This longstanding relationship has fostered educational and cultural exchanges. Stanford professors pilot curricula in PAUSD schools, PAUSD students attend Stanford summer programs and many Stanford faculty members double as PAUSD parents.

According to Social Studies Instructional Lead Jeff Patrick, however, Stanford’s influence is strongest in the realm of teacher education. Many PAUSD teachers are trained through Stanford’s 12-month, full-time Stanford Teacher Education Program.

“The program exposes them to some of the resources that Stanford has, as well as some other approaches to teaching,” Patrick said.

Gunn departments also draw on Stanford’s resources for lesson plans. Originally founded at Stanford, the Digital Inquiry Group — previously known as the Stanford History Education Group — provides supplemental lesson plans for Gunn social studies classes. YouCubed, an organization founded by Stanford’s Dr. Jo Boaler, provides the curriculum for Gunn’s Introduction to Data Science course.

According to Gunn alumna and current Stanford freshman Olivia Pham, Stanford’s and Gunn’s educational approaches share striking similarities beyond curricula.

“There’s a strong emphasis on not just understanding concepts, but being able to apply them in slightly different ways you’ve never seen before,” she said. “While friends here have told me that math here at Stanford is much more rigorous than at their a pretty smooth transition between Gunn and Stanford.”

In that way, Stanford influences Palo Alto’s culture of — and value for — educational excellence. Gunn alumnus and current Stanford freshman Jules Lustig noted that Gunn and Stanford have the same “grind culture”: an atmosphere of constant drive, strict discipline and high standards.

During Gunn alumnus and current Stanford sophomore Alex Gu’s time with Gunn Math Circle, he took part in the Stanford Math Tournament, a nationwide high-school competition hosted by the Stanford University Math Organization. Student involvement extends beyond STEM, however: Current Gunn sophomore Emerson Chang took part in the Stanford Humanities Circle and found herself interested by the discussion-based, grade-free nature of the program.

“Stanford provides Gunn students with many educational opportunities outside of high school, which allows them to explore their personal interests in unique ways,” Chang said.

Gunn alumnus and current Stanford freshman Jude Hardan hopes for further cooperation between Gunn and Stanford.

“Having such a prestigious academic institution close to Gunn and not using it for collaborations to enhance the educational experience is not the best use of resources for students,” he said.

Lustig echoed this sentiment, adding that he’d like to see a Stanford-Gunn course centered around eliminating students’ fear of failure and instead inculcating love for a subject or field.

“It would be really cool to facilitate some sort of program out of class,” Lustig said. “Something that involves getting away from the numerical grade that is not a measure of intelligence and not a measure of how successful you are in any way.”

These resignations reflect increasing turmoil in higher education. Although controversy on college campuses is nothing new, the Israel-Hamas war and the Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action have precipitated a new wave of battles for institutions. As accusations, controversies and resignations play out, the future of free speech, inclusion and academic integrity.

The Limits of Free Speech

On Dec. 5, three elite U.S. university presidents — Gay, Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth — testified before the U.S. Congress on the topic of campus antisemitism following the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. While the presidents recognized the rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia on their campuses and said they were taking steps to address the issue, their answers were widely condemned. When asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their schools’ codes of conduct, the presidents failed to provide clear answers, saying that it depended on context and whether the speech was reflected in conduct.

Politicians, alumni and university donors alike attacked their legalistic, ambiguous responses, leading to calls for the presidents’ resignations. Both Gay and Magill resigned within a month, with Gay’s resignation marking the shortest presidential tenure in Harvard’s history. Currently, Kornbluth retains her position as MIT’s president.

The congressional hearing had implications extending beyond the three university campuses, fueling debates over which forms of speech are protected by the First Amendment — especially at educational institutions dedicated to diversity of thought and perspective. Social studies teacher Laurel Howard highlighted the difficulties in navigating conversations about geopolitical conflicts like the Israel-Hamas war.

“We used to say when you’re talking about these polarized issues, you have to have both sides represented,” she said. “But as these kinds of conflicts come up, when you say you support one side, people immediately assume that means you want the death of another group. We jump to these extremes really quickly, and that makes it a really dangerous thing to have these open conversations even though they’re so important to be having.”

She explained that even with legal guidelines, there is not always a clear-cut answer for what constitutes free speech.

“We do have guidance in our constitution and in the Supreme Court cases about free speech that say if it’s speech that immediately leads to violence, it is not protected,” she said. “So that’s what I come back to personally. Is this speech trying to incite violence against another group? If so, we probably should not be protecting it. The larger conversation is, when are we getting to that point? At what point does my language lead directly to violence, and how do we determine that collectively?”

Gunn alumna and current UPenn sophomore Sage Leland believes that there’s an important distinction between legally sanctioned and morally permissible speech.

“I think that distinction is something that the university should try to make, where it’s not so much restricting speech but drawing the line of community-minded speech,” she said. “Even if legally you could say something, is it the right thing to say? Should you be saying it?”

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Gay was Harvard’s first Black president, and her resignation fueled the on-going conversation about diversity, equity and inclusion — or DEI — in higher education. Since early last year, conservative lawmakers and academics have sought to undermine colleges’ DEI efforts, with anti-DEI legislation being introduced in at least 21 states since 2021, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. The bills aim to ban diversity training, employment and funding for DEI offices, and the use of diversity statements and identity-based preferences in admissions and employment.

As white men continue to constitute the majority of U.S. college presidents, Howard noted the intense pressure on university officials such as Gay who come from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.

“Nobody wants to be reduced to just their racial identity or just their gender identity,” she said. “It shows that the bar is so high, and there’s so much scrutiny on people who are thought to have received those positions because of their identity.”

Debates over systemic DEI are not new, but recent events have resulted in further polarization. According to social studies teacher Tara Firenzi, DEI should come naturally, and conflicts can easily be avoided.

“This question of diversity, equity and inclusion really should be a no-brainer for everybody,” she said. “It’s been manipulated in order to inspire passionate responses that often end up falling along political lines to benefit certain political actors. It goes back to a lot of the ideals of our country. We should make amends for injustices of the past in ways that are fair and equitable. These are things that most of us can agree on.”

Although Leland recognizes UPenn’s efforts to support DEI, she doesn’t always feel or see the effects as a student.

“I think meaningful diversity, equity and inclusion work that addresses all marginalized communities — not just focusing on one — and that reaches more individual students is something that is super important, instead of just pledging to do something and not actually doing it,” she said.

Academic Integrity

In addition to the controversy from the congressional hearing, Gay’s resignation resulted from an investigation of plagiarism during her academic career. The fallout was similar to that of Tessier-Lavigne’s resignation in August 2023 after he was accused of academic misconduct in and mismanagement of his past studies. More recently, former MIT professor Neri Oxman was found to have plagiarized sources such as Wikipedia in her dissertation. Oxman’s husband, billionaire and hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, was one of Gay’s most notable critics and had tried to remove Gay from Harvard’s board, according to the New York Times.

This recent pattern of events brings an underlying crisis of academic integrity to light. Yet situations like Oxman’s and Gay’s make it clear that plagiarism accusations are not entirely apolitical: They have become entangled with debates over free speech and DEI. In an interview with Politico, published on Jan. 3, conservative activist Christopher Rufo acknowledged that the plagiarism allegations against Gay were made by specific figures and news outlets to dismantle her legitimacy, especially regarding new DEI programs.

Many of these attacks stemmed from not blatant plagiarism but subtle replication of ideas with a lack of citation. Because the line be-
tween plagiarism and originality can be murky, Howard urges all of her students to be safe rather than sorry.

“It’s really common if you’re doing a lot of research to accidentally replicate something,” Howard said. “Obviously, if you’re pulling from another person’s work and if your thoughts directly match their progression, even if you use your own words, it’s really important to cite that kind of thing.”

Firenzi believes that intentionality is the key distinguisher of plagiarism.

“I think plagiarism is when you knowingly and intentionally are taking someone else’s work and representing it as your own,” Firenzi said. “And that can be verbatim or it can be in substance. I think it’s not as black-and-white as it may seem to a lot of people.”

These attacks on university leadership have brought along another wave of skepticism toward educational institutions: The percentage of young adults believing in the importance of a college degree has fallen from 74% in the early 2010s to about 40% in recent years, according to the New York Times. Still, some have questioned whether these resignations were necessary and if the backlash was too harsh.

“In all of these cases, the question of degree has been at the heart of the debate,” Firenzi said. “It really behooves everyone to be extremely careful about any time you’re using someone else’s work, and making absolutely sure that you’re giving all the credit that you can for it and not cutting corners.”

Furthermore, Firenzi highlighted the importance of understanding the nuances of these issues — from academic integrity to free speech — in Palo Alto, a highly educated community.

“These things are probably felt more prominently here than they are in a lot of other places,” she said. “That brings with it an awareness that ultimately benefits our students — that you do have to do these things in a way that puts both integrity, equity and inclusion front and center and ensures that proper credit is given for ideas and words to the authors that created them.”

Even schools that claim to meet full financial aid often hand out insufficient aid packages, forcing students to undertake student loans or opt for a cheaper alternative. Until 1991, the Ivy League and 15 other similar institutions held annual meetings with the intention to offer the exact same aid packages to students who had been admitted to two or more participating institutions. Such sharing of information was anticompetitive—it forced students to pay a singular price without the ability to consider different offers from different schools, something many lower income students rely on to bargain for better aid packages.

In 1991, all eight Ivy Leagues and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were charged with price fixing, and the meetings were abolished. Still, collusion among elite institutions continues. On Jan. 9, five former students of prestigious universities filed a lawsuit against 16 colleges for fixing tuition for aid-seeking applicants. The 16 universities were part of the 568 Presidents Group, which calculates a student’s expected financial aid package using the same standardized metric. The lawsuit alleges that these universities, while claiming to be need-blind, prioritize applicants from wealthy donor families or consider student’s ability to pay when pulling from the waitlist. The recent allegations have yet to be verified or contested in a court of law.

The conversation surrounding equitable admissions policies remains relevant today. Less affluent students arrive at the application process with many disadvantages. Application fees have spiked in recent years, costing from $60 to $90 to submit. This forces students who do not qualify for a fee waiver to limit their quantity of applications. Admissions policies like Early Decision, which give applicants an admissions advantage for applying early under a binding plan, also disadvantage lower-income students, for whom financial aid packages are essential to choosing a college. The threat of a binding acceptance without a guaranteed satisfactory aid package means that many lower income applicants opt for Regular Decision— where applicants do not receive a boost in their chances—rather than the early round. The price of higher education has also steadily increased over time; in 1990, Harvard’s yearly tuition (including room and board and adjusted for inflation) was $41,372. Now, it is $74,528, almost double its original cost. Without the help of robust financial aid programs, low-income families can rarely afford to send their children to study at these institutions.

The admissions process itself favors wealthier applicants, who often have more resources, information and opportunities at their disposal. For instance, college counselors can tailor a high schooler’s profile strategically to gain admittance from top schools. By paying for SAT and ACT testing preparation courses, students are able to score higher than those without the same funds. Legacy admissions, or the tradition of prioritizing applicants whose family members have attended or worked at the institution, are yet another way that colleges serve established families. This advantage is not based on a student’s merit or capabilities, but rather on their relation to other people.

Every year, first-generation students or those coming from low-income backgrounds receive offers of admission from their dream institutions: the first leap in future social mobility for their families. This can come through the Questbridge National College Match, a hyperselective program that matches low-income student finalists to the elite universities of their choosing. Once a student is matched, they receive a full ride to the institution. These spots are extremely competitive; out of the many low-income students selected as highly esteemed Questbridge finalists, fewer than 20% are matched, meaning the other students—both non-finalists and those not matched—must compete in the Regular Decision round for spots in the freshman class. Still, far more spots go to those of affluent upbringings. At the Washington University of St. Louis, 21.7% of the student population belonged to the top 1% of wealth, while only 6.1% of students came from the bottom 60%.

Students of lower socioeconomic backgrounds historically benefit the most from an elite education. According to Jenny Anderson of Quartz, a poorer student’s likelihood of making it into the top income quartile increases by a factor of 11 by attending a prestigious college. For students with more affluent upbringings, this likelihood only increases by a factor of four. However, the apparent lack of representation of low-income students manifests in many campus’s cultures. University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) alumna
Jasmine Nguyen, who graduated in 2021, was in the 3% of UPenn students hailing from the bottom 20% of American household income. Her more affluent peers, however, were often unaware of the obstacles poorer students face when seeking social mobility. Instead, Nguyen recalls classroom discussions where her classmates concluded that poorer people simply did not know how to make good decisions or were not as smart as their richer counterparts. Along a similar vein, UPenn Wharton School professor Nina Strohminger states that 25% of her students believe that the average American makes more than six figures. In actuality, according to “USA Today,” the average income totals around $51,480. By limiting equal representation, educational institutions like UPenn run the risk of breeding a largely unaware and unconscious student population that fails to see the full picture of American life.

Elite institutions have great potential to channel bright minds into brighter futures. While appreciating this potential, we must also be aware of its drawbacks and flaws. Higher education has come a long way since segregated schools based on race and sex, yet obstacles against equitable admissions are still ingrained in its very framework. Selective institutions remain unrepresentative and elitist, failing to deliver the American dream they represent. In seeking reform, we can one day look to a future where higher education can claim its rightful place in the American dream, offering better tomorrows to the future leaders of our generation regardless of their affluence.