EVE JONES: I am a recent graduate with a Master’s degree in Hydrology and Water Resources, but also a Bachelor’s degree in Feminist Philosophy and Freshwater Engineering.
I came to Stanford five years ago from a rural town in Oregon because I truly believed that a place like Stanford wanted to bring minds and resources together to address existential threats to humanity and build the world I always dreamed was possible, a world of connection and belonging.
I’m curious, Amanda. You talked about how you first got involved in student organizing, but I’d like to hear a little more from you both about it. How did you go from being a student to becoming an activist and organizer on campus?
Jones: I came to Stanford as a student organizer. I was part of a generation of students who were involved in organizing for climate justice and gun violence, and people who came to the university ready to make their voices heard, thinking about it as a way to build the future.
As soon as I arrived at Stanford, I became involved in anti-sexual violence organizing, which quickly put me in opposition to the administration.
By 2023, when the Palestine Solidarity student camps began, we saw many more students get involved and really come together to build more than just opposition. It was a truly stunning moment where we were able to define for ourselves why we came to the university, why we came for an education and what we wanted to do with it.
Campos: I will say that, unlike Ewa, I certainly did not come to Stanford as a student organizer, but I became one very quickly because it was needed.
But more broadly, I was also a bit naive in thinking about Stanford as a place where I could innovate on environmental solutions and where I could facilitate people.
I saw the power of education and the power of a Stanford degree as a way to achieve this. But I think my view of power has definitely changed, especially through organizing. I saw power as something that could be gained, and now I see it as something that can be built, as something we all have through our votes.
Getting involved in the SJP organization was extremely liberating for me. I have high hopes for the student movement.
Theo Baker has a up-to-date book out, I don’t know if any of you have read it, called How to rule the world. He describes Stanford as basically what you both say, a path to tech jobs and Silicon Valley, a place with a lot of clubbing, tech elitism, VCs looking for talent, and a lot of ethical lapses on the part of students, faculty, and administration. Do you have any reactions to this book?
Jones: I fear that someone wants to define their career by participating in the rabid consumption of America’s cultural fascination with what goes on at elite universities. I think it really distracts from the problems at hand, which are in many ways defense-driven career paths in these universities and in Silicon Valley, in these companies that run deep and drive really brutal technologies and control systems.