Stanford Politics

Thousands of students across the country walked out of classes Wednesday to speak out against gun violence in light of last month’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and Stanford students were no exception.

Roughly 250 students gathered in the main quad at 10 a.m. for a 17-minute rally, to honor the 17 victims of the massacre. The event corresponded with #Enough!, a push by Women’s March Youth Empower that sparked similar demonstrations nationwide, including rallies at both Palo Alto High School and Castilleja School. Senior and co-organizer Zoe Goldblum discovered the plans for the national event and contacted freshman Chloe Stoddard, who organized the Stanford Women’s March this January.

“We were surprised that no one else at Stanford was already working to organize it,” Goldblum said. “So we were like — if nobody else is gonna do it, we’re going to.”

The two realized they couldn’t do it alone, so they reached out to co-sponsors including the Black Student Union (BSU), the Stanford branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Stanford American Indian Organization, MEChA., the Muslim Student Union, the Asian American Student Association, and the Jewish Student Association. Involving these various groups provided multiple perspectives regarding gun violence impact.

Senior Katheryn Treder, representing the Stanford American Indian Organization noted the history of firearm violence against indigenous peoples. Sophomore and BSU co-chair Kojoh Atta echoed similar sentiments, bringing attention to the disproportionate effects of gun violence on African Americans. He noted that African Americans represent 55 percent of daily gun-related deaths, despite only representing 30 percent of the population.

“We want to make sure that just because this is happening in a school that may be more wealthy, or white, or upper class, that doesn’t make those events much more serious or more tragic than events that are happening to low income, inner-city, black, brown, or Asian communities,” Atta said.

Students whose families have been directly impacted by gun violence also spoke at the rally. Goldblum’s mother’s brother died in an accidental shooting as a young child, a tragedy that has rocked her family for years. Similarly, junior Marisol Zarate, co-president of MEChA spoke to the devastating effects of the mass shooting in her hometown, San Bernardino, in 2015.

“The end of violence can begin when it comes to your city, when it happens to your relatives, when you’re on campus calling home frantically wondering why the hell everyone here is so damn complacent,” Zarate said.

Sophomore Dominick Hing had an even more recent brush with the realities of gun violence, as an alumnus of Stoneman Douglas and with a brother in school on the day of the shooting. Since, he’s joined the #NeverAgain movement, a group of about 20 of the high school’s students.

“My friends and I are going to do exactly what Stoneman Douglas taught us to do — to change the world,” Hing said. “The gun lobby has bought out our politicians, but we’ll never stop fighting them.”

In fact, the organizers have some plans for how to keep fighting at Stanford. Goldblum said the main organizers are looking into creating a volunteer student organization (VSO) on campus specifically dedicated to addressing gun violence. Through this VSO, students hope to lobby Stanford to leverage its resources as a research institution. Specifically, because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not legally allowed to provide federal funding to study the issue according to Goldblum, she and fellow organizer senior Vicki Niu believe Stanford could play a crucial role in changing the conversation.

“A lot of that research is needed to backup the kind of policies and legislative changes that we want to see,” Niu said.

In conjunction with the walkout on Wednesday, ASSU sponsored A Conversation on Gun Violence with Matt Deitsch, a Stoneman Douglas alumnus and #NeverAgain organizer, on Monday at Old Union. About 25 students gathered to ask Deitsch about topics like his experience working with legislatures, student involvement, and the youth movement. Deitsch cited the statistic that one in five young people vote and stressed the importance of increasing that proportion.

“That’s the message that he drove home — to get young people involved, to register to vote, to go to the polling booths,” Niu, who helped organize the event, said. “Also, to make gun violence a voting issue.”

As part of this push for the youth vote, members of Stanford in Government helped register students to vote at the Wednesday walkout.

Though gun violence has been a recurring topic of discourse for years, Niu believes the shooting in Parkland, Florida marked a “tipping point” for the movement to end gun violence. Goldblum agreed that the activism in the wake of the shooting has been unprecedented.

“People are scared that we have that power,” Goldblum said. “We need to utilize it.”