More Details in the Stanford Creative Writing Scandal

All of the Stanford Jones Lecturers are so grateful to our wonderful and courageous students who are standing up for us and standing up for themselves. Thank you also to many people who have amplified our message.

I want to add more detail below to the decision made last week by Stanford University: All twenty-three Creative Writing Lecturers were told they’d be fired, some this academic year, some next academic year. This is a group of lecturers who have — along with our students — built one of the top CW programs in the country, and who have done so with very little university support over the last four years, since the death of our fierce, mighty, and visionary program director Eavan Boland.

That vision, integrity, sense of purpose, and the dedication to undergraduates that Eavan held, and which was instilled in us, the Jones Lecturers, is simply not present in the vast majority of the Senior Faculty of Stanford Creative Writing.

This is an incredibly disturbing scandal for Stanford University. Deans and professors holding secret meetings and then firing their junior colleagues in a Zoom sessions many are calling “Stanford’s Red Wedding.” And in that very meeting the lecturers were told by the deans that they “personally acknowledge the excellence of you Jones Lecturers, your writing, your teaching and stewardship of the program” and that the Deans were “so impressed at the unbelievable teaching evaluations that you all have.”

My original statement is here, and the incredible student petition with almost 1000 Stanford signatures is here.

Additional details:

o The Jones Lecturers asked for a raise in 2023 (many lecturers made around $52,000), and exactly a year later, all of the lecturers who asked for pay raise were told they’d be fired. This seems beyond suspicious to us and to our students, and is in fact outrageous.

o The deans and our own director clearly indicated in the August 21 meeting that we would be replaced with younger and lower-paid lecturers. This is also evident in the university’s online statement here. Again, completely outrageous.

o We were told by the Deans that the new Stanford President Jonathan Levin and outgoing President Richard Saller were consulted in making this decision about our firings.

o It was the Senior Professors of our Creative Writing Program who voted to fire us, their junior colleagues, but interestingly… it was only the MALE professors who voted to fire us. Not one woman professor voted to fire the Jones Lecturers. And the decision to fire us was clearly not unanimous, and in fact received pushback from the English Department and in other quarters in the university.

o Hundreds of students are writing in to the President and Deans to voice their outrage and opposition to this decision. The destruction of their Creative Writing program — with the most popular minor on campus — is heartbreaking to them. I am appalled at the responses they are receiving from Deans. The replies that have been forwarded to me include “Thanks for sharing these thoughts,” and “I’ll pass this on to the appropriate people.” If you are a Dean at Stanford, then you ARE the appropriate person. Please do your job.

If any Stanford affiliated, or anyone actually, would be willing to share their views to the President and Deans, here is the email string. If you’d like to send me a copy at tom.kealey at gmail.com, I’ll be happy to post it here on the Medium site. We’d very much appreciate your help.

jdlevin@stanford.edu, jsmartinez@stanford.edu, jayth@stanford.edu, lanier@stanford.edu, gsafran@stanford.edu, njenkins@stanford.edu

They are:

Stanford President Jonathan Levin, Provost Jenny Martinez, Vice Provost of Undergraduates James Hamilton, Acting Vice Provost Lanier Anderson, Dean of Humanities Debra Satz, Director of Creative Writing Nick Jenkins

Thank you so much for everyone’s incredible support. It felt like we and our students were punched in the gut last Wednesday and since then there’s been a very moving series of emails and other posts from our supporters. Here’s a wonderful example from former Stegner Chris Kempf. Please keep them coming.

I’ll have more details in the days to come.