[81alum]

I am usually not a cynical person, but I imagine Stanford wanted to modify the location to help prevent it from becoming a pilgrimage point or a shrine against sexual assaults at universities.  This despite Dauber proposing it as a garden--a suggestion that must have been a welcome one at first.  As long as the dumpster remained there would be people seeking it out.  It might even become a rallying place for protests.  So their actions seem a little like the bulldozing of houses that were the scene of some horrendous crime. 

While Stanford may have been willing to put up some small, innocuous plaque,  they simply wanted the place to disappear into the manicured gardens, and I have to believe that the very eloquent Emily Doe instead supplied them with some choice words that would have had a Maya Lin effect.  So they lifted different words she wrote out of context to make them sound trite.

This is far from over.  I think the nation is ready for a monument to the suffering of women.  Few people thought the Vietnam memorial would be popular, but there was a need for a place to travel for catharsis.  As the Me Too movement explodes, people will look for a place to memorialize all the suffering and exploitation of past years.  It is not going to be Harvey Weinstein's office.  There has been no more powerful voice than Emily's, and I think Stanford has a rare opportunity to get on the right side of history and do something right.  Put her words at the site in just the way she asked.  Let the people come.  Be known as the place where the tide began to turn.

Sometimes I wonder how one of the greatest universities in world history survives its administration.

[81alum]

I am usually not a cynical person, but I imagine Stanford wanted to modify the location to help prevent it from becoming a pilgrimage point or a shrine against sexual assaults at universities.  This despite Dauber proposing it as a garden--a suggestion that must have been a welcome one at first.  As long as the dumpster remained there would be people seeking it out.  It might even become a rallying place for protests.  So their actions seem a little like the bulldozing of houses that were the scene of some horrendous crime. 

While Stanford may have been willing to put up some small, innocuous plaque,  they simply wanted the place to disappear into the manicured gardens, and I have to believe that the very eloquent Emily Doe instead supplied them with some choice words that would have had a Maya Lin effect.  So they lifted different words she wrote out of context to make them sound trite.

This is far from over.  I think the nation is ready for a monument to the suffering of women.  Few people thought the Vietnam memorial would be popular, but there was a need for a place to travel for catharsis.  As the Me Too movement explodes, people will look for a place to memorialize all the suffering and exploitation of past years.  It is not going to be Harvey Weinstein's office.  There has been no more powerful voice than Emily's, and I think Stanford has a rare opportunity to get on the right side of history and do something right.  Put her words at the site in just the way she asked.  Let the people come.  Be known as the place where the tide began to turn.

Sometimes I wonder how one of the greatest universities in world history survives its administration.