The fight against Stanford's censorship

“By trying to impose egalitarianism, they made themselves the elite. In an effort to eliminate what they perceived as oppression, they acted far more tyrannically.” — Peter Thiel and David Sacks, “The Myth of Diversity”

When Peter Thiel and David Sacks wrote In their 1995 book, The Diversity Myth, they detailed what they experienced during their time as Stanford students: an increasingly hostile left-wing political ideology that demonized Western culture, idolized victimhood, and worshipped diversity. Thirty years later, their description of Stanford's culture is an eerily similar description of the development and leadership of our country today.

In my few years at Stanford, I experienced pro-Hamas students Warehouse in White Plaza and Raid the Office of the President. I saw the Associate Dean for DEI at Stanford Law School fuel Student protesters shouting down a federal judge. I saw a bloated administration with more than 10,000 bureaucrats And 177 DEI officials crackdown on student-run Funand I reported on Stanford’s integral role in censorship Efforts during the Covid pandemic and much more.

But amazingly, Thiel and Sacks, the co-founder and one of the first editors of the reviewdescribed Stanford as ideologically just as problematic – if not more so – during their time.

In a stunning story, they recall Stanford's speech code, which banned “fighting words” on campus until it was declared unconstitutional in 1995. When a student decided to push the boundaries of the speech code and prove that it was not as coercive as multiculturalists had hoped, Stanford punished him with every kind of pressure, intimidation and condemnation they could find to discredit him.

Thiel and Sacks paint a vivid picture of how Stanford fell into the ideology they called “multiculturalism” and what we now call “wokeism.” The main difference today is how widespread that ideology has become. The direct consequences of that ideology are often ridiculous and petty, like Stanford banning words like “American” and “brave.” But if the Covid pandemic has revealed anything about that campus culture: It's no longer funny.

When the pandemic struck, Stanford gave in to the same ideology that Thiel and Sacks identified in 1995. The university's elitism and tyranny were clearly evident when it pressured and censored its faculty members who held valid scientific beliefs that did not fit its preferred narrative. When Stanford Dr. Jay Bhattacharya required “Targeted protection” And Scott Atlas Stanford pushed back against the widespread pandemic mandates and tried to silence them. They launched a pressure campaign to ban them from speaking to the media, discredit their research, and publicly Rebuke Dr. Atlas in the Stanford Faculty Senate. As Stanford does for Decades Now it used its power to maintain its own narrative.

This time, however, it is different. It is no longer just about “fighting words” or microaggressions; it is a matter of life and death. It turns out that many of the views and insights censored by Stanford were not only valid, but had the potential to change the fate of countless lives by dealing differently with lockdowns, school closures, and shelter-in-place measures. This censoring ideology has helped create a far more dangerous world than the safety it supposedly promotes.

It is for this reason – Stanford’s pursuit of political conformity and punishment of those who step out of line – that there is such genuine and widespread disdain for Stanford and elite universities alike. It is also why the Stanford Review and is more important today than ever. Since its founding in 1987, the review has been and will continue to be one of the leading dissenting voices in science.

I am grateful for the successes in my band, which have continued the 37-year mission of reviewWe have published a seven-part series on “Stanford’s Censorship” that has documented the worst violations of speech and academic freedom on our campus and has continued to cultivate a class of unruly students on our campus. But most of all, I couldn’t be more grateful for such an incredible group of friends and mentors in the review.

To the editors I've had before me: Max Meyer, Neelay Trivedi, Mimi St Johns, and Walker Stewart, you have been incredible mentors. I'm also grateful to have done this alongside an incredible team: Julia Steinberg, Thomas Adamo, John Puri, Abhi Desai, Aditya Prathap, Cees Armstrong, Isabella Griepp, Bethany Lorden, Dylan Rem, Elsa Johnson, Aadi Golchha, and Joseph Seiba. I'm proud to call each of you my friend.

Above all, I would like to thank Julia Steinberg, who reviewThe next editor of , who has undoubtedly been one of the bravest student voices on campus. Not only is she an outstanding journalist, but she is also a leader on campus, and I couldn't be more excited to see what she accomplishes in her volume.

It is time for Stanford to turn away from this ideology and focus instead on other core principles: those of individual and academic freedom that underpin our country and have made Stanford so successful in the first place. review for almost four decades: We will continue to be a beacon of hope for our broken universities.

Despite everything, I am forever grateful and indebted to my alma mater for providing me with the opportunities and education that I received. I would undoubtedly choose Stanford again, but I fear that the pandemic censorship will be just the beginning of ever more egregious violations of personal and academic freedom if the university continues on its current path. Fortunately, the review endures to oppose it.

Thanks all for your continued support.

Fiat 500X,

Josiah Joner
Editor-in-Chief, Volume LXVIII

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