Faculty Senate maintains censure of Scott Atlas

The Faculty Senate rejected the motion to rescind the censure of Hoover Institute fellow Scott Atlas in the senate’s last meeting of the quarter on Thursday. 

President Jon Levin ’94 and Provost Jenny Martinez also addressed the ongoing cases against student activists who occupied the president’s office in June and commented on the Stanford Graduate Workers Union’s bargaining with the University. Negotiations between the University and graduate students had been ongoing for a year before reaching the tentative agreement on Nov. 13.

“Our hope is that the agreement can set a foundation for a long-term relationship that is productive and respectful and we can work towards that together,” Levin said, in wake of the recent tentative agreement reached with the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU) which averted a potential strike.

Senate votes against rescinding censure of Scott Atlas

Much of the meeting centered on whether to rescind the 2020 censure of Scott Atlas, a Hoover Institution Senior Fellow. The Faculty Senate condemned Atlas in 2020 following an open letter from faculty that criticized him for denying basic facts about COVID-19 and spreading misinformation. Atlas suggested that children do not transmit the virus and urged people to “rise up” against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s health measures to reduce the spread of disease.

Finance professor Jonathan Berk proposed the motion to rescind the censure in April, citing that he felt Atlas received insufficient opportunity or time to defend himself against the condemnation. “Everyone in the room agrees a mistake was made,” Berk said during the meeting. “I feel that as educators, certainly when I teach, part of being a leader is to admit mistakes and act on those mistakes.”

Many professors opposed rescinding the censure, however, saying Atlas’s claims were inaccurate and immoral. Systems biology professor James Ferrell M.D. ’86 said Atlas “denied basic facts of COVID to support his opinions about public health policy and that was wrong.” 

Ferrell criticized Atlas’s response to the open letter as “threatening our colleagues… This was a serious attack on our faculty and their right to free speech.” Atlas had responded to the letter by threatening to sue its signatories. 

Stanford medicine professor Steve Goodman, who also opposed rescinding the censure, called Atlas’s actions “McCarthyistic bullying.”

Some professors questioned why the issue was still being brought up after four years, including medicine professor Julie Parsonnet who said, “We don’t need to rethink the past; we did the right thing.”

Political science professor Alison McQueen brought up free speech and said that the open letter criticizing Atlas “was an entirely appropriate exercise of academic freedom.” 

On the other hand of free speech, mathematics professor Richard Taylor, in favor of rescinding, said that “it’s vital that all Stanford faculty are free to express themselves.” “If we at this university have a policy where we decide what good research is…we are giving up on our strongest, most competitive advantage,” Berk said.

Status of suspended student activists

Berk asked about the ongoing procedures against the students who took part in the pro-Palestine encampments in the spring and those who occupied the president’s office. Provost Jenny Martinez said “additional hearings in the OCS process have concluded against several students. These include both building occupation cases and the encampments case.” 

She said the typical punishment will be “two quarters’ suspension followed by probation and community service” and that those who occupied the president’s office “still potentially face criminal convictions.” Martinez said she was willing to share this “high level summary” due to the importance and sensitivity of the situation and highlighted that “the length of time to resolve cases continues to be a problem.”

Divestment from companies investing in Israel

Graduate Student Council representative Artem Arzyn probed Levin on the student petition filed by Students for Justice in Palestine on May 6 which demanded divestment from defense companies tied to the Israel Defense Forces. In the spring ASSU election, 73% of undergraduate students, with 26% turnout, voted in favor of divestment, but the Board of Trustees said they would not act as the issue was too “divisive.” Arzyn asked Levin for greater reasoning on the Trustees’ decision and asked “what an issue not being divisive would look like.”

Levin reiterated the Board of Trustees’ reasoning. He said, “the Special Committee [on Investment Responsibility] judged the issue of the Middle East to be one that had different opinions.” The Trustees want “to allow members of the community to speak for themselves,” he said. 

Concerns over polarization on campus

Undergraduate senator Yoanna Hoskins ’27 expressed concern over the impact of polarization on marginalized communities on campus. 

Martinez said that she seeks “a climate on campus where people have a spirit of openness and curiosity” and believes that initiatives like civic engagement project ePluribus and changes on campus, like the revival of Stanford Political Union, could bring this about. ePluribus is an initiative founded at the law school to reduce polarization and promote discourse among those with differing views. 

Similarly, history professor Jennifer Burns expressed worry that student culture at the law school is polarized, saying that those with similar political beliefs tend to band together in a way that is harmful for each cohort. George Triantis, Dean of Stanford Law School, said “that’s very much on our radar and very important” but suggested that students are less polarized now than they were two years ago.

Moreover, Arzyn said that law students are seeing a large divide between public interest and corporate interest students, and that they want to provide more support for public interest law students. 

Triantis said that he did not see this divide and wants all law students to graduate with a significant focus on public duty.

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