Despite overall success in delivering on the promises of its campaign, the Executive administration of computer science co-terminal student David Gobaud and Andy Parker ’11 still has work left undone. The Editorial Board remains unsatisfied by the Executive response to two agenda points in particular: lobbying for changes in immigration laws and revising the Judicial Affairs processes regarding sexual assault. Both key issues of review and reform have been heavily stressed by the Executive administration, and despite both agenda points’ garnering campus-wide attention, Gobaud and Parker have yet to come through with results on these issues.
Immigration reform was a solid part of the Executive officers’ campaign platform, with Gobaud clearly stating his intentions to support new immigration policies that will ease the difficulties faced by international students traveling between Stanford and their homes abroad. Although this agenda component manifested itself visibly through the ASSU-funded trip to D.C. this October, Gobaud ultimately offered no concrete information back to the Stanford public about the next steps taken by his administration, or any vision of the future. Instead, he offered this vague statement to The Daily: “I’d like to see Stanford or the ASSU take a more prominent role or get more active in state and federal policy or advocacy.”
Ultimately, this response offered little to the student body, not even the opportunity, to engage, question and critique the trip, and thus alienated individuals from contributing to this issue. Reform ultimately requires information, and on the issue of immigration reform, neither future steps nor present facts have been made clear.
Gobaud’s lukewarm gesture of support for national, governmental-level change is contrasted by his strong desire and efforts to see a similar type of reform for University government, specifically in Judicial Affairs. And yet, in this area as well, the Executive administration appears to be working covertly behind the scenes, doing intensive research of the Judicial Affairs process even beyond sexual assault issues. At the same time, however, they have done little to try to educate the student community about the Judicial Affairs process and the changes they hope to promote. Unlike their more public initiatives–such as the forthcoming Sustainability Summit and Mental Health Week–the Executive has kept the Judicial Affairs issue largely under the radar.
As the Editorial Board suggested in yesterday’s piece, comprehensive Judicial Affairs reform would be such a lengthy and complicated undertaking that it may require several Executive terms to see it through. Even so, the current Executive must not allow the issue of how sexual assaults are handled on campus to be deferred to another time–to do so would be an injustice to the victims of sexual assault and the student community as a whole. Along the same lines, those international students who face continual difficulties with immigration every time they move between countries will look to the Executive officers to see how they have advocated on their behalf. Up to and including this point in the term, the Executive response has been somewhat lacking.
With the success of sustainability, information dispersion and their other platform goals already more or less established, the Editorial Board recommends that Gobaud and Parker consider what their long-term legacy will be on campus after the end of their term. Pushing for reform in Judicial Affairs and student immigration policies may be the last issues this Executive tackles, but over time they could have the greatest impact on students.