Stanford Faculty
I am writing to correct a serious misimpression created by your May 19 coverage of events here on campus--particularly in regard to my speech to Stanford’s Academic Council the previous afternoon.
Your headline asserts that “Stanford President Bows to Demands” in agreeing to strive for 30 new minority faculty appointments over the next 10 years. I did nothing of the sort. Rather, I announced this and other important commitments in a deeply-considered response to an equally well-developed set of recommendations put forward by the University Committee on Minority Issues after 18 months of landmark work. As your reporter correctly acknowledged in the story that followed, my address was prepared before disruption and arrests on May 15, and not a word was changed in the aftermath.
I can only conclude that The Times knowingly opted for a more sensational teaser. My regret is that a reasoned and substantive process was thereby discredited as capitulation to intimidation.
DONALD KENNEDY
President
Stanford University
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