Stanford Blacklist

Is the Stanford Review known for an (American) "Conservative" bent? Other headlines like "Femininity, not Feminism" and "How Hamas Broke the Progressive Mind" lead me to believe that is the case. Perhaps this is a natural response to the general (American) "Liberal" bent of a college campus.

Coming from a non-American perspective here, which sometimes leaves me perplexed on the weird, sometimes toxic if not dangerous, state of American politics.

The article's content read as overly inflammatory for what amounts to basically students organizing a mailing campaign with a green-orange-red color code where, as far as I can see, the word blacklist is never used. Chalk it up to a few overzealous students banging pots at their teachers' door, which has turned nasty at some institutions in the past mind you, but the article is making a mound out of little.

I've checked what the website is, and it's just the right-wing journal of the campus [1]. Gotta drive the clicks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stanford_Review

The author of this article seems aghast at a "blacklist" spreadsheet tracking requests for professors to relax standards, and form letters used to make it easy for students to apply pressure. The author needs to touch grass. This is bog standard organizing strategy; it's what you're supposed to do when you're organizing for a cause.

I happen to think that this particular cause is deeply silly, and that the professors who weren't moved by it were in the right. I bring to that conclusion my general bias that there can be no privilege or equity concerns inside of elite colleges; simply being there is an enormous privilege that transcends the ordinary equity discussions we have.

But the one thing I don't think was silly about the effort was that it was carefully organized. That, at least, is a sign of seriousness, and a focus on an actual objective with a real theory of change.