Latest news with #StanfordDaily
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Stanford sticks with legacy admissions
Stanford University has confirmed its admissions policies for fall 2026 will continue considering legacy status, a decision that could influence access to one of Silicon Valley's most important talent pipelines. Stanford is also ending its test-optional policy, requiring SAT or ACT scores for the first time since 2021. According to the Stanford Daily, the university is so committed to keeping legacy preferences that it's withdrawing from California's Cal Grant program, forgoing state financial aid rather than comply with legislation signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom last fall — Assembly Bill 1780 — which bans legacy admissions. The university promises to replace that funding with its own money. This matters far beyond Palo Alto. Stanford has been the launching pad for countless tech leaders, from the founders of Google, Nvidia, Snap, and Netflix to other renowned CEOs and VCs. With legacy admissions intact, children of Silicon Valley's elite arguably maintain an advantage in accessing the network that has powered numerous tech booms. The return of test requirements adds another wrinkle, potentially favoring students with resources for test prep. While supporters believe it maintains academic standards, critics argue that for an industry built on meritocracy rhetoric, Stanford's decisions represent a step in the wrong direction — reinstating standardized barriers and perpetuating inequality. Stanford last year announced its decision to reverse its 2021 decision to remove standardized testing as an application requirement. That the university will continue to consider legacy status was revealed this past week in newly released admissions criteria. The policies take on added importance given universities' financial dependence on alumni support. Alumni donations are major financial contributors to educational institutions, particularly Ivy League schools. Princeton University, for example, received nearly half its donations — 46.6% — from alums in the 2022-2023 academic year. At Stanford specifically, most donations are either directed toward annual giving via The Stanford Fund, which spends the money immediately on current operations, financial aid, and other programs; or they are provided — more often — as gifts to Stanford's massive endowment (managed by Stanford Management Company), which spends roughly 5% annually on university operations, accounting for roughly 22% of its operating budget. Universities depend even more heavily on alumni donations when facing external financial pressures, and new federal policies targeting higher education have created unforeseen and unprecedented budget issues for institutions like Stanford. Stanford confirmed to the San Francisco Chronicle just last week that it will permanently lay off 363 employees, which is nearly 2% of its administrative and technical workforce, owing to what officials described as 'ongoing economic uncertainty' and 'anticipated changes in federal policy.' These include, most notably, a whopping increase in endowment taxes from 1.4% to 8% included in the Trump administration's 'Big Beautiful Bill' that was signed into law last month. That tax increase alone will cost Stanford an estimated $750 million annually. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
TechCrunch
2 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Stanford sticks with legacy admissions
Stanford University has confirmed its admissions policies for fall 2026 will continue considering legacy status, a decision that could influence access to one of Silicon Valley's most important talent pipelines. Stanford is also ending its test-optional policy, requiring SAT or ACT scores for the first time since 2021. According to the Stanford Daily, the university is so committed to keeping legacy preferences that it's withdrawing from California's Cal Grant program, forgoing state financial aid rather than comply with legislation signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom last fall — Assembly Bill 1780 — which bans legacy admissions. The university promises to replace that funding with its own money. This matters far beyond Palo Alto. Stanford has been the launching pad for countless tech leaders, from the founders of Google, Nvidia, Snap, and Netflix to other renowned CEOs and VCs. With legacy admissions intact, children of Silicon Valley's elite arguably maintain an advantage in accessing the network that has powered numerous tech booms. The return of test requirements adds another wrinkle, potentially favoring students with resources for test prep. While supporters believe it maintains academic standards, critics argue that for an industry built on meritocracy rhetoric, Stanford's decisions represent a step in the wrong direction — reinstating standardized barriers and perpetuating inequality. Stanford last year announced its decision to reverse its 2021 decision to remove standardized testing as an application requirement. That the university will continue to consider legacy status was revealed this past week in newly released admissions criteria. The policies take on added importance given universities' financial dependence on alumni support. Alumni donations are major financial contributors to educational institutions, particularly Ivy League schools. Princeton University, for example, received nearly half its donations — 46.6% — from alums in the 2022-2023 academic year. At Stanford specifically, most donations are either directed toward annual giving via The Stanford Fund, which spends the money immediately on current operations, financial aid, and other programs; or they are provided — more often — as gifts to Stanford's massive endowment (managed by Stanford Management Company), which spends roughly 5% annually on university operations, accounting for roughly 22% of its operating budget. Techcrunch event Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $600+ before prices rise. Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. San Francisco | REGISTER NOW Universities depend even more heavily on alumni donations when facing external financial pressures, and new federal policies targeting higher education have created unforeseen and unprecedented budget issues for institutions like Stanford. Stanford confirmed to the San Francisco Chronicle just last week that it will permanently lay off 363 employees, which is nearly 2% of its administrative and technical workforce, owing to what officials described as 'ongoing economic uncertainty' and 'anticipated changes in federal policy.' These include, most notably, a whopping increase in endowment taxes from 1.4% to 8% included in the Trump administration's 'Big Beautiful Bill' that was signed into law last month. That tax increase alone will cost Stanford an estimated $750 million annually.
Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Stanford Daily sues Trump administration, citing threats to free speech
Stanford University's student newspaper is suing the Trump administration, claiming the threat to deport foreign students for speaking out against Israel's handling of the war in Gaza is chilling free speech. That threat is hampering the paper's ability to cover campus demonstrations and to get protesters to speak on the record, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Northern California. Some Stanford Daily writers, who are foreigners in the country on student visas, have even turned down assignments to write about unrest in the Middle East because they're afraid they'll be deported. Writers have also asked the paper to remove previously published stories from its website, citing the same concerns, the lawsuit claims. 'In the United States of America, no one should fear a midnight knock on the door for voicing the wrong opinion,' the newspaper's lawyers wrote in their complaint. The suit accuses Trump administration officials, specifically Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristin Noem, of placing their statutory authority to deport a foreign visa holder whose beliefs they deem un-American ahead of the constitutional right — guaranteed by the First Amendment— to free speech. 'When a federal statute collides with First Amendment rights,' the newspaper's lawyers wrote, 'the Constitution prevails.' Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, scoffed at the lawsuit, calling it, 'baseless.' 'There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world's terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,' she said in a statement. The lawsuit — which was filed by the 133-year old student newspaper, not by the university itself — is the most recent salvo in an increasingly bitter fight between Trump and many of the nation's elite universities. The president has made clear he sees top schools as hotbeds of liberal ideology and breeding grounds for anti-American sentiment. His weapon of choice is to threaten to withhold billions of dollars in federal research grants from institutions that refuse to adopt policies on issues like diversity, transgender rights and Israel that fall in line with his Make America Great Again ideology. Critics call Trump's campaign an attack on academic freedom, but fearing massive budget cuts, several Ivy League schools – including the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and Brown – have recently cut deals with the Trump administration in an attempt to limit the damage. Stanford announced this week that it will be forced to lay off hundreds of employees as a result of cuts to research funding and changes to federal tax laws. The Stanford Daily's lawsuit focuses on two unnamed students, John and Jane Doe, who the paper's lawyers say began self-censoring out of a well-founded fear of having their visas revoked and being deported. Rubio has claimed that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 allows the secretary of state to revoke a noncitizen's legal status if it is decided the person's actions or statements 'compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.' Rubio used that interpretation to justify the March arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia University who was held in a Louisiana jail before a federal judge ordered his release. The complaint cites the cases of two other foreign students — one at Columbia and one at Tufts — who were arrested for participating in pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations. At Stanford, the plaintiff referred to as Jane Doe, was a member of the group Students for Justice in Palestine. She has published online commentary accusing Israel of committing genocide and perpetuating apartheid, according to the lawsuit. She has also used the slogan, 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', which has become a flashpoint in the Israel-Gaza debate. Referencing the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — which includes Israel, The West Bank and the Gaza Strip — the slogan is viewed as a call for freedom and self-determination by Palestinians. To many Israelis, it sounds like a call for their total destruction. As a result, Doe's profile appeared on the Canary Mission, a pro-Israel website that creators say is devoted to outing 'hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews.' Department of Homeland Security officials have acknowledged they consult the website's profiles — most of which are of students and faculty at elite universities — for information on people worthy of investigation. As a result, since March, Jane Doe has deleted her social media accounts and has 'refrained from publishing and voicing her true opinions regarding Palestine and Israel,' the lawsuit claims. John Doe has participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations, has accused Israel of genocide and chanted, 'from the river to the sea'. But after the Trump administration started targeting campus demonstrators for deportation, he 'refrained from publishing a study containing criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza,' according to the lawsuit. Unlike Jane Doe, John has since resumed public criticism of Israel, despite the threat of deportation, according to the lawsuit.
CTV News
5 days ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Stanford's student newspaper sues Trump administration over use of immigration law to target pro-Palestinian students
Stanford University's student-run newspaper sued the Trump administration on Wednesday over its decision to use part of a federal immigration law to target and deport pro-Palestinian activists, arguing the government's effort has impermissibly chilled students' First Amendment rights. The lawsuit, filed at a federal court in California, represents the latest legal challenge to two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that have been key to the U.S. State and Homeland Security Departments' so-called ideological deportation policy. In several other cases brought around the country, judges have also been asked to weigh the constitutionality of the INA provisions and the administration's policy around them. The California case was brought by the organization that publishes The Stanford Daily and two noncitizen former college students who fear their pro-Palestinian views or advocacy could put them at risk of being deported. Attorneys for the newspaper said in the lawsuit that international students on staff are turning down assignments related to the war in Gaza or 'seeking removal of their previous articles about it.' 'Since the Trump administration began targeting lawfully present noncitizens for deportation based on protected speech in March 2025, lawfully present noncitizen students working at and contributing to Stanford Daily have self-censored expression for fear of visa revocation, arrest, detention, and deportation,' attorneys from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which brought the new case, wrote in court papers. One of the INA provisions at issue gives Secretary of State Marco Rubio the authority to decide that a noncitizen is removable if he 'personally determines' that the individual's views 'would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.' The other gives the secretary the power to 'at any time, in his discretion' revoke a visa. The Stanford Daily and the two unnamed former students are asking a federal judge to bar the administration from using the pair of provisions to deport them and any noncitizen members of the newspaper's staff based on their 'protected speech.' 'The First Amendment cements America's promise that the government may not subject a speaker to disfavored treatment because those in power do not like his or her message. And when a federal statute collides with First Amendment rights, the Constitution prevails,' the attorneys wrote. The lawsuit comes on the heels of a weekslong bench trial in a separate case in Boston during which members of the Trump administration testified under oath about the government's targeting of noncitizen pro-Palestinian students and scholars. The trial, which concluded on July 21, highlighted how DHS began taking orders from the State Department as it went after certain professors and students to change their immigration status and work to have them deported. US District Judge William Young, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, is now deciding whether the government's 'ideological deportation policy' had the effect of unlawfully chilling the speech of certain professors. The attorneys in that case say the administration's actions toward pro-Palestinian activists on college campuses have targeted potentially hundreds of noncitizens. Devan Cole, CNN
Time Magazine
5 days ago
- Politics
- Time Magazine
Stanford Daily Sues Trump Administration
Stanford University's student newspaper is suing the Trump Administration over what it says is the government's attempts to target international students for immigration actions over the expression of pro-Palestinian views. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in San Jose, Calif., on behalf of the Stanford Daily, as well as two unnamed former students. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are named as defendants. A spokesperson for Stanford University told Reuters that the student newspaper is an independent organization and that the university is not involved in the lawsuit. 'In the United States of America, no one should fear a midnight knock on the door for voicing the wrong opinion,' Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney at FIRE, said in a statement. 'Free speech isn't a privilege the government hands out. Under our Constitution it is the inalienable right of every man, woman, and child.' The lawsuit has requested a preliminary injunction to block the government from attempting to deport students over pro-Palestinian speech while the case is ongoing. 'Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration are trying to turn the inalienable human right of free speech into a privilege contingent upon the whims of a federal bureaucrat, triggering deportation proceedings against noncitizens residing lawfully in this country for their protected political speech regarding American and Israeli foreign policy,' the complaint says. The Stanford Daily was previously on the losing end of a Supreme Court case in 1978 over the search of its offices and seizure of evidence related to a crime—a protest demonstration where police officers were injured—that it had reported on but was not criminally involved in. That case ultimately led to Congress' passage in 1980 of the Privacy Protection Act, which protects journalists in such cases. Here's what to know about the new case and why the newspaper is once again hoping to defend not just its own student writers but a wider class of people whose rights it believes are being infringed. Targeting of foreign students The Trump Administration has used two provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to target foreign-born students and censor pro-Palestinian speech, according to the lawsuit. The first provision, known as the Deportation Provision, gives the Secretary of State the authority to deport a noncitizen if he ''personally determines' their lawful 'beliefs, statements, or associations' 'compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest,'' the lawsuit states. Rubio cited the provision to justify the attempted deportation of Palestinian Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who had acted as a liaison between student protestors and university administrators during pro-Palestinian student demonstrations in 2024, and was arrested by immigration officers on March 8. In an April memo to an immigration judge overseeing Khalil's case, Rubio said that although Khalil's 'past, current or expected beliefs, statements, or associations … are otherwise lawful,' the Deportation Provision allows Rubio to 'personally determine' whether Khalil should be allowed to remain in the U.S. (Khalil was released from custody in June, and in July his attorneys filed for a preliminary injunction challenging the government's attempts to deport him on a separate immigration charge that alleges he misrepresented himself on his green card application). The second provision, known as the Revocation Provision, allows the Secretary of State to revoke a visa or documentation at his discretion. The Trump Administration has used this provision to revoke the visa of and detain Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Öztürk, who had co-authored a pro-Palestinian op-ed in the Tufts Daily before her detention and has since been released. 'We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses,' Rubio told reporters in May. 'If we've given you a visa and then you decide to do that, we're going to take it away.' The complaint argues that both provisions are unconstitutional when applied to protected speech: 'The First Amendment cements America's promise that the government may not subject a speaker to disfavored treatment because those in power do not like his or her message. And when a federal statute collides with First Amendment rights, the Constitution prevails.' The plaintiffs argue that the government's deportation threats and actions have amounted to violations of First Amendment rights. Since March, noncitizen writers of the Stanford Daily have declined to cover pro-Palestinian protests and asked to remove previous articles on the topic, fearing that such reporting could jeopardize their legal immigration status, according to the lawsuit. 'There's real fear on campus and it reaches into the newsroom,' Greta Reich, the student newspaper's editor-in-chief, said in a statement. 'I've had reporters turn down assignments, request the removal of some of their articles, and even quit the paper because they fear deportation for being associated with speaking on political topics, even in a journalistic capacity. The Daily is losing the voices of a significant portion of our student population.' The Trump Administration has also cracked down on international students more broadly. In April, the government quietly revoked the visas of thousands of students who had allegedly committed minor legal infractions before abruptly reversing the policy. The Administration has also used international students as a bargaining chip to compel university administrations to comply with certain demands, such as by attempting to revoke Harvard University's authority to enroll international students. And the government has heightened its scrutiny of student visa applicants, including vetting applicants' social media profiles for 'a history of political activism.' The Trump Administration's response 'DHS doesn't arrest people based on protected speech, so the plaintiffs' premise is incorrect,' DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to media outlets. 'DHS takes its role in removing threats to the public and our communities seriously, and the idea that enforcing federal law in that regard constitutes some kind of prior restraint on speech is laughable.' A bench trial challenging the Trump Administration's alleged 'ideological deportation' policy concluded last month and a final ruling is expected this or next month. That lawsuit was filed by the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association. During the course of the trial, a government memo unearthed in court revealed that officials had warned Rubio about potential legal scrutiny of deportation attempts because their basis could be considered constitutionally protected speech. 'Anyone who has any position that is against what the American government says they should think, they're immediately 'anti-American,'' David Rozas, an immigration attorney who represented Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian student who was detained for weeks and ultimately chose to self-deport, told TIME in May. 'America was built on discourse,' he added. Trump's immigration agenda, he said, is 'going to stifle American growth and the American dream.' '225 years after the Alien Friends Act expired, the danger of nighttime raids on noncitizens for perceived thoughtcrime is reality once more. Secretary Rubio and the Trump administration's war against noncitizens' freedom of speech is intended to send an unmistakable message: Watch what you say, or you could be next,' the complaint says. 'Message received.'
