Back inside the field house at Laird Q. Cagan Stadium, the place their daughter always said was her favorite place in the world, Steve Meyer brushed his finger over wife Gina's cheek. Her makeup had fought admirably, through a day and night spent remembering Katie Meyer. But a single black streak still trickled from her eyelashes, and Gina chuckled.
"Not waterproof mascara, today," she said.
She should've worn some, Gina admitted later. Stifling tears was impossible. It had taken nearly four long years for Gina and Steve and Stanford to get to this point, where they could celebrate and remember Katie Meyer for who she was rather than litigate the circumstances around her suicide.
Seven months after Gina and Steve settled their wrongful-death lawsuit against the university, the parents walked out on Maloney Field as Stanford women's soccer retired their daughter's No. 19 jersey Thursday night. This honor, for former NCAA-champion goalie Katie, came as part – or as condition – of that January settlement. It did not feel like obligation, to the Meyers. Steve's jaw trembled as he watched the announcement on the video board, and did not steady. Gina exchanged laughs with head coach Paul Ratcliffe, and told the Cardinal squad before Thursday's game against USC that Katie would want them to "go crush it."
"I think the night is powerful," Steve told the Chronicle, a few minutes after the ceremony. "It's a poignant action by the new administration here, recognizing Katie and her passion for the game, her passion for the team. The all-in nature of Katie in terms of, not only soccer, but just being a student here.
"She loved this university," he continued. "And it's a great testament to the folks here now, to acknowledge that."
That now hung in the humid night air in Palo Alto, on a campus that has turned over completely amid years of scandal and tragedy. After Meyer was found dead in her dorm room after taking her own life in March 2022, her parents filed that wrongful-death suit against Stanford later that year, alleging Meyer's suicide was "solely in response" – as the original lawsuit reads – to punishment leveled by Stanford's Office of Community Standards (OCS).
As alleged in that lawsuit, Meyer was facing an OCS disciplinary process after spilling coffee on a Stanford football player who sexually assaulted one of her teammates. Six months later, on the last day Stanford's policies permitted an OCS charge, Stanford employees issued Meyer a letter telling her her diploma would be placed on hold and "threatening her status as a Stanford student, Captain and member of the soccer team," as the lawsuit reads.
Meyer was found dead the next day.
"Defendants cannot escape the consequences of their actions; they must be held accountable, not only to satisfy the demands of justice, but just as importantly to discourage such flagrantly irresponsible actions and/or inactions … from being perpetrated on vulnerable students like Katie Meyer and others in the future," the complaint reads.
In the years since that lawsuit, Stanford has seen radical change at the top. Former provost Persis Drell stepped down in 2023, replaced by Jenny Martinez the same year. Former president Marc Tessier-Lavigne – who was named as a defendant in the Meyers' lawsuit – resigned in 2023 after an independent review of scientific integrity of his research studies, replaced by Jonathan Levin in 2024. Former athletic director Bernard Muir stepped down in 2025, replaced by John Donahoe.
All changes, ultimately, preceded the Meyers' settlement with Stanford, which established the university will now apply principles of Katie Meyer's Law – signed into California law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2024 – to give students the right to consult an independent adviser during disciplinary processes.
Gina and Steve helped pass that law through the foundation "Katie's Save," and are now pushing for Katie Meyer's Law to be adopted by Congress.
"They're remarkable," Stanford women's soccer coach Paul Ratcliffe told the Chronicle. "The message they're sending to everyone about mental health, and all the different things they're trying to do to keep Katie top of mind - that this should never happen again."
Meyer's death, too, put clear systematic issues within Stanford's ecosystem on a public stage. Internally, the operation of the school's disciplinary process has changed drastically under Larry Marshall, a longtime Stanford law professor who has taken over as the interim director of the OCS.
Bob Ottillie, a San Diego-based lawyer and Stanford graduate who estimated he's represented between 80 to 120 Stanford students over the years in disciplinary matters, said the OCS has begun to take a "much more humane approach" that doesn't involve immediate presumption of guilt. Marshall has onboarded two new support coordinators in the past month, who are solely responsible for advising students through the disciplinary process and not actually involved within the process itself, as Marshall told the Chronicle.
Students, now, are also notified of OCS processes and decisions via phone calls rather than letters, amid several other changes Ottillie listed.
"It's a real tribute to Katie Meyer," Ottillie said, "what they've done."
Marshall told the Chronicle he hoped the office's transition "would've happened eventually," but said Gina and Steve Meyer – with whom he's developed a personal relationship – "deserve immense credit."
"It's been extraordinarily moving," Marshall said. "Moving to witness their anguish, but it's also been so inspiring to see their commitment to trying to use it as a catalyst for change."
Katie Meyer, of course, was much more than a catalyst, and the circular No. 19 patch that now sits on the green padded wall that borders Maloney Field. She was "bigger than life," Ratcliffe said with a smile, remembering Meyer's viral celebration after a clutch save in Stanford's 2019 NCAA title-game win over North Carolina. Gina and Steve remember her on every trip back to campus: strolling past her beloved Coupa Cafe in downtown Palo Alto, sitting and doing her homework at the top of the bleachers at Maloney Field.
Remembering, of course, brings pinpricks of tears. Steve rubbed Gina's back as the two walked off the field pregame Thursday night, after they were presented by Donahoe with their daughter's framed No. 19 jersey.
But Steve has come to believe, through an unspeakable heartbreak, that the opposite of grief is not joy but forgetting.
"We're happy that we're able to move forward, hand-in-hand, with the university now," Steve said. "It's a really nice place to be. And we'll see where it leads."
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This article originally published at As Stanford retires Katie Meyer's jersey, the 'real tribute' will be changes on campus.