A crowd of jeering Stanford Law School students shouted down, yelled profanities and sexual mockery (“you can’t find the clit”) at Fifth Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan.
Stanford Law School Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Tirien Steinbach then intervened, not to admonish the students, but to spend several minutes berating the Judge for having the audacity to appear at Stanford Law School, which was traumatic to the students given his conservative judicial decisions: “Is the Juice” of his appearing “worth the squeeze” on students, she asked.
This all was performative. None of those protesting students were forced to go into the classroom holding the lecture, and they engaged in a ritual walkout after they had prevented the Judge from giving his prepared remarks.
We detailed what happened in Stanford Law Students, With Support From Diversity Dean, Shout Down Visiting Appeals Court Judge Because He’s Conservative.
(full video here)
Let me guess, you are “shocked” that the ideological hooliganism that permeates the rest of higher ed has manifested itself in law school.
Sure, the Yale Law School meltdown against a conservative lawyer happened:
As did the UC Hastings Law School verbal assault on Ilya Shapiro.
But those weren’t judges.
I’m so old I remember when the new red law school guard honored a line it would not cross: Visiting Judges may not be revered, but they also weren’t abused. Why is anyone surprised that this judicial line in the sand has been breached?
Did you not witness the disruptions of the Senate confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh?
Did you not witness protesters trying to break their way into the Supreme Court building to try to prevent Kavanaugh’s swearing in?
Did you not see Chuck Schumer try to whip up angry mobs against the Supreme Court over a looming abortion ruling?
Did you not see well-organized, aggressive, and ongoing protests at the homes of conservative Supreme Court Justices before and after the abortion ruling?
Did you not see the White House give a nod and a wink to such protests at Justices homes?
Did you not see a Georgetown University law professor express open support for such protests?
Did you not see the FBI and Department of Justice sit on their hands even though the protests meant to intimidate judges at their homes appeared to violate a specific statute?
Did you not see liberals mock attempts to provide extra security for Justices after the Kavanaugh assassination attempt?
Have you been asleep? Why are you surprised?
The Stanford Law student shout-down of Judge Duncan was a long time in the making, and such conduct to inimidate conservative judges has been normalized by academia, Democrats, the media, and the present federal government.
And it’s being justified by leftist legal commenters, who claim that the cause of the disruption was Judge Duncan daring to show up, which was a deliberate provocation:
“My advice to students is that malicious groups like the Federalist Society want you to behave in a way that they can use to make themselves out as victims. And then they will use that false victimhood to pressure your campus into making concessions to them. So act accordingly.”
“Homophobic troll Kyle Duncan goes to Stanford, gets predictably yelled at, wants Stanford to apologize for treating him like a homophobic troll.Really, it’s the entire raison d’être for FedSoc. “We’re mad people treat our odious views as odious.”Also, make no mistake, the reason why Stanford FedSoc (which is in California) invited Duncan (whose on the 5th circuit in Louisiana) was to CREATE this kind of ruckus. And that’s why Duncan accepted (who was video taping it).”
The university and law school have now issued a formal apology:
We write to apologize for the disruption of your recent speech at Stanford Law School. As has already been communicated to our community, what happened was inconsistent with our policies on free speech, and we are very sorry about the experience you had while visiting our campus.We are very clear with our students that, given our commitment to free expression, if there are speakers they disagree with, they are welcome to exercise their right to protest but not to disrupt the proceedings. Our disruption policy states that students are not allowed to “prevent the effective carrying out” of a “public event” whether by heckling or other forms of interruption.In addition, staff members who should have enforced university policies failed to do so, and instead intervened in inappropriate ways that are not aligned with the university’s commitment to free speech.We are taking steps to ensure that something like this does not happen again. Freedom of speech is a bedrock principle for the law school, the university, and a democratic society, and we can and must do better to ensure that it continues even in polarized times.
The apology is better than no apology, but it means nothing in the grand scheme of things, because the administrative apology treats this as an aberration rather than a symptom of the deeper disease. The academic disease of the monoculture hostile to (partial list) conservatives, Christians, dissidents, and free thinkers, persists. The political disease of attacking conservative judges persists.
All lines have been crossed. Don’t be shocked next time when the result is even worse than a shout-down and profanity-laced verbal abuse.
This tweet had it right: “Never forget, these students’ next stop is the DOJ”
This is our future.
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