The history of the Stanford University Department of Public Safety (Stanford Police Department)

3.3. SUDPS: HISTORY AND OPERATIONS 47

2. Video of a talk on the police department given at Stanford by the current chief of police, Laura

Wilson

3. Interview with Marving Herrington, founder of the current police department and chief of

police from the early 70s until 1998

4. Interview with John Schwartz, an Asst. Professor of Physics who advised the President of

Stanford University during the student disruptions in the 70s and was instrumental in the

formation of a deputized police department

I have relied on extant literature to draw comparisons with the public and strictly private police.

The reading stage was undertaken after the data had been collected, coded and analyzed. The

answers were formed prior to formulating the questions, and the process was iterative. A big part of

ethnographic research happens during writing, where the phases are visited in a non-linear fashion.

The ethnographic method will receive some more attention again toward the end of this chapter.

3.3 SUDPS: History and Operations

People who have not attended a university are often unaware that colleges and universities can

have their own police departments. People who are aware often evaluate such policing in light of

their conception of a public police force employed by a city or county. This conception leads to

speculation around a campus police force having enough work. The police department is aware of

this perception. In a talk on campus, police chief Laura Wilson told the audience:

We are sort of seen as second-tier law enforcement at times. You know, “Oh, you’re on a

college campus. What happens there?” You just saw what happens on a college campus

(she had just shown pictures from the riots of the 60s and 70s on campus). Those riots

weren’t taking place anywhere else. Colleges attract a certain element of . . . you know it’s

a hub, intellectual banter and discussion, unfortunately sometimes it generates violence.

. . . I actually think in some ways doing law enforcement on a college campus is even more

di�cult than doing it in a municipality, especially on a campus like this.

The Stanford police department is o�cially known as the Department of Public Safety. It is

neither fully private, nor public. Rather, it has the attributes of both types of policing. Technically,

all sworn o�cers of the department are reserve o�cers who are deputized by the Santa Clara County

Sheri↵’s o�ce.

The earliest records of Stanford’s Police Department are from 1928 when it was a tra�c de-

partment with one patrolman, John Olsen, who was on a break from the candy business on advice

from his doctor.2 Olsen returned to his business in 1930 to be succeeded by Gordon Davis, who

2“John Olsen resigns as Campus Cop,” The Stanford Daily, February 4, 1930

48 CHAPTER 3. DISCOVERING EMBEDDED VALUES IN CULTURE

went on to build up the department until the fifties. Davis gave an interview to the Stanford Daily

upon completing 17 years of service in 1947. At that time, the department had 11 sta↵ members

including the chief, of which 8 were patrolmen and two were night watchmen. The department had

“seen everything from parking violations to murder.”3 The interview provides a glimpse of how the

chief thought of the department:

“We are part of Stanford, working with the students,” he (Davis) said. “If the department

were to be called in by the students for aid in an acute problem,” David continued, “we

would lend a hand quickly. Our eight patrolmen and two night watchmen are not in

conflict with student government, but work with it.”

In the pre-60’s era, one event of note was the stealing of a ceremonial axe at the Big Game

with Berkeley. The late 60’s brought far more serious problems than stolen axes. This period was

traumatic for law enforcement in general across the United States due to the Civil Rights movement.

Riots engulfed almost every major city between 1964 and 1968. Most of the disorders

were initiated by a routine incident involving the police. . . . Police actions were also

cited as contributing to the disorders. Direct police intervention had sparked the riots

in Harlem, Watts, Newark and Detroit. In Watts and Newark the riots were set o↵ by

routine tra�c stops. In Detroit a police raid on an after-hours bar in the ghetto touched

o↵ the disorders there. The police thus, became the focus of the national attention. [64]

Things got worse with the Vietnam war. There were several protests by students around Stan-

ford’s involvement with military research, leading to the severance of ties with the Stanford Research

Institute (SRI) which was then sold o↵.4 Many campuses across the United States were hotbeds

of anti-war activism. It was common to see police o�cers from other police departments wearing

riot gear on the Stanford campus trying to control protesters. The Spring of 1970 was infamously

referred to as Cambodia Spring, after President Nixon ordered U. S. troops into Cambodia in April.

The President of Stanford University at the time, Richard Lyman, remarked later,

The Cambodia spring was the most thoroughly disrupted period. The police were called

to campus I think 13 times in two months, and a lot of people were hurt. One person

was even shot in the leg. It was just a very, very rough April and May, and a general

strike closed the university pretty well down, and there wasn’t much we could do about

it. I remember the then police chief (Tom Bell) putting up a notice saying “If you can’t

get to your o�ce, try to identify the people who are preventing you from doing so and

turn their names in, but we can’t do anything to help you.” [44]

3“Chief Davis recalls 17 seasons on Farm,” The Stanford Daily, November 11, 19474The trustees of Stanford University decided to sell SRI with no restrictions in early May 1969


Stanford was without a chief for four months after Chief Tom Bell left the violent campus

atmosphere in disgust. [44, 22] Asking for help meant calling the Santa Clara County Sheri↵’s

o�ce. John Schwartz, an Assistant Professor who advised the President during the disruptions,

remarked,

The di�culty was that it was an all-or-nothing response. It became extremely di�cult,

as much for the sheri↵’s department as for the University. In that, look, if there is

a disruption the sheri↵ is not going to send three uniformed deputies. They either

mobilize a few bus loads of their tac squad in riot gear or nobody comes. It’s frustrating

but understandable, at the time. It was provocative to the students. It was costly for

the sheri↵’s department. It was a very di�cult thing to do soon enough. That is to say,

if you’re going to mobilize that many peace o�cers and get them all together and then

bring them to the staging area and coordinate a bus, you’re looking at hours and hours,

and it did not work to say in advance, “Well, look, we know there’s going to be an event

on the campus that could produce di�culties, so get ready.” Police departments don’t

work that way.

The University realized that they needed peace o�cers to communicate to students that they

would be arrested for violating the law. At the same time, they wanted peace o�cers who would

not treat the situation as a battle zone and do their best to avoid arresting students. In Schwartz’s

words:

The idea was to get a small number, 2 or 3 uniformed (we felt that the uniform makes a

di↵erence) peace o�cers at the early stages, very early stages, of some disturbance, we

believed it could be di↵used. Because, as I said earlier, these things become more and

more entrenched, hour by hour. The people who began it are no longer the people who

are running it.

The University started to push for legislation that would allow private campuses to upgrade their

police from security guards to full “peace o�cer” status.5 An interim chief, William Wullschleger,

was appointed6 while the university searched for a permanent appointee to help build up the depart-

ment. The search ended with the recruitment of Marvin Herrington, an o�cer with a good reputation

who had developed Northwestern University’s “eight-man security group . . . into a highly-trained 40-

man police department.”7 Herrington was heading security operations in 19 state colleges at the time

he was recruited. When Herrington came in, the university had been negotiating with the Sheri↵ of

Santa Clara county to obtain peace o�cer status for the SUDPS.

5“Campus Police Bill Argued In Assembly,” The Stanford Daily, July 16, 19716“Police Chief Named,” The Stanford Daily, May 12, 19717“State College O�cial to Head Campus Police,” The Stanford Daily, July 23, 1971


Herrington joined Schwartz and other University o�cials in negotiations with the attorney general

to let the department hire peace o�cers under strict professional standards. Given the extraordinary

situation on campus, the attorney general at the time agreed that he would essentially approve that

a private entity such as Stanford could pay reserves to work for them. Thus, legally, the department

exists on the basis of an attorney general’s “opinion”8 that a private institution can pay a government

agency for reserve o�cers.

The deputization process was also worked out around this time. Stanford signed a memorandum

of understanding (MoU) with the Sheri↵ of Santa Clara County agreeing to abide by the rules and

regulations required by his o�ce. This MoU is unique to Stanford University and has a careful

description of powers and requirements that allows the department to function in the university. In

Herrington’s words:

The key to that agreement is that the University did something that I don’t know of any

other university that’s ever done this. I know there’s no private university that’s ever

done this.9 They agreed to hire us, pay us, and in terms of the University, they would

tell us what services they wanted. . . . But the job itself, they don’t interfere with. And,

there is a bright line between records. Police records at Stanford are not open to the

university unless they would be opened by a subpoena or a judge or the university is by

virtue entitled to the information because they are party to some crime or something,

they’re a victim. The President can’t call the police chief and say, look this student up

and tell me if he’s got a criminal records. No. Can’t do that, against the law. That’s a

big step for a university. But it was established at a time when it was chaos - everything

was . . . it was a battleground, really. And at that time, and then as it developed, the

university became more and more comfortable with it. What I told the President was,

this is something you can point to when the parent comes in and says “I demand you do

something about that. Don’t let the police do this.” He says, “I can’t do it, its against

the law. I can’t tell the police not to arrest somebody.” . . . I think that’s the reason it

succeeded for thirty-some years because we made it very clear at the outset that this

would be a standalone police department not answerable to the university in terms of

legal actions. We’re not going to go in there and say, “Is it alright to arrest this person

or not?” The first time the administration knows about an arrest is when it’s on the

sheet when any newspaper can come and look at it.

Through the MoU, the University promised to abide by all the rules and regulations that were

deemed as requirements of police o�cers by the Sheri↵’s o�ce. In return, the Sheri↵’s o�ce would

8Estelle Younger, the Attorney General in 1973, recorded her opinion on this subject, which then allowed theStanford police department to exist

9Vanderbilt University and University of the Pacific are private universities with similar police arrangements whereo�cers are deputized by their neighboring public police departments. This comment underscores the independentdevelopment of the Stanford police department.


deputize Stanford police o�cers and give them the same powers as any public police o�cer. New

recruits to the department are sent to a police academy and are taught by trainers who’ve been

certified through the Peace O�cers Standards and Training (POST) organization or through the

sheri↵. The training now runs for twenty two weeks, but initially, Herrington had to take bold steps

to make it a requirement.10 Present chief Laura Wilson mentioned this in a talk:

He (Herrington) came in and was alarmed by the fact that people didn’t have a tremen-

dous amount of training. So he actually took all their guns away. Let me tell you, taking

a gun away from a police o�cer doesn’t go over very well, makes them very unhappy.

So, he disarmed everyone and made everyone reapply. So that whole group of folks that

you saw (in a picture), I think only about five people actually passed the new standards

to be part of the new police department. One of the conditions was that the new o�cers

would have to attend a full police o�cer’s academy. We wouldn’t even dream of doing

anything else now, but back then, that was a whole five weeks. Now it’s six months long.

The Sheri↵’s o�ce has oversight on the SUDPS. However, for all practical purposes, the Stanford

Police operate independently and report to the Chief Financial O�cer of Stanford University for

business matters and to the President of Stanford University for policy matters. Herrington explained

policy decisions in an interview:

(Say) we have a building takeover - there’s demonstrators, they come in and they sit

down in the building and they are not throwing bricks through the windows. They are

occupying. They are not damaging anything. As a police o�cer, as a public police o�cer,

that’s not my property. I go to the President and say, “So what do you want done? It’s

your policy. If you say they are trespassing and disrupting business, we’re going to go in

and arrest them. If you say, let them sit in there, I don’t care. It is not my call.” You

look to the president as the owner, the acting owner of the university property, and you

say, “Do you want this to be done, or you don’t want it done.” You may want to try

other avenues before we’re called in. But once we’re called in, you can’t say “We don’t

want to do it.” Because once you commit and say to me, “I want those people arrested

and taken out of there, I’m gonna do it.”

During the 90’s, ideas about what constitutes a viable and e↵ective organization began to seep

into departmental culture from the world of business and consulting. Herrington attended a talk

on campus around 1994, by Jerry Porras, co-author of the book “Built to Last,” which exposed the

chief to their research about lasting organizations. The researchers exhorted that great organizations

had a “core purpose.” Herrington set about articulating the police department’s core purpose and

10The Stanford Department of Public Safety O�cers Association (SDPSOA) opposed the deputization plan anddemanded federal mediation. “Police Balk at Deputization Plan,” The Stanford Daily, Jul 18, 1972.


came up with a document that is followed unchanged by the department to this day. This document

describes the department’s core values:

We pledge to honor the spirit and letter of the laws we are charged to uphold. We will

strive to maintain and improve our professional skills and knowledge. We will project a

positive and courteous image towards our clients and fellow employees. We will dedicate

our full attention to our duties to earn and maintain the public trust. The hallmarks

of our service and conduct will be a dedication to the principles of honesty, integrity,

fairness, courage and courtesy.

This extract was pasted on the walls of the department and used during briefings by the chief to

assess whether the department was living up to the core values. It wasn’t easy to get the department

to accept these core values. According to Herrington,

Some of the senior people in the department didn’t want any part of it. They argued

back and forth with me but they just were against it. It wasn’t a police thing. One of

the words in here that was most objectionable, that I got a lot of negative feedback on,

was the reference to clients. “We’ll project a positive and courteous image toward our

clients and fellow employees.” Well, when I defined what a client was - it’s every drunk

you pick up, it’s everybody you come in contact with. If you look at them through those

eyes, you’ve got a lot better perspective. This person has a problem, I gotta deal with

it. But he’s not the enemy, he’s a client. Taking a drunk driver o↵ the road. Even if he

bites me, I’m doing him a favor. I had a hard time getting through that. Some of them

didn’t accept it, then they retired and were gone.

Herrington retired in 2001 and was succeeded by Marvin Moore, who passed away due to a heart

attack in early 2002, to be succeeded by the present chief, Laura Wilson.

The department had (as of 2006) 32 sworn o�cers, which is less than half the number of o�cers

that Stanford employed in1970, even though the number of buildings on campus had doubled since

then. The number of students had also increased. There were fifteen Community Service O�cers

(CSOs) who performed traditional private security functions that included providing site security.

They also did parking enforcement. There were twenty civilian support sta↵ and seventy five of

what the department called “casual employees.” The casual employees would be called in for special

events and would wear a blue uniform as opposed to the khaki uniform of the sworn o�cers. The

department also had a support services sta↵ for administrative activities.

The sworn o�cers worked twelve hours a day for three days, six hours on the fourth and had

the rest of the week o↵. This was known as a “3 12” schedule. Because a standard work week is

forty hours, all o�cers received two hours of overtime pay each week. The fourth day was known as

an overlap day and was designed to fall on Wednesday, when one team of deputies signed o↵ and

3.4. THE RHETORIC OF EDUCATION 53

another signed on for the rest of the week. The overlap was designed to facilitate knowledge transfer

between the deputies who would otherwise not meet each other. There was a second rationale for

this design. Although deputies were expected to o�cially work for twelve hours, they would often

have to extend their hours due to incidents that occurred toward the end of their shift. As an o�cer

explained it to me:

Well, at the end of the shift, we have someone that’s in custody, you can’t simply say,

oh by the way, I will get to you tomorrow.

O�cers might have to escort o↵enders to jail and therefore extend their work hours. By the

third day of the work week, fatigue sets in. Hence, the fourth day is only six hours long and o�cers

find it “refreshing,” knowing their week is going to end quickly.

Like elsewhere, policing on campus requires that o�cers play a variety of roles. For instance,

o�cers spent a considerable amount of their time training new recruits and less-experienced col-

leagues. They spent what they believed was a considerable amount of time completing paperwork.

They routinely discussed events they had experienced over the course of the day, to keep each other

informed. They found themselves enforcing laws and occasionally making arrests. But the activity

around which they built their identity was what they called “education.”

3.4 The Rhetoric of Education

3.4.1 An educational stop

My story begins with a bike-stop that ironically, involved me. I was returning home from a talk

on campus on my bicycle with a Bluetooth device on my ear that allowed me to operate my cell

phone in a hands-free manner. As I slowed my bicycle near a stop sign, I noticed several o�cers on

the sidewalk. Although I was slowing to a stop voluntarily, an o�cer rushed toward me, shouting,

“Stop, stop!” He recognized me and said, “Aren’t you the one who’s studying us?” I said, “Yes.”

He explained to me that he wanted to check whether I had covered both ears, which is illegal in

California. Since I had only one ear covered, I was “good to go.” I made a mental note that there

were several deputies on the sidewalk. The next day, I asked the sergeant leading the bike stop why

there were five deputies with him doing the bike stop. He explained that they wanted to make an

impact:

Sergeant: My job as a supervisor is basically to lead by example. So, you know, one

of the goals is bike enforcement and education. So, you know, every week, instead of

having them go out on their own, we pick an area and I go out there too, and then we

all as a group do enforcement like you saw yesterday night. And I think it has more of

an impact because, it’s not this one isolated bike stop but it’s this group for, you know,