Funding for Stanford MLK site demanded
Comprehensive collection of writings a ‘treasure’
As a nation seethes over race, tucked away amid the hallowed halls of Stanford University is the nation’s most comprehensive collection of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s writings — a “treasure” that student leaders say has long been neglected.
So students and almuni of Stanford are demanding that the university invest more money and eventually build a permanent home for the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.
Housed in a modest Eichler building on the Stanford University campus surrounded by the new modern face of the grounds, the King Institute subsists on a $2 million endowment that some students feel is insufficient to honor the writings of the famed civil rights leader.
Already, nearly 8,000 people have signed a petition urging Stanford to increase the institute’s yearly financial support and help increase its endowment as a way for the university to uphold its promise to “confront racial injustice.”
In a May 29 message to the Stanford community, Provost Persis Drell condemned racist history and said that racial divides today stem from “systemic issues of racism, inequality and injustice that have plagued our social fabric across history.”
“Perhaps the best way to condemn this history is to learn more about it and grapple with what it can teach us today in this moment,” the petition reads. “Even with an endowment of over $27
billion, Stanford’s support for the Institute is on life support. It survives on its own small endowment and the university does not support it enough. Not only that, but despite the decades of building on campus, the Institute is still housed in a 1960s-era temporary building. I find this absolutely ridiculous, and you should too.”
Since the petition was started two weeks ago, Stanford students protesting the police killing of George Floyd have rallied around the issue of the King Institute and in one day donated over $10,000 to the #StandWithKing fund, an initiative started by graduating students in the Class of 2020.
The fund asks fellow graduating seniors to “chip in $20.20” to the institute and “demonstrate to the university that we believe Dr King’s legacy is worth financially supporting.” In a letter sent to the Board of Trustees, 16 former student body presidents and top leaders urged the administration to take action and end the “neglect of the King Institute.” Stanford University did not return a request for comment.
Students claim that new science and engineering centers have endowments larger than that of the King Institute’s and that the university has “never made (it) a top priority for investment and fundraising.” The research center’s current $2 million endowment was funded initially by a pledge from Ronnie Lott, 49ers Hall of Fame great, who has no Stanford affiliation. Students have even discovered that some alumni and current students are completely unaware of the institute.
“Investing in the King Institute is a concrete, obvious and long-overdue way for Stanford to make a commitment to eradicating systemic racism and advancing social justice,” the letter says. “Specifically, we urge the Board of Trustees and the President’s Office to make the King Institute’s endowment one of Stanford’s top external fundraising priorities.”
Former student body president and signatory Erica Scott, who was instrumental in starting the fundraising campaign, said in an interview on Monday that black students like her have long been “incredibly frustrated by the slow pace of change” at Stanford.
She said funding the King Institute well would do much to fix the racial divides that exist within the Stanford campus, where Scott says there is a lack of diversity among faculty and students. Given its strict rules on building new structures on campus, the King Institute campaign is focusing now on external fundraising, Scott said, with a greater goal of giving the research center a new home.
“The ultimate goal is to push the university to make the King Institute similar to other institutes on campus,” Scott said. “It would be a perfect place to house esteemed lecturers, provide research grants and give students opportunities to deal with racial issues from MLK’s writings.”
Scott said that making these changes will help to diversify a university that she says has “struggled to recruit and retain black students.”
She said fully funding the institute might change that.
“That would attract black students, black scholars, black lecturers to Stanford if they felt they had the platform to do their work,” Scott said. “We need that sort of institutional, large, well-funded support for racial studies.”