Editor’s Note: The President and Our Politics

Recent controversy surrounding the new presidential appointment of Marc Tessier-Lavigne reveals more the problems of our campus politics than those of the presidential appointment itself. The fact that our recent editorial, which expresses at most a qualified dismay regarding the results of the appointment, could be contorted and misconstrued into a so-called furious tirade brings to light a more depressing political environment that extends beyond the controversies surrounding the identity politics in our administration.

As we emphasized repeatedly with the bookends of our editorial, the president, as far as we know, is greatly qualified for the job ahead, whether it be handling fundraising or acting as a figurehead for our institution. That said, his qualifications and achievements as a luminary figure in a great range of fields cannot and should not preclude the possibility of disappointment for reasons that extend into the implications of his identity. It is not paradoxical to praise the new president and also to lament the decision if the locus of this lamentation is not on the president himself or on those who made the decision to appoint him. The lamentation is strictly localized to the fact that, at this historical juncture, the university did not take full advantage of an opportunity to make a public statement on the important issue of diversity.

It would therefore be misguided to critique our editorial on the grounds that it understood little about the long, arduous, and careful decision-making process. That much is admitted, and should indeed be taken into account when evaluating the shortcomings of the editorial. But in the final analysis, our editorial has nothing to do with the individuals who decided or who was decided upon; and it has everything to do with the political implications of this decision—issues fraught with political significance that transcends the actors involved.

Hopefully having made the historical rather than personal intentions of our editorial now clearer, the remaining room for disagreement therefore seems to lie in whether lack of diversity in race, gender, and sexuality is even a problem in the first place—a critique that, surprisingly, has been made quite forcefully. Keeping in mind the epistemic limitations of our politics, it is not with absolute certainty that we emphasize the importance of these forms of diversity, but we do present it as a basic axiom of our politics that we think necessary at the present moment. To be sure, as many have made clear, the new president himself represents a different set of diverse features. But to mention how those compensate for another different lack in diversity is to already begin working within an economy of diversity that considers the historical importance of our basic axiom.

Even so, agreements and disagreements on the placement of our values regarding diversity should not be discussed with vitriol, nor should it be misconstrued as such. In a counterintuitive fashion, it appears that identity politics—the politics that in a sense includes everyone and leaves no one untouched—has led to the exclusion of many from engaging politically. The deep-seated alienation and hesitation that pervades much of our student body that results from this curious exclusionary politics of identity is only further reinforced by the tendency of some on this campus to pervert communicative politics into a game of rhetoric and flair. It would be pure hubris to claim that we as a publication have been completely immune from this universal tendency in our past—those are our mistakes. But it is nonetheless important to recognize that if we are to truly forward dialogue as a campus, there is a need to do so with open and transparent self-criticism.

There is no lack of political passion in the various campus groups with their deeply held principles. But there is a constantly diminishing space for politics that can be as forgiving and charitable as it is determined and pointed. The bitter situation that followed our editorial demonstrates as much; and that is not something for any of us to be proud of. There is a clear urgency for a political discourse unfettered by divisive, conflictual language, and we at the Stanford Political Journal hope to make this both more accessible and more readily available. It is within this context that we warmly welcome the university’s new president, recognizing both his limitations and his promise.

---

Truman Chen, a junior studying history, is the editor in chief of Stanford Political Journal.