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C00002 00002	PROPOSED INTERPRETATIONS AND APPLICATIONS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL STANDARD
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PROPOSED INTERPRETATIONS AND APPLICATIONS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL STANDARD

The Fundamental Standard now reads:

Students at Stanford are expected to show both within and without the
University such respect for order, morality, personal honor and the
rights of others as is demanded of good citizens.  Failure to do this
will be sufficient cause for removal from the University.

[This was written about 1891.  Actually, in spite of the last
sentence, penalties for Fundamental Standard violations vary from
official rebukes to permanent expulsion.--JP]

The Student Conduct Legislative Council (SCLC) proposes to leave this
statement unchanged and to follow it with this text:

INTERPRETATIONS AND APPLICATIONS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL STANDARD IN THE
AREA OF DIVERSITY.

1.	Stanford is committed to diversity both of ideas and persons.
The members of the Stanford community are bound together by the desire
to participate in the interplay of ideas in the pursuit of truth, and
they differ from each other in many other ways.  In this statement,
"personal and cultural diversity" refers to differences in gender,
race, color, sexual orientation, physical abilities, national or
ethnic origin, and religious affiliation, while "intellectual
diversity" refers to difference in beliefs, including political
beliefs.

2.	Freedom of speech has long been cherished in our society, and
nowhere does it have greater or more special power than in a
university, where unconventional and heterodox ideas are the very
breath of life.  Precisely because Stanford values diversity and
welcomes the many cultures that feed the University's intellectual
life, students must expect to find, and are expected to tolerate,
opinions that they no only disagree with, but may find abhorrent.  No
student at Stanford has a right to prevent another from holding a
particular opinion or from expressing it in ways appropriate to
exploring, developing, vigorously promoting and defending it, and thus
entering it into the life of the University, there to flourish or
wither according to its merits.

3.	In general, Stanford's commitment to the diversity of ideas
and persons and to the principle of freedom of speech reinforce one
another.  But they can come into conflict.  All members of the
University have a right to be protected from exposure to conduct that
is intended, or could reasonably be expected, to discourage them from
full participation in the University's life on the bases of personal,
cultural, or intellectual differences.  In certain circumstances, some
forms of expression can thus constitute violations of the Fundamental
Standard.  The following statements are intended to clarify these
circumstances. 

4.	PERSONAL ABUSE.  Students and other members of the Stanford
community have the right to be free from personal attacks which
involve the use of obscenities, epithets, and other forms of
expression that by accepted community standards degrade, victimize,
stigmatize or pejoratively characterize them on the basis of personal,
cultural, or intellectual diversity.

5.	DEFAMATION OF GROUPS.  Members of the Stanford community have
the right not to be inescapably and involuntarily exposed to
obscenities, epithets, and other forms of expression that by accepted
community standards stigmatize, victimize, or pejoratively
characterize persons or groups on the basis of personal or cultural
differences.