Stanford President's Message About Student Misconduct "as Part of a Protest March"

From a message posted Thursday:

Stanford President Richard Saller today made the following remarks to the Faculty Senate:

On Monday evening, as part of a protest march on campus, a group of individuals entered an engineering building where students were present and working in labs. The marchers who entered the building blocked entryways with constructed barricades they had brought with them and furniture from the building, and vandalized an interior wall and door with spray paint.

We have learned that students who were at work in the building were frightened by the intrusion and were concerned for their research and lab equipment as well as their personal safety. A faculty member whose lab is in the building shared that the research in that lab was sensitive and dangerous to those unfamiliar with the safe operation of the equipment.

The individuals who entered the building dispersed once public safety officers entered. Nevertheless, the actions that occurred on Monday evening threatened the health and safety of our community. The peaceful expression of viewpoints, which we value, can and should occur within the university's time, place, and manner provisions, without vandalism, and without jeopardizing the safety of our community members.

Over the last three days, the university and the Department of Public Safety have been investigating what occurred and collecting evidence. We are beginning disciplinary proceedings based on the evidence collected, which included items left behind such as personal identification, hardware associated with the barricades, a respirator mask, and other items that indicated an intention to occupy the building. The investigation also is continuing. We will respect the privacy rights of those involved. However, I want to be clear that students responsible for actions that threaten the safety of our community, such as those that occurred on Monday, will face immediate suspension and the inability to participate in Commencement based on the president's authority in cases of threats to community safety. In addition to being referred to the Office of Community Standards conduct process, they may also be subject to criminal charges.

Comments

[Bruce Hayden]

Well, good - so far.

[Don Nico]

Indeed. Let's hope that he has the cojones to follow through.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

It's easy now. As I said a few weeks ago, the "students" will soon lose interest and move on to their next morally imperative cause. Especially if their illegal actions are shown to have consequences.

[Scooter]

Vicious children in adult bodies who seek to destroy that which exceeds their capability to create.

This country is in the BEST of hands! /s/

[Dr. Ed 2]

"which included items left behind such as personal identification, "

They really left their OWN personal identification behind?!?

I'd be more inclined to believe that they left that of others behind, but the arrogance of these Gen Z Morons never ceases to amaze me.

[Scooter]

Many have been raised to believe that their feelings make them immune to the consequences of their actions. "Their Truth" overrides any facts of the matter.

[John F. Carr]

There ought to be surveillance video to confirm the ID. I wouldn't expel somebody just on the basis of a possibly planted card. When I was in college one might borrow another student's ID.

[Frank Drackman]

Did that once in med school, "borrowed" an especially obnoxious Residents (imagine a slightly more a-hol-olic "Reverend") Hospital ID, planned to leave it at a Gay Leather bar, only problem is that meant I'd have to go to the Gay Leather bar, so let him find it after I'd "Ball walked" it. Funny thing is he considered it "Stolen"

Frank

[Currentsitguy]

I've had exactly one experience in my life at a gay bar. Probably 20 years ago I was with m ex an a friend rom high school I am to this day still in contact with in DC. We were looking for a bar up near Dupont Circle called the Brickskellar that was well known for it's beer selection. we decided, stupidly it turns out, that people in bas know where other bars are.

I walked into this place right on the circle called The Fireplace sat down and ordered a beer because i didn't think it was right to ask one bar where another bar was without spending money.

As the bartender handed us beers I realized the "woman" in the sequenced evening gown was a dude.

Right around that time my ex said "I need to find out where they got that gown". at the same time the bartender who out Freddy Mercurey'ed Freddy Mercury asked me "You know you're in a queer bar, right?"

i of course trying to act so suave said of course I did, I was just looking for a beer.

Did fid the place eventually.

[Frank Drackman]

Freddy Mercury was Gay? I thought he was Haitian

[Dr. Ed 2]

Actually, I would have pulled out a $20 and said "I'm actually trying to find (other bar) and my wife would love to know where you got your dress."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Is random capitalization associated with being on the spectrum?

[NvEric]

Nothing is Random !

[Dr. Ed 2]

Rural Maine doesn't have street delivery, and the post office has a trash can for all the junk mail.

A favorite trick is to swipe some of someone else's junk mail (with their name and address on it), put it in a plastic trash bag with your trash in it, keeping it light enough to float, and toss it overboard on the coming tide so it floats ashore. This is best done at 4AM as you are heading out to haul, and off someone *else's* beach.

The latter person will call the authorities about illegal dumping of trash and they will go through the bag and find the person's name and address and go have a chat with said person...

[Don Nico]

Presumably the city's Department of Public Safety has access to qualified forensics technicians, which would be necessary to substantiate any criminal charges.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Seems like a much better statement than others have been elsewhere. Gets to the point, targets only individual wrongdoing, apparently on the basis of evidence, and omits the neo-McCarthyism.

[Flight-ER-Doc]

Good thing Stanford doesn't have a nuclear reactor, like UCLA used to have

[Frank Drackman]

and MIT, and Georgia Tech, Arab Grad Students and Fissionable material, what could go wrong???

[Dr. Ed 2]

I had an interesting conversation with a university police chief when that story broke -- she didn't *think* she had one, but was checking because she wasn't completely sure.

I remember another time when a "poisonous gas" alarm went off and the order was "no one but the professor or one of his graduate students is to go into the building." Or the time I found a half dozen red BioHazMat bags in the apartment complex dumpster -- they rolled a HazMat guy and while it wound up being someone stealing them from his lab to use for household trash, they told me I did the right thing taking it seriously because it COULD HAVE been serious.

One of the issues in K-12 is the stuff that is in some high school chemistry stock rooms that ought not be there, and the question of who is going to pay to get rid of it. In Amherst, someone cleaned out his father's garage and drove a carload of stuff to the police station for assistance in disposing of it -- the police evacuated the building and called in the state bomb squad. (The late grandfather had been a UMass Chemistry Professor and the version I heard was that what was in the car could have leveled the building.

I guess if you use dangerous chemicals enough, you know not to be nonchalant or at least not do something stupid -- but I can think of a half dozen common chemicals that would either ignite or explode if you simply knocked them off the shelf and they fell on the floor. There's one metal, memory is sodium, that will ignite if merely exposed to the air (or the moisture in it -- I forget which) -- and burns BIG TIME....

These idiots did not know what was in those various labs.

[David Nieporent]

Look, lots of believable anecdotes!

[Dr. Ed 2]

My bad, it was the Fire Station and not the Police Station that they drove the vehicle full of chemicals to. But is this proof?
https://www.masslive.com/news/2013/04/hazardous_materials_scare_in_d.html

You could have found it just as easily as I did -- something called duckduckgo....

I really don't make stuff up -- my life isn't and hasn't been that boring....

[Dr. Ed 2]

And as to high school chemistry stockrooms -- see:
https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/about/governance/committees/chemicalsafety/publications/reducing-risks-to-students-and-educators-from-hazardous-chemicals.pdf

[David Nieporent]

I really don’t make stuff up

…except on days ending in 'y.'

[Currentsitguy]

Penn State still does.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The real issue, which actually surprised me, is that most of these reactors were using BOMB GRADE uranium and not the less concentrated stuff that still works great in a fission reactor but you can't make a bomb out of it.

I remember something about some Federal agency trying to get the reactors converted to the latter and willing to pay for it, but bureaucratic problems with other Federal agencies or something. This was part of the "Atoms for Peace" project of the Eisenhower Administration, and the real issue was that if your engineering students have actual experience running an actual reactor then they are able to do it when the graduate. The flip side is that today (not in the 1950s) the computers are powerful enough to both simulate running one but to throw problems at you that you wouldn't want to have in real life. Just like with jetliner simulators.

Some colleges were getting rid of them because of insurance liability.

[Dr. Ed 2]

My bad, Atoms for Peace PROGRAM....

https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/atoms-for-peace-the-mixed-legacy-of-eisenhowers-nuclear-gambit/

[Brett Bellmore]

"The real issue, which actually surprised me, is that most of these reactors were using BOMB GRADE uranium and not the less concentrated stuff that still works great in a fission reactor but you can’t make a bomb out of it."

The lower the grade, the larger the total amount you need.

Anyway, TRIGA reactors are absurdly safe in terms of accident risk. The moderator is mixed with the fuel and quenched the reaction inherently if the fuel heats up, no control system required. You can literally use explosives to blow the control rods out, and not get an accident.

[Don Nico]

"The lower the grade, the larger the total amount you need."
That is not the point, and is not even correct depending on the scientific rationale for the reactor. For reactors supporting neutron scattering experiments and in particular neutron imaging, the key metric is the brightness of the reactor core as seen through the neutron transport guides. The brightness is driven by the power density in the core. That is not increased by adding more low enrichment fuel.

Of course the stupid observation was prompted by a Comment from Mr Ed. But what else did anyone expect.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, I suppose that depends on how much explosive you (or some terrorist) chooses to use.

More generally, stop trying to sell nuclear technology to a public which lives surrounded by high-level nuclear waste stored willy-nilly. That outcome was sold with promises about safe disposal, which kept getting renewed until they turned into lies.

I offer a simple test for proposed new nuclear technology. Demand that before any of it gets implemented, nuclear advocates find a way to complete the cleanups they promised when they sold the old technology.

Is that demand politically impossible? Well then, so will be any remedies for whatever problems the new stuff delivers.

Do nuclear advocates think that is an unreasonable demand? That would be proof positive they are unworthy of trust, once again.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

At face value, a reasonable statement.

Is Mr. Volokh trying to kick the trans fetish by switching to a myopic focus on (certain) student protests? I guess it beats rocking rhythmically and grimacing all day.

[Frank Drackman]

That's what your victims said.

[Bored Lawyer]

#TiresomeTroll

[Nige]

Can't argue with any of that.

[ThePublius]

I like that statement. Maybe there's hope.

I hope they follow through.

I prefer expulsion to suspension, but at least it's something.

[SimonP]

Typical statement. Exaggerates what the students did by pointing to “feelings,” threatens a disproportionately punitive response.

To be clear - what this statement says happened is that protestors briefly barricaded some entryways and spray-painted some graffiti on a wall, and dispersed when officers showed up. No assertion that any student or employee was ever in any actual danger is made. This is senior-prank level of mischief. You want to issue a ticket for vandalism, fine. No debating the criminality of fucking up the place. But making this into a serious criminal investigation, based on “feelings,” is just another example of cracking down on speech by other means.

[damikesc]

Remember, always, Simon's violence is speech while your speech is violence.

Always the case.

[David Nieporent]

Sneering about "feelings" is not a good look. Making a true threat against someone (and I'm not saying that this describes what they did) is a crime based solely on feelings, but most people would regard it as pretty significant. Stalking is about feelings. Harassment.

Like you, I don't know the facts of what happened here beyond the quoted statement, but unlike you, I don't automatically interpret them in the light most favorable to the protesters. If one is working in a building and a large group of rowdy people barge in, barricade the doors so nobody can get in or out, and start trashing the place, and only flee after the cops force their way in (it says "entered," not "arrived"), I think one would have the right to be scared and for that to be treated seriously.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, I am getting more and more skeptical that you are the free speech fundamentalist you claim to be.

What you say was scary enough to demand investigation strikes me as much less frightening than folks showing up at political rallies with AR-15s on conspicuous display. Or do you join me in thinking that would deserve investigation too?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

A bunch of yahoos wandering around a building with laboratory work going on might present liability issues. And who knows what profitable research might have been interrupted?

Though I'm sure Stanford's tough response is based solely on principle.