On May 28, a group of about one dozen student activists hung a banner above the Bing Wing entrance of Green Library that said: “Levin and Martinez / Don’t cower to Trump / Drop the Charges / Invest in Students / Divest from Genocide.”
According to one student who organized the protest and the planning process, who spoke to The Daily on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the University, they hung the banner because the University “administration has been avoiding talking about… the genocide that is ongoing for almost 600 days now.” They also said that part of the reason included the 12 pro-Palestine facing felony charges who occupied the president’s office last June. The protestors were arraigned last Thursday.
The student believes that the administration has “been bending the knee to Trump over and over again.”
The banner was taken down within 30 minutes of its appearance. According to Vice Provost and University Librarian Michael Keller, Green Library staff contacted the Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) who sent officers, but remained outside of the library. The staff then removed the banner.
“When I see [police officers], I don’t think safety — I think this is someone who is here to harass me,” said a second student organizer who also spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation from the University. “This is someone who is here to make me feel unsafe in the place in which I work, in the place in which I live, in the place in which I study.”
The banner, while only briefly up, prompted multiple reactions from students who saw it in person or in social media posts that quickly circulated.
“These agitators just seem to be looking for something to rebel against,” Ryan Bookman ’27 wrote to The Daily. “Slogan-based arguments don’t persuade anyone; in fact, they create a nuisance and alienate people from their ’cause.’ The banner is performative, and I hope it makes Stanford feel more inclined to keep economically benefiting from supporting our ally.”
Part of the reason the group put up the banner was to protest the removal of the “K(no)w Justice, K(no)w Peace” banner, the second student organizer said. The original banner was installed in 2021 to commemorate the opening of Green Library’s “Say their Names” exhibit. The exhibit was designed to raise awareness for those who lost their lives to police and systemic violence and share their stories with the Stanford community.
Eugene Volokh, a Hoover Senior Fellow and a member of the AdHoc Committee on University Speech, wrote in an email to The Daily that “obviously, [the library] is not a place where students are entitled to express their own ideas.” The decision to remove the “K(no)w Justice, K(no)w Peace” banner followed an evaluation by the AdHoc Committee on University speech on whether it violated the University’s 2024 Policy on Institutional Statements.
A third student organizer, who again spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation from the University, said the group chose to display the banner to link campus events together. They spoke not only of the removal of the original Green Library banner, but also of threats to remove co-op status from Synergy and Terra, the adoption of a lottery system for assignment to Ethnic Theme Dorms (ETDs), the restructuring of the creative writing program and proposed funding cuts to the Bridge. Stanford, they said, is working to “cut [student activists] down slowly.”
Assistant University Librarian for External Relations Anh Ly wrote in an email to The Daily that the banner was “unauthorized” and that signs displayed at the library must be approved by either the Dean’s office, Vice Provost and Dean of Research or the Office of the Provost, depending on where they are displayed. The sign must abide by the location’s “local rules,” which Ly said “should be applied in a viewpoint-neutral way.”
The University pointed The Daily to Ly’s statement when reached out to for comment.
Ly noted that the banner’s removal is in accordance with Stanford’s freedom of expression policies.
“Poster and banner policies differ across areas of campus depending on the function of the area. Spaces like White Plaza are available for the widest range of communications,” the policy states.
The Stanford Libraries “are designed for particular uses, and use of those spaces for other activities will likely violate the Policy on Campus Disruptions,” Ly wrote.
This article has been updated to reflect that SUDPS officers did not enter Green Library or remove the banner themselves.