The 2020 Stanford Blacklist
17th November 2023
In the midst of the chaos that defined 2020—the early stages of the pandemic and widespread BLM riots—students at Stanford were at home for a quarter of remote learning. To accommodate for the newly adopted remote environment, Stanford made all courses pass-fail. Some unsatisfied students, however, decided to push for even greater concessions to further lower academic standards under the guise of racial justice.
“I am having trouble focusing on anything other than this and do not have the emotional capacity to complete schoolwork,” they said. “It is up to us, as non-black folks, to break the cycle of injustice and oppression, by doing things differently.” How differently?
Students cold emailed hundreds of professors to bring “special attention to the hardships Black students and faculty are currently enduring,” and they awaited a response, or lack thereof, from each of their professors. Students demanded that their professors express solidarity for racial justice causes and further strip academic standards by canceling projects, exams, and changing passing thresholds. Professors who met and supported the extreme demands of students to radically overhaul their academic standards received a green check. Those who didn’t—and retained even some basic academic standards, or those who merely did not make “any announcement acknowledging current events”—were blacklisted.