# Officials to fight hate speech with public pressure
## 
### Steve McCarroll Editorial staff 
Stanford officials unable to
apply University judicial stan
dards to incidents like the Jan. 19
harassment of Otero Resident
Fellow Dennis Matthies may
instead make the cases public to
bring the pressure of public disap
proval upon the participants,
Judicial Affairs Officer Sally Cole
said yesterday.
The inapplicability of the Fun
damental Standard to the inci
dent has also raised concerns
about the standard's narrowness,
according to Cole.
She said she is particularly
concerned about the fact that the
standard applies only to abuses
directed against other students.
"I think it's unfortunate," Cole

said. "It may actually call for con
vening [the Student Conduct Leg
islative Council] to consider
rewriting it and making it consis
tent with other student conduct
policies."
But as the policy now stands,
Cole said, "It is important to rec
ognize that not everything that's
offensive can be prosecuted."
According to Cole, discussing
such incidents in a public forum
"may be more effective than a
confidential process that nobody
ever hears about."
During the incident in question,
first-year law student Keith Rabois
and sophomore Michael Ehrman
disturbed residents in Otero as
they passed by the RF cottage next
to the freshman dorm.
One of them allegedly shouted
comments similar to "Faggot! You
are going to die of AIDS!" The
other said "more innocent-type
things" which were "less exple
tive," according to Rabois.
The students will not face Uni
versity judicial proceedings
because the 1990 interpretation
of the Fundamental Standard,
which applies to hate speech, is
too narrowly defined to apply to
the incident, according to Dean of
Students Michael Jackson.
The interpretation applies to
abuses which are delivered face
to-face but not to insults which
are delivered in indirect con
frontations, Jackson said.
In addition, the interpretation
applies only to insults which are
directed against students, accord
ing to Law Prof. Tom Grey, who
authored the interpretation.
Before yesterday's story about
the incident was printed, Jackson
sent a letter to The Daily outlin
ing the incident in Otero and the
subsequent investigation.
The letter, which appears on
page four of today's Daily, does
not name the students.
Cole said the decision to make
the incident public came after
extended discussion by Universi
ty officials, and she and others
supported the decision.
She added that such procedures
"could be used more broadly,"
including in cases of Honor Code
violations and other cases that

"don't belong in a judicial avenue"
but in which public discussion
would yield "some positive lessons."
Cole said the names of stu
dents involved would not neces
sarily be made public by judicial
officials, although that possibility
remained.
"I hope people view it as a pos
itive example of appropriate ways
to respond to offensive conduct
that cannot be regulated by a
judicial process," Cole said.
"I have no problem with people
knowing about the comments"
made during the incident, Rabois
said. But "It is ironic that when
they want to discipline someone,
it's supposedly a confidential pro
cess," while "in less serious
infractions, they go public," he
said.
Cole argues that the Funda
mental Standard's inapplicability
in cases like the incident in Otero
means the standard may need to
be reinterpreted, in order to
widen its scope.
"In every other student conduct
policy that we've got, there is no
restriction on who is victimized by
it," she said. "Applicability is not
determined by who else is involved."
Rabois said he would like to see
the Grey interpretation eliminat
ed entirely. A former editor of the
Stanford Review and president of
the College Republicans, Rabois
has been a consistent opponent of
the prohibition of hate speech.
"People have tried to talk me
into testing it for a long time,"
said Rabois, who graduated from
Stanford last year. But Rabois
said he knew his actions last
month weren't a violation.