The Graduate Student Council (GSC) hosted The Daily’s executive editing team, which included Editor-in-Chief Greta Reich ’26 and executive editors Ananya Udaygiri ’26 and Lauren Koong ’26, to examine its editorial policies on anonymity and consent for quotation and use of multimedia in light of campus-wide student concerns related to free speech at Monday’s meeting.
The meeting between GSC and The Daily follows GSC’s previous concerns regarding inaccuracies in The Daily’s quotations and requests for anonymity. The Daily has received multiple requests from students in recent weeks asking that their names be retroactively redacted amid the Trump administration’s legal crackdown on international students and revocation of hundreds of student visas.
Councilors expressed concerns that the students’ requests for anonymity would not be fulfilled.
Reich stated that The Daily, operating under the guidance of its board of directors and professional journalists, has adopted a case-by-case approach in considering requests to have names removed from previously published content.
“The job of journalism is not to erase history,” Reich said. “It’s unethical to start self-censoring ourselves when we are being told to be censored. The fear that people are facing is very real, and we’re still having these conversations and open to the idea of change in the future.”
Reich attributed this decision to the existence of online archives as records associated with previous articles and The Stanford Daily Board of Directors’ overarching concern of maintaining journalistic integrity and credibility.
Reich reiterated The Daily’s policy of granting anonymity to students only under particular circumstances approved by the executive editing team. Additionally, she stated that the newspaper is only legally allowed to publish an individual’s name with their consent.
This policy and other sentiments regarding free speech on campus amid the current political climate were detailed in The Daily’s most recent Letter from the Editors, which urged the University to extend protections to international students who may face retaliation for expressing their views in the publication.
Councilors shared concerns that The Daily’s position on anonymity may endanger certain international students who have shared their views previously in the newspaper or may deter those who would otherwise share their perspective with reporters.
“If The Daily would potentially make an exception for types of situations in which immigration status is on the line, I actually think making that known would make it easier for The Daily to [obtain] quotes from students who might not [otherwise] feel comfortable sharing their experiences,” said Laurel (Na Hye) Kim, a second year law student.
In response to graduate student concerns regarding the accuracy of The Daily’s coverage of the GSC, Reich said that The Daily will send beat reporters — writers specialized in a particular topic — to consistently cover meetings. Councilors and The Daily executive team also agreed to enhance communication and cooperation in the future to bridge any gaps as few graduate students are members of the publication’s staff.
The GSC also approved multiple funding requests, including the Law School Drama Society’s annual musical after-party, the Mexican Association of Graduate Students’ Cinco de Mayo events and the Women in Mathematics, Statistics and Computational Engineering faculty lunch. GSB Muslims in Business, a new organization still in its first academic year, received funding to cover the costs of hosting Butch Ware, a historian and the 2024 Green Party vice presidential nominee, to speak at the GSB and “teach students about how to incorporate restorative justice principles into their decisions,” said Chris West MBA ’25.
Jas Espinosa, the current chief executive officer of Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE) and financial manager of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) shared that the GSC had voted to approve Johan Sotelo as the new chief executive officer of SSE and financial manager of the ASSU in a closed session.
A fifth-year graduate student, who requested anonymity and previously spoke to the GSC at the March 31 meeting about their experience with the Office of Community Standards (OCS), commented on The Daily’s coverage of the meeting, specifically the article’s statement that “OCS commented that students may speak openly about their experience with OCS, as long as the privacy rights of other students are protected, as stated by guidelines on their website.”
“[This statement] is in direct contradiction to what I was told directly from the OCS through email,” the student said.