The day after the first Tomahawk cruise missiles struck Baghdad, about 200 students, faculty, staff and local residents gathered in White Plaza to protest the U.S. war on Iraq. Many then marched to Palo Alto to join a community rally and later convened for a candlelight vigil in Memorial Church.
Although it was March 20—the middle of finals week—students said they had planned to join the rapid-response rally whenever it occurred. “People are dying,” freshman Linda Tran said, as she handed out green armbands and tried not to worry about that evening’s exam. Associate professor of drama and classics Rush Rehm and sophomore Anna Mumford told the crowd about the hours they’d spent that morning in San Francisco, blocking the intersection of Folsom and Third streets with about 100 other students and faculty. “Many of us were arrested,” said Rehm, PhD ’85, adding that the protestors intended the chaos of the street action to “reflect the nature of the war on the people of Iraq.”
The two events capped months of campus demonstrations, all peaceful and many with an academic component. On March 5, more than 500 students and faculty converged on the Quad to protest and to attend teach-ins offered by 20 professors from 10 departments. Biologist Robert Sapolsky spoke about “Evolution of Aggression and Warfare,” anthropologist Carol Delaney recalled a trip to Iraq, and political scientist Terry Karl, ’70, MA ’76, PhD ’82, addressed the links between “Oil and the War in Iraq.” And as chants of “Whose world? Our world!” roared across the Inner Quad, a quieter request was raised on the brilliant green grass of the Oval, where 18 students bowed their heads in prayer: “Father, I ask, for this time and place, that You do a miraculous thing.”
Both groups of students were responding to the call for a nationwide “Books Not Bombs” strike. Activists from more than 25 campus groups—including the Stanford Community for Peace and Justice, the Muslim Student Awareness Network, the Stanford chapter of the NAACP and Stanford University Catholic Social Action—came together in a hastily formed Coalition of Students Against War, joining thousands of other high school and college students on more than 400 campuses who walked out of classes to rally for peace. To support the student initiative, 26 Stanford professors canceled classes for the day and 64 signed an online pledge.
During the daylong strike, dozens of students stopped by tables to write letters of protest to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, imploring her to “not ignore the opinion of your former students.” A handful of students wrote to the Stanford Daily for several days afterward to articulate other points of view. Noting that her decision to attend class on March 5 was not a statement of support for war, junior and Daily columnist Caroline Ciccone said one of her professors had led a discussion that day about U.S. decisions to intervene in international conflicts. “How much more timely could these classes be?” she asked.
Prevailing student sentiment—including that of the Daily editorial board—seemed to be against U.S. military action, at least without the backing of the United Nations. But at least twice, there were competing campus protests. “We support the liberation of Iraq because we want freedom throughout the world,” freshman Bob Sensenbrenner of the Stanford College Republicans told the Daily during one such demonstration, on January 17.
Students and faculty also chose means other than campus rallies to express their views. A handful fasted on White Plaza; others gathered there to read aloud Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. History professor Clayborne Carson drew on his familiarity with the writings of Martin Luther King Jr. to present an evening “vigil for justice and peace” in a packed Memorial Church on February 19.
And remember the “Draft SUV Drivers First” signs that popped up at the worldwide peace rallies on February 16? Two days earlier, seniors Josh Bushinsky and Jonathan Neril and a busload of Stanford students had teamed up with the group Don’t Be Fueled at a Hummer dealership in Burlingame to protest the 11-miles-per-gallon vehicles, and had made Bay Area headlines.
But no event drew more people than the March 5 strike on the Quad. Organizers were warned the day before that they had not received authorization to use amplification and were asked to move to White Plaza. Still, police were not summoned when students set up a stage and sound system near Building 10, and administrators stood by and watched the protest. Later complaints about classes being disrupted were referred to the Office of Judicial Affairs, which is investigating them.
University President John Hennessy told the Faculty Senate he wished classes had not been canceled and hoped “that the faculty [who] did cancel classes will generously offer to reschedule them.” Nevertheless, he told the Daily, he supported students’ decisions to attend the event. “All of us have a limited ability to do anything,” Hennessy was quoted as saying, “but if in good conscience you reach the decision that this [war] is a mistake, you have an obligation to make your voice known.”
