbal abdication of responsibility. The lack of public support against thinly veiled racist attacks on DEI and the vague insights into University-led DEI-related changes leave me with a more distant relationship to this campus. I remain steadfast in my commitment to making Stanford a place where the targeted can feel like they belong, a burden that disproportionately falls on faculty and staff from those same marginalized groups under attack. This burden will likely increase as the University revises and potentially ends existing programming. I am doing this work for those who feel that this institution is their best opportunity for career advancement, not the benefit of Stanford

This is not a request or demand that the University makes a blanket statement. All I have been wanting for the past month is for the University to publicly acknowledge the federal targeting of marginalized groups. However, I no longer have hope that the University has the courage to do it, which would be late anyway. This isn’t the first and won’t be the last time our nation’s most powerful and prestigious institutions fall silent when marginalized groups are attacked publicly. Those most likely to be victimized, ostracized and marginalized cannot — and will not — be afraid to Take Back the Mic to ensure we are heard. 

I would encourage those priming their pens and keyboards in preparation for a dissenting response to critically engage with Martin Luther King Jr.’s 62-year-old, yet still relevant, “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The following quote from King is the best summary of my pain and frustration with Stanford’s silence: “I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic. Maybe I expected too much. I guess I should have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action.”

Dr. Elliott White Jr., Assistant Professor of Earth System Science