Campus Freedom of Expression Design Competition
Help promote Stanford students’ rights to speak and express themselves on campus
$500 prize for winning submission; $250 for runners up
Stanford has policies that protect your freedom of expression — the right to speak, post, protest, publish, and disagree. Right now, those policies live on a website, but we know there’s a better way to share these policies with students.
That’s where you come in.
This design competition is open for Stanford students. The winning proposal will win a prize and may receive an invitation to help build the real thing.
Background
Stanford Provost Jenny Martinez expressed the view that “Stanford has the opportunity to become a leader in higher education if we can come up with clear policies” on issues involving freedom of expression and generate a “broader set of university efforts not only to avoid things that inhibit free speech but to promote the culture of open inquiry that is part of our educational mission.” While there are currently policies in place to promote freedom of expression, many students around campus are not familiar with these.
We invite students to submit ideas to promote the message that the university celebrates freedom of expression, bring awareness to the outdoor spaces for gathering, and make information about policies pertaining to expressive events more accessible. Proposals will suggest better ways to communicate the university’s values surrounding freedom of expression and provide specific policy information to students.
What we’re asking for
A short, creative proposal (1–2 pages) for how to raise awareness of Stanford’s protections for freedom of expression and make Stanford’s policies genuinely accessible to students. Anything goes for the format:
- A pocket book mailed to every new student
- A series of short videos
- An interactive website or chatbot
- A kiosk in White Plaza
- A card game, a zine, a podcast, a mural. Surprise us!
What your submission should include
Answer these three questions in 1–2 pages.
- What is your proposal? Help us picture it.
- What problem does it fix? Who is it for, and what do they get wrong or miss today?
- What would it take? People, time, technology, resources.
- Can you help us build it over the summer of 2026? Let us know if you might be interested and available to collaborate on making the proposal real.
The prize
- $500 cash to the winning proposal(s)
- $250 cash to two runners up
- Multiple first-place winners are possible
- Group projects are welcome and encouraged; larger $1000 prize will be split
Key dates
| Submissions open | Now |
| Submission deadline | Sunday, May 31, 2026 |
| Winners announced | Wednesday, June 10, 2026 |
| Implementation | Summer 2026 |
| Public launch | Fall 2026 |
How to submit
Upload 1–2 page PDF through this form by 11:59 PM on May 31, 2026.
FAQ
Any current Stanford student. Work solo or in teams. Every major, every class year, every background — lawyers-in-training, designers, poets, engineers, organizers, everyone. You do not need prior experience with policy, law, or design.
No. The existing policies are all publicly available on Stanford’s freedom of expression website (this website), but your job is to make them accessible — not to rewrite them.
Yes. Team sizes are flexible. If you submit as a group, a $1000 will be awarded to the team to split as you choose. Use one person’s email to submit the application through the form and list all members of the team on the form.
Yes. Separate proposals, please. You can upload multiple pdfs, but one pdf per idea.
Not at all. The submission is a proposal, not a finished product. Description, mockups, or sketches are enough. That said, the prize committee will value ideas that are fleshed out enough to allow us to assess their feasibility.
No. But if you can tell us what it would take to build, we can judge what the costs may be.
Possibly. If multiple proposals are strong and address different angles or can work in tandem (e.g. a webpage and also a guidebook), we may fund more than one. We’ll also award two smaller prizes to runners up, which may go to submissions we would (or could) never implement, but perhaps made us think or laugh.
A small panel drawn from students, staff, and faculty involved in Stanford’s freedom of expression work. Criteria: clarity of the idea, creativity, how well it actually helps students, and how feasible it is to launch by Fall 2026.
If your proposal is selected and built, you will be credited.
Send an email to Zack Al-Witri at the Provost’s office (zalwitri@stanford.edu). We’ll post new questions and answers to this page.