Through the years, campus leftists have consistently pushed back against the Review’s ideas. It is with a heavy heart that we admit today: we were wrong. After long and careful consideration, we the staff of the Stanford Review have decided, in the words of the heroic martyr Dean Tirien Steinbach, that the juice simply is not worth the squeeze.
Over the past 36 years, controversial ideas that run contrary to our moral conscience and ethical interests have appeared in the pages of the Review. The thrills of contrarianism overran our basic duty as global citizens to be good humans. The fact that we have been letting this slip for so long is quite frankly embarrassing and in no way reflects the opinions and values of this volume’s staff. The articles we have published in the past were wrong then and are wrong now. To all the folx hurt by our past work, we are working to secure funding for reparations. At the top of the list is Jo Boaler, who we know needs the money.
While there is no way to undo the pain caused by 66 volumes filled with problematic and contrarian ideas, we’ll start today by acknowledging the hurt caused by articles written in just the last year. Take for example, the article we published on academic freedom, in which Professor Berman bemoaned that he would not be able to teach hateful and problematic books such as Huckleberry Finn or the Lorax. Or take our article about not burning even the bad books. We should never have published a piece questioning the Science™ of masking in classrooms. Or the Science™ of sex. When we called progressivism Stanford’s religion of choice, we shouldn’t have associated a movement of progress with a system of oppression. But most of all, we never should have denounced Tirien Steinbach for her heroic actions preventing the hateful Judge Duncan from speaking at the Law School last month. For these, and all the sins of the Review’s past, we are truly sorry.
We at the Review have simply squeezed too much juice. We have been a bystander to contrarian antics for far too long. This decision has done nothing but brought shame and indignity to the journalistic profession, which in the modern age has rightly elevated itself to the heights of culture.
Much like how Planned Parenthood has tried to run away from their eugenic past, from this point forward the Review will avoid anything contrarian. We will take action against our previous wrongthink by centering and amplifying stories and voices that are valid. The Review will no longer tolerate misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Instead of denouncing Stanford’s ‘Harmful Language’ guide, we’ll now subject all of our articles to careful scrutiny to make them as amenable to the easily offended as possible. Critical thinking will be replaced by critical race theory. The only hate we will internalize is kind directed toward all men. And, like Stanford, we will embark on a mission to root out white students. We are also quite lazy, so we’ll likely just go along with whatever the Daily publishes to be completely honest.
From here on out, the front page of the Review will include a link to the Stanford Daily’s website, where everyone can enjoy the brilliant commentary and insight of riveting stories about delayed flights,
why we should have classes on Taylor Swift.
and of course this beautiful piece of liberatory prose that promises to bring us a better tomorrow.
We pledge that going forward, we will write like proper journalists do by shifting the focus of our writing away from potentially harmful articles to ones about things that we can all relate to. Truly, our journalistic standards pale in comparison to these heavyweights of editorial prowess.
To the newly admitted members of the class of 2027, the Stanford Review you’ll find when you arrive on campus in the fall will be different from the Review of years past. We’ll start every meeting with a land acknowledgement before announcing our pronouns, and every topic will have at least one trigger warning per conjunction. Depending on how that goes, we may replace the discussion format with an interpretive dance. After all, we would hate to be behind the times. Check your calendars.
