The Review: Stanford's president sends legal threats to a student reporter

Plus: Why does Nicolas Kristof pretend to be a country bumpkin? ADVERTISEMENT [The Review Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. In a 2016 [report]( on “threats to the independence of student media,” the American Association of University Professors compiled a list of recent cases in which a faculty adviser for a student publication had been fired or otherwise disciplined. For instance, “at Fairmont State University, a public institution in West Virginia, journalism adviser Michael Kelley was removed in 2015, after just nine months on the job, following his students’ publication of a two-part series about unhealthy levels of mold in a campus dorm. The president and provost of the university explicitly told student editors that they wanted a less controversial newspaper with more positive stories.” The report lists seven such incidents, which “may just be the tip of a much larger iceberg.” More recently, Inside Higher Ed’s Greta Anderson [reported]( on the case of Fernando Gallo, the faculty adviser for the student newspaper at Diablo Valley College, in California. Gallo was an untenured instructor, and the college failed to rehire him after the student newspaper criticized the administration’s handling of racist graffiti and other incidents of alleged racism on campus. Retaliation against advisers is common enough that, as Anderson notes, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education lists it as a warning sign of student-newspaper censorship. Other warning signs include “investigations” and “defunding and derecognition.” (For a startling instance of the last, [read]( about Pennsylvania State University’s defunding of The Daily Collegian — something we’ll hopefully learn more about soon.) Legal threats by administrators against student journalists are not listed, perhaps because they’re not very common. But when Theo Baker, a freshman at Stanford University, wrote to Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who was at the time president of Stanford, to ask about allegations of academic misconduct against Tessier-Lavigne’s lab, legal threats are what he got. (Tessier-Lavigne has since resigned as president, in response to a formal investigation resulting from Baker’s allegations.) As Baker [told]( the Los Angeles Times, “Stephen Neal, the chair emeritus of Cooley, one of the biggest law firms in the Silicon Valley area, represented Marc Tessier-Lavigne and sent a number of aggressive letters requesting retractions or seeking to block the publication of articles that detailed Tessier-Lavigne’s involvement in alleged incidents of fraud. Neal is also a former attorney for Elizabeth Holmes,” the erstwhile chief executive of Theranos who is now in federal prison for fraud. “Your errors,” Neal [wrote]( to Baker in a letter dated February 9, 2023, “are many, fundamental, and egregious.” He goes on: “Given that the falsehoods in your letter concern activities at Genentech and the conduct of Genentech personnel” — Tessier-Lavigne worked at Genentech when some of the disputed research was performed — “we felt compelled to notify Genentech of your allegations. To follow up on that notification, I am sending a copy of this letter to Genentech’s General Counsel.” A few days later, and in response to another letter to Tessier-Lavigne from Baker, Neal became more aggressive. He [accused]( Baker of “flagrant and seemingly deliberate distortions.” At no point did Tessier-Lavigne himself respond personally to Baker’s inquiries. The president communicated first through a university spokesperson, and then through legal counsel. It might have been thought that a university president has a unique duty to model open conversation about intellectual matters. What if Tessier-Lavigne had decided to exemplify science’s openness to critique and revision by participating in Baker’s investigation? It would hardly have gone any worse for him than it did. Instead, he left budding scientists at Stanford with a different lesson: When challenged, stonewall, deflect, and litigate. NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. Nicolas Kristof, Country Bumpkin In a recent [column]( The New York Times’s Nicolas Kristof explained that he had been a beneficiary of affirmative action: “Elite colleges were looking for farm kids from low-income areas to provide diversity. So a school that I had never visited, Harvard, took an enormous risk and accepted me, and I became a token country bumpkin to round out a class of polished overachievers. In time, Harvard gave me a wonderful education, transformed my life and set me on a path to becoming a columnist — which is why you’re stuck reading this.” Readers were quick to [point out]( that both of Kristof’s parents were professors. His father, Ladis Kristof, was born in a part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire now in Ukraine; he was imprisoned by the Nazis and eventually made it to the United States, where he [graduated]( from Reed College, in Oregon, in 1955. According to Reed’s alumni magazine, Ladis became “a political scientist of international renown; a Fulbright Scholar to Romania, and a visiting professor at universities in India, Moldova, Poland, and Romania.” Nicolas’s mother, Jane McWilliams, was also a professor; she retired emerita at Portland State. So Kristof was a double-professor brat with exactly the kind of advantages that might make one unusually competitive when applying for college — no first-generation college student here. Far from taking “an enormous risk,” Harvard was making a very safe bet. Why does Kristof work so hard to imply otherwise? ADVERTISEMENT UPCOMING PROGRAM [The Chronicle's Bootcamp for Future Faculty Leaders] [Join us in September]( for a professional development program tailored to the needs of midcareer faculty. Experienced academic leaders and faculty members will provide insights on the diverse professional paths that might be taken by faculty members in this one-day virtual program. [Register today!]( The Latest THE REVIEW | OPINION [I Was President of Florida’s New College. Then I Was Fired.]( By Patricia Okker [STORY IMAGE]( Here’s how to fight for academic freedom — and prevent political meddling. ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW | ESSAY [How Stanford Helped Capitalism Take Over the World]( By Sammy Feldblum [STORY IMAGE]( The ruthless logic driving our economy can be traced back to 19th-century Palo Alto. THE REVIEW | ESSAY [The Corporatization of Creativity]( By Charlie Tyson [STORY IMAGE]( Our ways of thinking about thinking are a product of postwar business culture. 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Yours, Len Gutkin FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [College as a Public Good - The Chronicle Store]( [College as a Public Good]( Many leaders and industry observers say it has been decades since the heat on presidents has been this intense. [Order your copy today]( to explore what today’s presidents are up against, how things are changing, and how to navigate new challenges. NEWSLETTER FEEDBACK [Please let us know what you thought of today's newsletter in this three-question survey](. This newsletter was sent to {EMAIL}. [Read this newsletter on the web](. [Manage]( your newsletter preferences, [stop receiving]( this email, or [view]( our privacy policy. © 2023 [The Chronicle of Higher Education]( 1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037