We are a group of Stanford faculty, staff and alumni, and we oppose in the strongest terms possible the recent escalation of the U.S. Department of Education’s investigation into 60 universities, including our own. This escalation is conducted with a specific goal in mind: to intimidate universities into collaborating against pro-Palestinian student activists and cracking down on pro-Palestinian speech.
On March 10, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sent letters to sixty institutions of higher education warning them of “potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.”
The letter’s particular mention of discrimination and anti-Semitic harassment is of concern to us. We stand firmly opposed to discrimination and anti-Semitism. If the federal government cared about discrimination, it wouldn’t have taken the axe to DEI programs, cancelled grants that use words like “equity” and “inclusion” and scrubbed online databases of federal research that refer to “race,” “gender” and other language crucial to the fight against discrimination.
Rather than protecting Jewish students, the federal government redefines anti-Semitism to include any criticism of Zionism. This is dangerous. Criticism of Israel’s ethnic cleansing and what human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch consider a genocide against the Palestinian people is not antisemitic. Punishing those who criticize Israel is not just illegal according to the principles of free speech and academic freedom — it is immoral and complicit in genocide denial. Considering Zionism a protected identity, rather than the political project it is, removes it from any scrutiny or questioning.
The Department of Education’s letters will not protect Jewish students — they will silence and discipline pro-Palestinian activism and those who act in solidarity with Palestine. Many pro-Palestinian student protesters facing repression are themselves Jewish, standing in the long tradition of Jewish dissent against state violence and oppression.
The proposition that federal funding is contingent upon a university’s ability to monitor and discipline speech and freedom of assembly runs exactly counter to the purpose of higher education. What the Department of Education is asking universities to do is to capitulate to the “Palestine Exception,” to abandon free speech and to say that our principles are not universal but reserved for government-approved cases only. The suppression of campus free speech has begun with pro-Palestinian voices, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s illegal detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a recently graduated student activist from Columbia University, at his Columbia-owned apartment. It will not stop there.
We call on Stanford to take seriously its commitment to academic freedom and free speech. It cannot — it must not — capitulate to this form of blackmail. It is precisely at this time that the 60 named universities and all educational institutions should band together to refuse this extortion and all the false assumptions upon which it is based. If universities give in to this, they will display the fragility of their principles in the face of coercive pressure from those acting to undermine the very foundations and principles of education. They make themselves, and each one of us, all the more vulnerable to authoritarianism.
Stanford must adhere to its own statement on academic freedom: “Stanford University’s central functions of teaching, learning, research and scholarship depend upon an atmosphere in which freedom of inquiry, thought, expression, publication and peaceable assembly are given the fullest protection.” These freedoms are fundamental to the robust exchange of ideas, debates about the nature of our polity and to the making of a just society that protects all students.
- Zaid Adhami ’10 (currently Associate Professor of Religion, Williams College)
- Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, Associate Curator, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford
- Alan Arroyo-Chavez ’19
- Brooke Atherton El-Amine ’00
- Joel Beinin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus
- Marcie Bianco, editor, Stanford Social Innovation Review session
- Anna Bigelow, Associate Professor, Religious Studies
- Thaomi Michelle Dinh, Associate Director, Asian American Studies
- Moira Donegan, Writer in Residence, Clayman Institute
- Ibraheem Fakira, ’12 B.A
- Carmen T. Gomez, Chaplain Resident, Spiritual Care Services, Stanford Health Care
- Lindsay Imai Hong, ’99
- Branislav Jakovljević, Professor, TAPS
- Beverley Kane, Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine
- Dorian Katz, ’11, MFA Art Practice
- Alexander Key, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature
- Marci Kwon, Assistant Professor, Art & Art History
- Josh L-G, Academic Staff, Sociology
- David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor, Comparative Literature
- Hilton Obenzinger, Retired, Academic Staff
- Jonathan Rosa, Associate Professor of Education
- Vivian Sming, Associate Director of Academic and Public Programs, Cantor Arts Center
- Rev. Cathy Rion Starr, ’99
- Rebecca Tarlau, Associate Professor of Education
- Daela Taeoalii-Tipton, ’19
- Sharika Thiranagama, Associate Professor of Anthropology
- Sarah Tran, B.S M.S ‘20
- Mikael Wolf, Associate Professor of History
- Natalie Zahr, Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
This letter was co-signed by 35 additional Stanford community members who endorse this letter with their names withheld due to concerns of retaliation.