Stanford deemed a ‘hostile campus’ by Council of American-Islamic Relations for second year
The Council on American-Islamic Relations labeled Stanford a “hostile campus” in its 2025 Hostile Campus Ratings Report, released on Feb. 11. The report, which The Daily received under embargo from CAIR on Monday, deemed the university a place “where institutional actions or campus climate make students feel unsafe, targeted, or discriminated against.”
The report evaluated 51 universities on administrators’ policies, leadership decisions, disciplinary actions and public statements from 2025 bearing on the rights of students affected by Islamophobia. CAIR gave Stanford an overall score of 37%.
The report deducted points based on its evaluation of whether universities met certain criteria, such as failing to develop institutional policies that address Islamophobia, student experiences of harassment or weak free speech protections.
The Daily has reached out to CAIR for comment. The organization, established in 1994, was formed to advance Muslim-American civil rights. CAIR has since published various reports on anti-Muslim discrimination.
Universities investigated in the report were labeled ‘unhostile ‘if they received a score of 90% or above, ‘under watch’ if between 70% to 89%, and ‘hostile’ if below 70%. None of the universities were deemed unhostile, and the average score was 37.667%.
“Free speech at Stanford University is central to our mission of education and research and is legally protected under California law,” University spokesperson Angie Davis wrote to the Daily.
This marks the second consecutive year that CAIR has designated Stanford a hostile campus. Jeffrey Wang, legal representative for CAIR’s San Francisco Bay Area office, claimed the University’s free speech guidelines “could further limit discourse around Palestine and student activism” at a 2025 press conference.
Iman Deriche ’27, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) who worked for CAIR last summer, said she wasn’t surprised by the repeated designation.
“It’s not shocking that this is the second year that it’s considered a hostile campus,” she said. “[There’s] continuous bombardments of emails on these small little bureaucratic things about [SJP’s] logo or all these other small infringements that other organizations clearly don’t get.”
CAIR’s report criticized Stanford for arrests on campus, pressing charges and suspending student protestors who barricaded themselves inside the University president’s office in 2024.
The report also cited incidents of Muslim students facing Islamophobia or racism on campus dating back to 2023. The findings pulled data from CAIR’s 2024 Campus Climate survey of Muslim student experiences at various universities.
“Consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment, Stanford has viewpoint-neutral time, place, and manner rules intended to prevent disruption of university operations,” Davis wrote to The Daily.
The University offers several spaces for community use, including White Plaza without advanced permission, and Meyer Green, Manzanita Field and Panama Street Clearing for use with advanced registration. The University’s policies largely forbid overnight camping and disruptions to university business, including classes.
In a February 2025 statement, CAIR stated that Stanford’s actions have “had a chilling effect on campus activism and created an environment of fear and intimidation for those advocating against Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
Deriche said that SJP has faced pushback from the University when coordinating events, including a vigil held on Oct. 7 centering lives lost in Palestine.
“Free speech, at least in my experience, doesn’t really exist,” she said.
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