The Stanford Federalist Society invited 5th Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan to speak on campus yesterday on the topic “The Fifth Circuit in Conversation with the Supreme Court: Covid, Guns, and Twitter.” But as we’ve seen happen at other law schools, the speech didn’t go as planned. In fact it really didn’t happen at all. Ed Whelan wrote about what did happen on Twitter this morning.
In email before event, Stanford DEI dean Tirien Steinbach stated support of right of students to protest event, “in keeping with University policies … against disrupting speakers.”
All good. Except she and 4 other administrators at event allowed gross disruption. 2/
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) March 10, 2023
After drowning out made it impossible for Judge Duncan to proceed, Steinbach delivered prepared remarks that berated Duncan and sided with protestors: “your advocacy, your opinions from the bench, land as absolute disenfranchisement of their rights.” 4/
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) March 10, 2023
From what I hear, Stanford law culture is as bad as Yale’s, perhaps even worse. Lefty students are viciously abusive of Federalist Society student leaders. A few years ago, a federal judge was spat on. 6/
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) March 10, 2023
Given how ACLU has abandoned its commitment to free speech, it’s perhaps not surprising that DEI dean Steinbach’s previous position was chief program officer at ACLU of Northern California. 10/
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) March 10, 2023
There’s a 9-minute video which shows DEI Dean Steinbach giving Judge Duncan a lecture. “It’s uncomfortable to say that for many people here, you’re work has caused harm.” She then went on to say that Stanford supported free speech but added, “again I still ask, is the juice worth the squeeze?” “Is it worth the pain that this causes, the division that this causes? Do you have something so incredibly important to say about Twitter and guns and Covid that that is worth this impact on the division of these people,” she said indicating the room full of protesters with her hands.
The claims of “harm” are SOP for woke agitators. Anyone whose speech you don’t like is automatically accused of doing harm even before they speak. The harm is usually vague and the connection to the speaker is often imaginary. It’s most often just a way to catastrophize something as simple as having a different opinion on a given issue. For instance, if you have hesitations about gender affirming care for trans kids, then you’re doing harm. It can’t even be discussed because the discussion itself is harmful. In almost every case, claims of harm are just a backhanded way to demand instant and complete compliance. And that’s not a coincidence.
Finally, Dean Steinbach suggested that people who didn’t want to hear the speech should leave and many of them did.
Appalling behavior from Stanford Dean of DEI, berating Judge Kyle Duncan before his invited lecture at Stanford Law School. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so outrageous her repeated remarks about how uncomfortable she is saying this. She’s loving it.
— Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanTAnd) March 10, 2023
We don’t see what happened from here but David Lat is saying that the event ended 40 minutes early.
2/ Defenders of the Stanford Law protesters might quibble over whether the event was completely shut down (a la @ishapiro at Hastings), since Judge Duncan managed to get out a few words. But the event ended 40 minutes early after proceeding became impossible.
— David Lat (@DavidLat) March 10, 2023
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Meanwhile, the usual suspects on the left are defending the disruption of the speech as merely free speech by the students.
Apparently the FedSoc self-victimization du jour is that Kyle Duncan is allowed to tell Stanford Law what he thinks, but Stanford Law students aren’t allowed to tell raging homophobe Kyle Duncan what they think of him.
FedSoc will be whining about this for months.
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) March 10, 2023
Dan McLaughlin tried to point out the problem with this, i.e. the heckler’s veto.
In general, people who cheer for the shouting down of speakers do so secure in the knowledge that it won’t be done to them.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) March 10, 2023
Just because you’re a physically large man does not give you the right to use that to prevent others from getting their turn to speak.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) March 10, 2023
When people tell you they favor bullying, believe them.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) March 10, 2023
Notice that @ElieNYC simply will not address the actual question of preventing other voices from being heard, which is the only thing actually at issue. Because he knows he can’t actually defend that. The rest is shtick.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) March 10, 2023
Anyway, as a long-time observer of this stuff, it seems we’ve gone from this never happens to this is fine. It clearly does happen. It happened at Yale Law School last March and also at UC Hastings law school a few days earlier. Then, as now, there were lots of people on left eager to defend the heckler’s veto so long as it’s being used against the right people.
What was the point of all this? Judge Duncan was invited to speak. He did not need the blessing of the DEI Dean or the students who objected to do that. Since most of the students who objected left before his remarks started, the exchange of ideas created by the hecklers was entirely one way, which again is how the woke prefer it. But ultimately, this kind of behavior has a big potential to backfire.
The disruption by students & others of US Court of Appeals Judge Kyle Duncan’s talk at Stanford Law School shows how mired many today are in illiberalism, anti-intellectualism, and groupthink. The conduct of the DEI administrator will feed sentiment to abolish DEI bureaucracies.
— Robert P. George🇻🇦🇺🇸🪕 (@McCormickProf) March 10, 2023
