Alumni urge University to protect international students amid revoked visas
244 Stanford alumni sent a letter to University president Jonathan Levin ’94, Provost Jenny Martinez and Dean of Students Mona Hicks on Tuesday, asking the University to support international students as visa revocations affect students and recent graduates.
The letter, which The Daily reviewed, urged Levin and Martinez to maintain enrollment for international students who have been impacted by visa revocations, protect the privacy and information of students, and “organize legal, psychosocial, and digital and physical safety support for students, faculty, and staff amid this climate of anxiety and fear on campus.”
The alumni also called for Stanford to issue a public announcement “reassuring the Stanford community that every effort will be made to protect students,” and that the institution will “join universities across the United States in collective public and private action to challenge visa revocations and attacks on academic freedom.”
On April 4, Stanford announced that, for reasons they were unaware of, four students and two recent graduates had their visas revoked. This information was updated on April 8 to state that more visa revocations have impacted students, though the University wrote it will “not be providing updates on the number of students affected since these numbers can change frequently.”
While university leaders have pointed affected students to legal assistance available to them, Levin and Martinez have not yet issued a university-wide announcement regarding the visa revocations.
Mai El-Sadany ’11, executive director for The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, wrote a first draft of the letter on Sunday in response to the first revocations of Stanford students’ visas. El-Sadany said she spoke to alumni, university administrators across the country and experts in First Amendment law and security to better understand how Stanford could support its international students amid the political climate.
“Students are watching this, and many of them are terrified. They’re frozen,” El-Sadany said. “A university owes a duty of care to its students to do much better, and so it’s important to engage publicly on this clearly, to provide clear messaging.”
While Ibraheem Fakira ’12, an analyst for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), said he had not engaged much with Stanford since he graduated, he signed the letter to be more involved in the fight against the suppression of speech nationwide.
“I know that many universities are worried about what the federal government might do,” Fakira said. “But I do think, especially with a university that has as much clout and power as Stanford does, the administration should speak up and say something.”
Other alumni linked Stanford’s resources and reputation for innovation with an opportunity to fight recent visa revocations and other Trump administration policies.
“Stanford educates people to question the norm and think outside the box,” Tyler Bishop J.D. ’20 said. “That’s true access disciplines, and that’s why most students and alums choose or chose to come here…Stanford has leverage and resources to fight, and it should use them. Otherwise, many alums will walk away at this critical moment in history.”
Bishop, an attorney at Elias Law Group, is actively litigating against one of Trump’s executive orders that aims to implement changes to elections.
Like Bishop, Charles Calvet ’17 signed the letter to push the University to use its resources to support students and alumni alike.
“Stanford should know we expect them to fight on the front lines of the defense for free speech, freedom of thought, and independence from party rule,” Calvet said. “With the self-admitted deep financial pockets that Stanford has, this is the moment to see if Stanford stands with its foundational purposes.”
The letter also expresses the importance of international students to Stanford’s student body.
“The international students at Stanford make us think,” El-Sadany said. “They expose us to new ideas. They encourage creativity in the classroom. They encourage different ways of thinking. They’re also some of our closest friends.”
In the letter, alumni expressed their reluctance to support the University “without receiving a clear and unequivocal response from [Levin and Martinez] that Stanford University will meet this moment with the moral clarity that it necessitates.”
“Failing to protect students in this moment, I think really would be not only a moral failure, but a severe kind of intellectual failure,” El-Sadany said.
El-Sadany added that it was important for Stanford to cooperate with other institutions in collective efforts to support students.
“This moment necessitates universities coming together,” El-Sadany said. “[Universities] should all be protecting students’ environments in academic freedom, and the only way to do so, especially in a repressive political moment like the one we are in, is to come together and be strong,” El-Sadany said.
The alumni have yet to receive a response to their letter, but Fakira hopes Stanford will address their concerns.
“I hope, moving forward, that the level of support Stanford gives its students increases and also shows that we as the Stanford community don’t have to be afraid for speaking truth to power and exercising our freedom of speech and doing what makes the Stanford community so dynamic, which is bringing a diversity of viewpoints,” Fakira said.
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