Hundreds of Stanford students march to demand administrators expel rapists from campus

STANFORD — Following two highly publicized reports of sexual assault on campus in recent months, hundreds of Stanford students on Friday marched to the main quad to protest what they say is the university’s lackluster efforts to prevent future rapes.

Last Friday a woman was raped after a man grabbed her from her Stanford University office and dragged her into a basement. The brazen attack came just two months to the day after another woman was abducted in broad daylight from a parking lot near a Stanford dorm and forced into a bathroom, where she was raped.

For many who marched across campus chanting slogans like “Stanford protects rapists” and “expel rapists,” the recent assaults are too much to bear years after the university was in the spotlight over the brutal assault committed by former student Brock Turner. The widespread fear and anger among women on campus was palpable Friday as students articulated their demands to the administration, urging them to take action and demonstrate its “honest commitment to fundamental change of rape culture” at the university.

Sofia Scarlat, a sociology student and member of Sexual Violence Free Stanford who organized the event, said the protest Friday was to demand action from administrators.

She said the group has three demands: that the university terminate the employment of faculty and staff with findings of Title IX violations, and expel students who are found to have committed sexual assault; that the school significantly increase the number of Confidential Support Team counselors and provide mandatory trauma-informed training for all counselors and Vaden Health Center workers; and that it also fully implement a new curriculum to serve all first-year gender marginalized people on an opt out basis, and a parallel curriculum for all other students, beginning in 2024.

The students also want Stanford to make an initial financial commitment of no less than $1 million to ensure that trainers are hired immediately and to provide for the program’s ongoing success.

For Scarlat, these aren’t difficult-to-accomplish demands for the university, which is among the top tier schools in the nation with billions in its endowment.

“Stanford must be held accountable for the environment that they created which has empowered rapists to offend and reoffend,” Scarlat said. “These are all in my opinion very reasonable demands and all things they promised to do after the Brock Turner case of sexual assault and then failed to follow through on.”

Sexual violence prevention advocates like Scarlat have said they routinely receive reports of assaults on campus from women living in dorms or attending parties — part of a nationwide scourge of sexual assault and harassment in higher education. But the two recent rape cases have stood out for their brazen, and violent, nature.

Scarlat pointed to a 2019 survey commissioned by Stanford that found nearly 40% of undergraduate women experienced nonconsensual sexual contact after at least four years at the university. Yet most of the time, those women decided not to contact a Stanford program or resource for help.

Neither Stanford’s president, provost, communications team nor its Department of Public Safety have responded to requests by this news organization for additional details about the two cases, including whether the two incidents could be connected in any way.

Since the two rapes, a Department of Public Safety spokesman said the university has increased mobile and foot patrols across the campus. For many students, the university’s response is unacceptable, as more public safety patrols aren’t the answer.

“Security will not stop 40% of undergraduate women-identifying students from being assaulted in their four years,” said activist and student Eva Jones. “It will further marginalize gender-marginalized and students of color experiencing sexual violence. It’s not the solution for ending sexual assault on our campus.”

“We want accountability, we want to expel rapists from our campus and we want to provide support for survivors,” Jones added.

Jakob Rodgers contributed to this report.