The Strange Case of the Stanford 12: $700K in Damage, Felony Charges, and … Community Service?

The Strange Case of the Stanford 12: $700K in Damage, Felony Charges, and … Community Service?

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office announced felony charges for twelve former and current pro-Palestinian Stanford University students last Thursday. The students, aged 19 to 32, have been charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. They will be arraigned later this month at the Hall of Justice in San Jose.

The New York Times reported that last June, protestors allegedly broke into an administrative building, occupied it, and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. “They face up to three years and eight months in prison, as well as the payment of restitution to reimburse the university for the damage.”

The Trump administration is currently investigating multiple universities for their handling of last year’s pro-Palestinian student protests, examining whether the institutions have taken sufficient steps to address antisemitism on campus.

Asked by a reporter if his decision to file felony charges was influenced by Trump’s heightened attention on Stanford and other universities, District Attorney Jeff Rosen denied it had played a role.

“What the federal administration is doing is what they’re doing,” Rosen replied. “What I’m doing is applying the California Penal Code.”

Rosen said his decision was guided by the significant damage caused by the protesters and what he described as extensive, organized planning leading up to the incident.

He continued, “Whenever you have multiple people working together to commit a crime, it’s much more dangerous to the public. That the actions were intended to highlight the group’s opposition to the war in Gaza made no difference.”

“Speech is protected by the First Amendment,” he noted. “Vandalism is prosecuted under the Penal Code.”

Here’s a partial account of the events of June 5 (as reported by the Times):

Police arrested 13 people in connection with breaking into the office of the Stanford president early that morning and barricading themselves inside. They made several demands, including that the university trustees vote on whether to divest from companies that support Israel’s military.

They were cleared out of the building and arrested within a few hours, but not before they had broken windows and furniture, disabled security cameras and splashed fake blood inside the building, Mr. Rosen said.

Mr. Rosen did not file charges against one of the 13 individuals, a student reporter for The Stanford Daily newspaper who was covering the protest, but not participating in it.

Mr. Rosen said the 12 protesters attempted to hide their communication, including the deletion from their phones of the Signal messaging app, through which they had exchanged messages shortly before their arrests.

He said his investigators were able to “work around” the protesters’ attempts to conceal their planning and found they had surveilled the building; studied the patterns of local police officers and security guards; and assigned themselves specific tasks, such as who would break the window and who would use a crowbar to pry open the door.

The protesters carried backpacks that were recovered in the barricaded building and contained hammers, chisels, screwdrivers and goggles, according to the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office.

…

On the same morning as the protest, red graffiti appeared on the sandstone walls of the university’s main quad that condemned the police, Stanford, Israel and the United States. Phrases included “Pigs Taste Best Dead” and “Death to Israehell.” Mr. Rosen said he declined to file hate crime charges because his office could not prove that the 12 protesters were responsible for those messages.

While I commend Rosen for filing felony charges against the students, he said he does not want to see them serve prison time. Rather, he hopes they will plead guilty and participate in the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s work program, which involves cleaning highways or government buildings.

“I don’t think this is a prison case,” he told reporters. “What I would like to see happen here is that I would like these individuals to plead guilty, accept responsibility for what they did, make restitution to Stanford for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage they caused.”

“The way I see it, they damaged and destroyed all this property and caused all this vandalism and I think their punishment should be cleaning things up,” he said. “This is kind of biblical. You trashed a building, so your punishment should be cleaning things up.”

“Pouring invective on social media is not against the law. Pouring fake blood all over someone else’s workplace is,” Rosen added.

I agree that the students should be held financially accountable and required to pay restitution to Stanford for the damage they caused. However, I also believe that true accountability should extend beyond monetary penalties—they should serve at least some prison time to reflect the gravity of their actions. Doing so could also serve as a deterrent to others who might consider taking future protests too far.

In the post below, an X user writes: “If a bunch of poor or working class class young adults without the privilege of going to Stanford had done 700K of damage in a preplanned vandalism spree, do you think Rosen would be talking about ‘community service’ and no jail time?”

He’s absolutely right. It’s time to restore equal justice under the law—no special treatment based on privilege or position.

"Though the protestors do face jail time, Rosen said he doesn't want that to be outcome of this case. He's hoping for community service instead."
WTF? If a bunch of poor or working class class young adults without the privilege of going to Stanford had done 700K of damage in a… pic.twitter.com/Nix99pjZTP

— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) April 14, 2025

Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.

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