BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A former Stanford student who had an affair with Palo Alto Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims is putting on a musical based on their experience.
“Part love story, part cautionary tale, ‘Mimi & Jo’ is a queer coming-of-age play set to original music that explores the intimacy of creative collaboration, exposes the pain of hindsight, and attempts to reconcile the gray space between attachment and abuse,” former student Olivia Swanson Haas wrote in a tagline for the play, which she will present on Sunday in San Francisco. The play looks back to 2012, when Haas was 22, and Lythcott-Haims was 44 working as Stanford’s dean of freshman and undergraduate advising.
“The dean was a school celebrity – charismatic, adored – and I was the kind of young person who craved attention from powerful people. When a close friend ship between us turned physically intimate, I was convinced I was in love and so I lived a double life,” Haas said in an essay, published in July 2024.
Haas said her essay was read by over 100,000 people.
She recapped their sex in detail — at luxury hotels, nearby motels and a cabin south of campus.
“I barely knew my own body, but I did what I imagined felt good,” Haas wrote.
Lythcott-Haims said she checked Stanford’s policies to make sure they weren’t breaking any rules, “but it was clear that what we were doing put her job at risk,” Haas said.
The affair led Lythcott-Haims to leave Stanford in 2012. She went on to write three books about parenting and youth development, including a New York Times bestseller, and was elected to council in November 2022.
Lythcott-Haims announced on May 11 that she won’t be running for re-election to focus on her career as an author and public speaker.
After the essay came out, then-Mayor Greer Stone and Councilwoman Vicki Veenker urged Lythcott-Haims to step down from three committees dealing with youth mental health, schools and Stanford.
Stone and Veenker approached Lythcott-Haims to counter calls for her resignation, Lythcott-Haims said in a text message to City Manager Ed Shikada.
Lythcott-Haims declined an interview about the essay at the time, instead emailing a statement that confirmed the affair and apologized to her family and former colleagues.
“While I was not in a position of authority over her grades or academic status at the university, being in a relationship with a student was inappropriate when it happened 13 years ago, and it would be inappropriate now,” Lythcott-Haims said.
Former mayors Larry Klein and Liz Kniss stood by Lythcott-Haims while former councilwoman and retired judge LaDoris Cordell said she found Lyth-cott-Haims’ conduct to be “very troubling.”
“I’m disappointed. I expected better,” Cordell said at the time.
Lythcott-Haims’ husband knew about the affair, Haas said in the essay.
“Just don’t buy her a car,” he once joked to her, Haas recalled.
Haas said she ended the affair after confessing to her boyfriend and deciding to be with him.
When Haas told her parents about the affair, she said they were “horrified,” and her mom anonymously reported Lythcott-Haims to Stanford.
“Suddenly words like ‘manipulated’ and ‘abuse of power’ were being used,” Haas said.
Lythcott-Haims emailed Haas in the early months of the pandemic to privately apologize.
They got back in touch, “although some days I’m not sure we should be,” Haas wrote.
Haas said her play looks at reuniting with Lythcott-Haims a decade after the end of their affair.
The play “travels sideways and backward in time through pivotal moments of the two women’s relationship as music collaborators,” Haas said on her website.
The play has two cast members and a 90-minute run time. Haas received a $2,500 grant from Theatre Bay Area in December and has done readings with actors in New York City.
The play is directed by Wynne Chan, managing director of Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco. Haas won a scriptwriting competition based on her story in 2024 from a group of Stanford alums working in entertainment. She’s raised $6,197 on her way to a $35,000 goal to finance the play’s development and a reading to industry professionals.
“If I can just gather the resources and support to continue developing ‘Mimi & Jo,’ commercial or nonprofit partners will take note and get involved to carry this play to its next stage,” she said on her website.
The fact that Julie lost her career over this shack-up speaks for itself. At this point the whole thing needs to die.
Men have lost their careers for less. It’s amusing to see it go the other way.
Why? She acted in a way that has cost many others their careers. I don’t see them on city councils.
Nobody cares. Get a life.
It’s awesome she, the victim, is working through her trauma with this play. It’s not awesome that someone with questionable moral character represents the City of Palo Alto.
Did you hear that Julie is now recommending Linda Henigan for school board? When a predator who abused her power as dean of students is recommending a school board candidate, beware of that school board candidate.
Not only does Lythcott-Haims continue to serve on the Palo Alto city council, she thinks she has the credibility to endorse PAUSD candidates. Think twice before you follow her recommendations
How is this not front and center? Other predators have paid their price for abusing power – I am always impressed with those who preach one rule for us and another for them. That clearly exposes their moral fiber.
Good riddance. She pollutes all she touches – Stanford with the sex scandal, Palo Alto City Council with her texting scandal, and now probably PAUSD school board by recommending Linda Henigan.
What career loss? That she continued her term on Palo Alto City council without resigning….we Palo Altoans were too soft on this. That someone of such suspect character can be a best selling author on a “Parenting” book 3 years after she had the affair, is stomach churning. And a predator like her has no remorse and has the audacity to continue to play a role in speaking about candidates who are standing to represent our children and our schools? Where is the remorse and taking accountability?
“What career loss?” Exactly.
Mayor Veenker and Vice Mayor Stone only removed her from 3 committees dealing with youth and Stanford for 1 single year and then when that year was up, appointed her to even more committees including the one dealing with teen suicide which she managed to divert from exploring the school’s role in ignoring complaints about bullying to focus on closing Churchill. (As per her “mean girl” texts about “those advanced math people” and the need to avoid scrutiny of PA schools and test scores.
How did she do that? By actively misrepresenting the student petition which had requested the return of HUMAN crossing guards — NOT closing Churchill. Did Mayor Veenker or Vice Mayor Stone call her out for her latest “alternative facts” or the waste of money from JLH’s direction to staff to focus exclusively in Churchill instead of all rr crossings?
Of course not. They’d rather focus on the usual meaningless virtue-signalling and rewriting of PA official values than address REAL problems.
Is anyone surprised that “Former mayors Larry Klein and Liz Kniss stood by Lythcott-Haims” given their habit of supporting the most inexperienced candidates — aka Liz’s kids — to serve as mouthpieces for their agenda?
As always pay close attention to who JLH’s supporting, funding and endorsing in this election — much better indicators than meaningless virtue-signalling that divert from REAL problem-solving.
I would say that being on the Palo Alto City Council is not a career with a couple of exceptions like Joe Simitian and Marc Berman who have been elected to other offices. Julie presumably is going to continue being a freelance writer.
The handling of the situations involving Peter Colombo and Julie Lythcott-Haims highlights a glaring double standard in local institutional accountability. Mr. Colombo, a long-time educator, effectively had his 30-year teaching and coaching career ended despite criminal charges being dropped and an internal district investigation finding the allegations unsubstantiated. In contrast, former Stanford Dean Julie Lythcott-Haims publicly admitted to an inappropriate affair with an undergraduate student—a severe violation of the institutional power dynamic—yet continues her career in public office on the Palo Alto City Council. The silence from high-profile advocacy figures like Michelle Dauber on this clear abuse of authority exposes a profound HYPOCRISY.
Julie isn’t a pervert, she’s just Woke. If you’re Woke, you’re exempt from the unwritten rules the rest of us follow. Those of us in our 50s would never try and bed a 20something. It may not be illegal, but it certainly crosses a moral line. The Woke believe that despite having a Nazi tattoo on their chest for 17 years, they are U.S. Senate material. The Woke believe we should abolish Israel and discriminate against the Jews. The Woke are like Gavin Newsom, who shuts down the state and arrests people without masks, yet he dines without a mask at the French Laundry. The Woke believe the rules are for thee, not for me.
After Lythcott-Haims was exposed, she kept inserting herself into events involving children. She marched in the Fairmeadow school’s Ruby Bridges Day parade. God only knows what else she did.
What? She had a consentual affair with an ADULT. Not a criminal act, not even in violation of her employment. Perhaps not great judgement, yes, but you are making disgusting and horrific insinuations with this comment.
There’s always one who tries to normalize disgusting behavior.
Don’t forget, she begged the rest of Council to give her an intern.
Don’t forget, she — a Harvard-trained lawyer — sued the FPPC to change their conflict of interest regulations soon after she won her Council seat, meaning she ran under false pretenses.
The comments here are focused on Council member Lythcott-Haims not the play write/author.
Regardless, I agree with many of the posts. I know Palo Alto deserves better leadership. I believe Bryna Chang will provide just that. Please consider Bryna Chang for City Council!
[Terms of Use violation. Please, no links.]
Bryna has the experience, the smarts and really cares about this community!
Sorry daily post! I didn’t know about the no links rule.
Anon1234, good points about Palo Alto deserving better leadership. What I like about Chang is her attention to details — not meaningless unrealistic sloganeering — AND that she’s running to serve Palo Alto residents, NOT to position herself to run for higher office.
So Haas was cheating on her partner and now is interested in milking this pathetic situation further. Is that for her own benefit or to shamele Lythcott-Haims who seems shameless but not blameless? Sounds like they were the perfect match.