ADDED: I embedded this tweet without listening to much of the "nearly 10 minutes" of "lectur[ing]," because I had to run out to catch the sunrise, but I listened to the audio track very closely while I was out, and now I need to say that I disagree with the text of the tweet.Stanford Law students shouted down Fifth Circuit appellate judge Kyle Duncan while he was trying to speak.
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) March 11, 2023
When he asked for an administrator to control the situation, Stanford’s “associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion” got up and lectured him for nearly 10 minutes pic.twitter.com/tjlUPOIMmQ
I think the dean handled the situation well. The dean — whom Fox News identifies as Tirien Steinbach — says that she has come forward because the judge asked for an administrator to do something to restore order.
Responding to him and needing to manage a noisy group of students, she spoke in a "thinking out loud" way that openly considered various factors: the protesting students' passion and outrage, the judge's position of power, the interests of the students who wanted to hear the judge and welcome him, the schools' interest in making students feel valued and supported, and the traditional free-speech preference for active debate and more speech. She made her points quickly and clearly, and she successfully invited the students who didn't want to hear the judge to leave the room, and she seems to have convinced the remaining students to hear out the judge to save time for the Q&A after his speech.
The Fox News article disparages Steinbach as "emotional" and "frustrated," but that she struck me as professional and appropriate. If you're going to call other people "emotional" and "frustrated," you'd better be sure you're not emotional and frustrated. I know it's absurd to ask mainstream news media to play it straight and keep it factual, but it's my absurdity, willingly embraced.
ALSO: The judge was Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee. Here's his Wikipedia article where you will easily find material that explains the students' hostility.
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306 comments:
1 – 200 of 306 Newer› Newest»Yet again we see it. In The Coming of the Third Reich, historian Richard J. Evans explains how, in the early days of National Socialist Germany, Stormtroopers (Brownshirts) “organized campaigns against unwanted professors in the local newspapers [and] staged mass disruptions of their lectures.” To express dissent from Nazi positions became a matter of taking one’s life into one’s hands. The idea of people of opposing viewpoints airing their disagreements in a civil and mutually respectful manner was gone. One was a Nazi, or one was silent (and fearful).
Today’s fascists call themselves “anti-fascists.” Just like the Nazis, they are totalitarian: they are determined not to allow their opponents to murmur the slightest whisper of dissent. Forcibly suppressing the speech of someone with whom one disagrees is a quintessentially fascist act.
I think federal judges can and should fix this shit quite simply.
I can find skilled workers from places other than Stanford, so I won't have to worry about brats that don't get there way shutting down my business from within.
I watched the video and read Davit Lat’s write up. Stanford should be ashamed.
Where are the "free speech" lefties? Inga? gadfly? mutaman? Mark?
Maybe the elites are embarrassed at their own high rankings and are intentionally sabotaging their universities (and their students) so that other, non-elite law students will have clerking opportunities.
Nice!
I appreciate the sacrifice that Yale and Stanford are making.
I guess this is what professors mean when they talk about academic freedom: the freedom to shout down and cancel your political opponents. Certainly that seems to be the major activity of academics when they are allowed to run their own affairs.
The Dean is a DIE apparatchik. Dumb as a rock. I confess. I played a bit part role as a pioneer in the development of the DIE credo.
Babies. Whiny crybabies. And the administrator is their leader.
We are lost as a country.
More details @ PowerLine:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/03/judge-duncan-comments.php
Shameful.
As a lawyer, I’m beyond outrage over this behavior. Yet Stanford is a so-called “top tier” law school, turning out legal professionals of tomorrow. Plus, why is there even a DEI executive at a law school? If I were a Stanford alumni (thank God I’m not), this would mark the end of any contributions or other support to that school.
Every person In that room other than Duncan is a moronic cunt.
the inmates Aren't Just in control.. They have their Own dean.
So it is his fault they’re ruled by their emotions?
May be first time harrowing and Stanford Law School were ever used in the same sentence.
Wow, our children have come for us!!
The left demands tolerance -- towards itself. As to others, no tolerance.
This practice only allows two trajectories:
1. The moderate left continues to allow reckless bullying and anti-democratic practices whereby the USA soon replicates the USSR, Germany and Italy in WW2, and Mao's Cultural Revolution. We are already doing it on a limited scale, and Trump made it "okay" in many minds. Such periods can easily last for 10 or 20 years.
2. The moderate left breaks off to form a center-right coalition that controls and neutralizes the zealots and autocrats. If so, pray that Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Manchin, Bari Weiss, Jonathan Haidt, Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, Bill Maher, Joe Rogan, and other center lefties win the battle. They are surely more aware and united than when Trump clouded many minds, but they need to put their feet down and .
Current lefty USA politics precisely rejects Clinton's 1990s 'triangulation' strategy, where he formed a center left coalition after his electoral humiliation of 1994 and sent the right wing into the wilderness. Today's hard left is throwing everything against the wall and failing at every turn, but they continue to double down on their dreams. It's turning into the final battle scene of Les Miserables all over again.
Activists are perfecting the next world, not this one.
".....And everybody’s shouting
“Which Side Are You On?”
According to Duncan, the associate Dean had a printed speech prepared, and in his words "it was a setup," basically with Act 1 initiated by the students to be followed by the Dean as Act 2.
Colleges have become hotbeds of communism. Time to take all taxpayer money away from them, and let the free market do what it has to do....shut down the left wing hate machine.
Duncan called for the DIE administrator to be fired. He's right.
Duncan is calling on the school to discipline the students who disrupted his talk and to fire the school’s associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion, who stepped in during the event to chastise him and deliver what the judge described as a "bizarre therapy session from hell."
Remember how much criticism James Ho received when he said he was done hiring clerks from Yale after they accosted a successful SCOTUS lawyer? This seems far worse. Ho was right.
Well said and true.
Well said and true.
I could only watch a minute of this, up until the student yelled "Your racism is showing". The students who did this should face expulsion.
gsspencer has it right.
I can’t even imagine.
All I can say to those future lawyers is try shouting down your opponent when you are trying a case or arguing a motion.
Harvard. Yale. Columbia. Brown. Princeton. Stanford. Northwestern. UC-Berkeley.
Michigan. Virginia. UCLA.
Which highly rated school do you want your kid to strive to get into? They have all turned themselves into some sort of bizarre wokefest. And of course, the adults who never spent a day in the real world are doing the instruction and leading the demise of their once glorified institutions. And ours. And its clear it doesn't matter if it's a state or private school. The worst of them are the most historically lauded.
Add to this the fact- and it is a fact today- that if you're White, Jewish, or Asian, or any combination of those, you're not going to get in. But...no worries. It's not because of your SATs. In fact, they're not even going to require those or ACTs any longer. Its because...um...ahhh...well...you're the wrong color.
Welcome to the new standard for excellence. In the very near future, I would probably not trust your doctor. Or the architect who built the new building in which your office is located. Or the new bridge you're about to drive over. But at least you'll have nice pronouns and you'll feel better about yourselves as your car finds it's way into the environmentally sound Bixby Creek.
The leftists just have to include a little bit of every communist/fascist movement in history.
This garbage is straight out of the Maoist struggle session and cultural revolution line.
It is disappointing to see so little creativity from these shitheads.
The real problem here is that just like in Germany or China there is a plurality of people who will go along. They are just too afraid to support someone who is not accepted by the beautiful people. Tribal anxiety rules them.
Trump and his supporters are just so low class you know. Much better to take the easy road and support someone regime approved.
Read my update. I am supporting the dean.
The administrator is cleverly triangulating. Once the guy has schlepped all the way to Palo Alto, it is way past time to noodle learnedly, and pseudo-reasonably, about "the protesting students' passion and outrage, the judge's position of power, the interests of the students who wanted to hear the judge and welcome him, the schools' interest in making students feel valued and supported, and the traditional free-speech preference for active debate and more speech". He was invited. He has generously consented to appear. This isn't a close question. Let the guy talk, just as he allows people he disagrees with to talk. This is disgraceful behavior by the students, and the administrator comes across as a platitudinous windbag.
No. The time for "thinking out loud' style is over. The dean should have merely stated that the behavior was unacceptable and continuation will result in immediate expulsion without appeal.
I got a different message from the Dean:
Only with the permission of the mob I represent may you speak here.
What I read was, Steinbach lectured the Judge from printed remarks that had to have been prepared beforehand. The Judge says, and I am inclined to believe him, that this whole thing was a set-up. Probably Steinbach had colluded with the organizers of the disruption —and it clearly was organized, with posters and chants and face-paint— and she probably helped them script and stage her “intervention” after the Judge had been effectively run off the stage.
IMHO this was disgraceful conduct and Steinbach should pay a high price for helping to destroy her employer’s reputation for upholding the right to speak and to hear. Of course, I’m an old fogey who still thinks 1A means something; and that self-control should be part of legal professionalism.
Wow.
I just read Ann’s ADDED section.
I was to kind about the moral cowardice in the plurality of people in this country. The reason that this fascist bullshit plays out so routinely in history is because of the large number of people like Ann who think these administrators are “professional.”
Those students should all be shipped to China, not coddled and supported.
Many people just don’t understand how tenuous it is and difficult it is to maintain a free high trust society is.
They never had to earn their place in it so they don’t value it.
Jonathan Turley: In one of the most disgraceful displays in recent memory, a 5th Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan was shouted down when he tried to speak to law students at Stanford. DEI Dean Angela Steinbach then appeared and lambasted Judge Duncan.
Was he against LGBT civil unions? I'd bet no.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
Read my update. I am supporting the dean.
Are you in the middle of a struggle session now? Or just trying to preemptively avoid it by showing your belly early?
Pro Life activists are being arrested and prosecuted for less.
Ann would never support those lowlifes.
And I'm sorry. On fuller (but not full) view, I don't get the 'rightness' of her approach or her words. The very acting out of the kids is wrong. No one is allowed to come on campus any longer to just speak unless the student mob agrees with them. And there is no debate, there is only shouting over. That is unacceptable in a civil society. So that very thing- that disallowing the invited speaker to speak, makes this wrong from the get-go. The unwillingness to listen to an opposing side is a very deep pit for a young lawyer to climb into. Good luck in their career, unless their only goal is a government job or as an advocate for a left-wing activist group- in which case they're well set right now.
I do agree with the assistant dean in this respect: When she said she's not sure the juice is worth the squeeze, she may be right. But it's not the speaker. It's the school and it's arrogant student body. I'm not sure they're worth the squeeze. Also...the snapping of fingers (and, I'm guessing, jazz hands?), puleeze. Spare me this theater of idiocy. The assistant dean is one of them, mentally, emotionally, intellectually (maybe...maybe not even). The way she has to crawl on her knees to speak to the kids in the room, and then to the Judge is preposterous.
One day, they will be out there as junior lawyers in a high powered firm. I'm guessing they won't be snapping their fingers or demanding that others in the office think like they do. On the other hand, they just might.
I will confess I couldn't make it through the entire video after two tries. It's insulting to watch. It's a room full of kid minds, led by another kid mind, with an adult having to stand there and take it. "Your decisions harm people in this room." Bullshit. These are the most pampered young people in the nation.
I didn't listen to the dean at all. The students are the problem.
---I know it's absurd to ask mainstream news media to play it straight and keep it factual, but it's my absurdity, willingly embraced.
Please. That is to LOL.
Being comfortable and safe is what hospice care is about too.
Let’s not bury our heads in the sand.
The world these students will encounter will not have an administrator looking out for their safety.
Wait… they didn’t feel safe with a judge?
We’re so doomed.
Completely disagree with Althouse regarding the dean’s behavior. When young adults are acting like Hitler Youth in shouting down an invited speaker with whom they disagree, the correct response from that authority figure is to stress to said Hitler Youth that such behavior is unacceptable and will lead to expulsion from the venue if it continues.
If you want to express hostility towards the judge you wait until the question and answer session.
The other students who are not disrupting the talk deserve an education too.
The DIE admin had nothing to say about the Fed Soc members who were bullied and harassed for inviting the judge. Their pictures and names were plastered around the law school as enemies.
What about their harm? Where's their safe space?
I caare not if he administrator was calm (calm is easy when you are on the side of the mob) or was ranting. She supported the heckler's veto of free speech.
Shameful.
Althouse Added:
The judge was Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee. Here's his Wikipedia article where you will easily find material that explains the students' hostility.
So, Just to be Clear..
According to Althouse's Own Words.. "hostility" (disruptions? Violence?) Is COMPLETELY 'explainable',
IF a judge doesn't support HER side. Good to Know!!
Nothing says “ hire me” like being “harmed” by ideas. Especially lawyers. It was nice of the DEI official to point out to the judge how wrong he is. She handled it precisely like a DEI person should. Exactly.
If you can get away with lecturing someone about their position of power, maybe you are the one with the real power.
So, the ones who walked out are the babies in need of a safe space?
What exactly, did this man do that is so terrible? I suspect that it's simply that he's white and male.
NO speaker deserves that sort of introduction. And no, the dean was not a hero. Listen to the quaver in her voice--she's not comfortable in her role. She's not at all a professional.
Lastly, I formed many opinions on immature free-speech h8ers back on the Madison campus when the babies shouted down Eldridge Cleaver ca. 1981. I'm certain that Alhouse would have blogged that even had she been there. Perhaps she heard or read about it.
BTW, I read the judge’s Wickipedia biography. Even with the author’s obvious antagonistic slant, he seems to me to be a fine judge. I assume Althouse’s snark about his biography is based on his opposition to LGBTQ+++ activism, particularly in his pre-judicial days representing others.
I guess I am obtuse again.
Inviting someone to speak, and then allowing him to speak only after giving a lengthy public lecture to him telling him how hateful he is and how right the unruly "students" are to disrupt his speech, but maybe despite his hatefulness we members of the mob that hate you might learn something that helps us conquer hateful ideas like yours, is not "handling the situation well." It is placating the mob. A mob of spoiled children.
And the fact that she could't shut the "students" up with a simple "let the man speak!" says just about everything, and none of it good, about "the situation."
I thought you were in favor of free speech. I understand that "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." The judge knew he was going into a hostile environment. But he was invited. That should have been the one message the DIE person conveyed. "You should have called an administrator" is simply an embarrassment. The man was a guest of your school.
I guess I am obtuse again.
Inviting someone to speak, and then allowing him to speak only after giving a lengthy public lecture to him telling him how hateful he is and how right the unruly "students" are to disrupt his speech, but maybe despite his hatefulness we members of the mob that hate you might learn something that helps us conquer hateful ideas like yours, is not "handling the situation well." It is placating the mob. A mob of spoiled children.
And the fact that she could't shut the "students" up with a simple "let the man speak!" says just about everything, and none of it good, about "the situation."
I thought you were in favor of free speech. I understand that "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." The judge knew he was going into a hostile environment. But he was invited. That should have been the one message the DIE person conveyed. "You should have called an administrator" is simply an embarrassment. The man was a guest of your school.
Of course diversity hire Althouse is supporting the worthless Dean. As predictable as the sun rising each day. It is disgusting that she continues to leach off the taxpayers with her unearned pension.
What Owen wrote at 7:41. The best case scenario is that the reputation of these so-called leading institutions are besmirched.
I didn’t listen to the Dean. It may be that she prepared a generic speech in case something like this happened, so I’d need to know more to agree or not with the setup accusation.
However, based on the added summary in the post, she sent the wrong message to the students. It should have been to be respectful to the speaker and don’t disrupt, as that is what is required by anyone practicing law. Listen intently and ask thoughtful probing and uncomfortable questions in the Q&A. Above all, show respect to your fellow students who invited him to speak. We’re all here to learn and expand our field of view, not narrow it. Oh, and grow the hell up.
The dean, of whatever and inclusion, is there to handle situations like the one they, the University created. So, what do think she's going to do? She's going to affirm the need to have people like her (who's not producing anything) work there. The dean knows which side of her bread is buttered.
Ayn Rand: When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.
If we can't call these anti-free speech students fascists then can we call them PRC stooges (communists) who believe in shutting down opposition before it is even heard?
Isn't their behavior a complete 180 from the Mario Salvo days across the Bay almost 60 years ago?
"'This invitation was a setup,' Judge Duncan interjected at one point while Dean Steinbach criticized him. And I can see what would give him that impression: as you can see from this nine-minute video posted by Ed Whelan, when Dean Steinbach spoke, she did so from prepared remarks—in which, as noted by Whelan, she explicitly questioned the wisdom of Stanford’s free-speech policies and said they might need to be reconsidered."--David Lat, Original Jurisdiction.
Could Althouse have been bamboozled by Dean Steinbach? There is nothing so worthless as a DEI dean that thinks that the free speech principles she is supposed to enforce--free speech principles that Althouse would endorse--should be changed. This is ooey-gooey therapy speak by the dean.
It is a law school! Stand up for free expression!
Diversity, Inequity, Exclusion or DIEversity (e.g. racism, sexism and other class-disordered ideologies)
The judge opposes the wickedness of the Pro-Choice ethical religion.
The judge opposes the bigotry of political congruence ("=").
The judge opposes the conflation of sex and gender (e.g. sexual orientation).
The judge stands in conflict with feminists, masculinists, and social progressives who stand against women.
Althouse likes to troll on Saturday mornings.
Dave Begley said...
All I can say to those future lawyers is try shouting down your opponent when you are trying a case or arguing a motion.
It's all about incentives: There could be consequences doing so in a courtroom, there would be no consequences here.
Responding to him and needing to manage a noisy group of students
Y'all shut up for a second and let the baby-sitter talk!
This only happens to a certain slice of invited speakers.
It reminds me of white people screaming at black people who are integrating their universities back in the 1950's.
There is no "liberal" in that room! It is a mob threatening a speaker.
If pro-lifers screamed at people like this, our professional lives would be over. This is a one-sided, one-party, fascist "university" where free thought and free speech is disparaged and speakers are invited in order to be screamed at and embarrassed in public. And this is the fucking law school at Stanford.
"she spoke in a "thinking out loud" way that openly considered various factors:
1. "the protesting students' passion and outrage..."
They shouted down the speaker, is that not an outrage? These are supposed graduate students in the law, not high school freshmen. No one who came to listen to the lecture cared about their supposed "passion."
2. "the judge's position of power..." What power would that be in this situation? He was there to give a speech, and he was not allowed to do so. The power of the mob rendered the judge powerless.
3. "the interests of the students who wanted to hear the judge and welcome him, the schools' interest in making students feel valued and supported..." I assume you mean supporting the Leftists in the mob because it's been a long time since Stanford cared about supporting conservative students or accommodating them.
4. "and the traditional free-speech preference for active debate and more speech...." Pull the other one. The judge was there to give a speech, he wasn't there to debate anyone. The mob was there to make sure he didn't get the opportunity to speak, let alone foster more "speech."
Did she handle the situation? Apparently, but so could have the Provost who has some responsibility for developing and maintaining a collegial environment that is conducive to scholarly interaction. The DEI head is a poor choice to provide even handed treatment of leftists and conservatives.
Dear Conservatives, I apologize.
Naomi Wolf has made a realization.
If the Trump supporters win we have a free country.
If the McConnell/Schumer supporters win we get China.
She is taking a huge risk right now. I subscribed and plan on checking her substack out a bit more.
Elon Musk just tweeted out: "Free Jacob Chansley."
Scott Adams called for our entire government to be shut down.
In five years Ann and the other cowards will pretend they supported freedom all along.
Except among their "friends" who all agree they are better people than those declasse ULTRA MAGA types.
But maybe someone like Naomi Wolf will convince Ann it is OK to be associated with the pariahs.
ALSO: The judge was Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee
Oh, so that makes it all OK. The Trump Rules apply.
Cruel neutrality, but from the left.
The idea that somebody first talks and then somebody else talks, taking turns to talk is learned early on, when you are first learning to talk. If you are in a world prestigious college and you haven't learned this yet... you either don't belong there or we are fucked.
Are they putting kids in colleges who aren't ready to be there? Untested kids maybe?
Here's Mike Myers showing how this crucial business of taking turns to talk works in Canada
Read my update. I am supporting the dean.
You may in principle or whatever, but your own blog's moderation policy supports the Judge.
According to reports summarized by Steve Hayward here (Powerline) Steinbach read prepared remarks and was called in even though there were apparently at least five other Sandford administration officials in attendance.
He also notes that the Berkley Federalist Society regularly invites conservative jurists to speak, and those talks occur without similar incidents.
I agree with other commenters that this appears to be a setup to attack Duncan without giving him a chance to respond.
And I really don't care if the protestors had a 'reason' to verbally attack him. Conservative students have lots of reason to protest the liberal speakers regularly invited to campuses but instances of this behavior on their part are hard to find, and virtually never occur with the obvious support of university administrators.
college - where Pelosi's whiny babies are hatched.
Civil unions for couples, couplets, and all consenting adults, not political congruence ("="). Lower your albinophobic banners, suppress your pride and prejudice, stop reducing people to the sum of their sex-correlated attributes. Curtail your support for diversity (e.g. racist) regimes. #HateLovesAbortion
When one is incapable of debate, one is not educated nor academic.
“ Could Althouse have been bamboozled by Dean Steinbach? There is nothing so worthless as a DEI dean that thinks that the free speech principles she is supposed to enforce--free speech principles that Althouse would endorse--should be changed.”
She didn’t say that!
Listen to her actual words before you call her worthless. Who’s more nearly worthless, her or you?
Dear Conservatives, I apologize.
Naomi Wolf has made a realization.
Naomi's epiphany. Ruth's [probable] Regrets. Good for her, for them.
Women, men, and "our Posterity" are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus.
"Ann Althouse said...
Read my update. I am supporting the dean."
Good to know you've decided to junk your "Cruel Neutrality" in favor of open bias.
"Who’s more nearly worthless, her or you?"
We listened to her stupid words. Althouse, you perhaps are the most worthless of all.
"Althouse Added:
The judge was Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee. Here's his Wikipedia article where you will easily find material that explains the students' hostility."
Yeah, Wikipedia is known for its 100% reliability and accuracy. Almost equal to the WaPo and NYT in terms of lack of bias. Really, that's your justification?
These are the people who preach tolerance. Think about that.
"Who’s more nearly worthless, her or you?"
Clearly her.
Steinbach wants to abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too. As diversity [dogma] administrator she is part of the problem, but, to her credit, she is attempting to explain the religion of the protestors and who she represents to the judge.
It's more than a difference in opinion, she was upset he didn't subscribe to the equity cult. This is like communists angrily re-educating someone who went up against the regime.
Listen to her actual words...
The Dean went on to question the Judge's (unspecified) decisions from the bench as having caused harm.
So, in order to redress a harm, you cause more harm, by interrupting a talk?
That's some lesson right there.
gspenser, who posts on this blog, is the same person as fscarn, who also posts on Legal Insurrection blog. His comments are identical. I have little respect for someone who just copies and pastes the very same comment on multiple blogs under multiple pseudonyms. Others here also do it. It's lazy, and it often has little to do with the actual discussion going on here.
There is NO excusing this shitty behavior.
Two religions butt heads. This reminds me of the scene with the stag after competing for her affection. There will be "burdens".
Professor, I respect you support for the Dean and I’ll grant you the partisan bias from the folks bringing this out on twitter, Substack, etc but there is more backstory here. That Dean was vocal in advance of the the Judge’s appearance and is in part, responsible for the protesters showing up. Also, note that she had prepared remarks that were a bit specific to this Speaker’s appearance and not some general panacea oratory.
It’s good that you dug into the back story on the Judge, but like this tweet provided limited context and makes the Dean look measured, the fact that she was fully prepared for this, had been part of the drive to to disrupt the speech (successfully, actually since he was never allowed to give prepared remarks and also ended the event 40 minutes early) and of the 5 or so administrators in attendance, she was the one that went up to address the audience, makes the entire affair look fully planned.
FIRE has gotten involved on this and I see them as mostly neutral when they address concerns around free speech on campus. Any perceived bias on their part is most likely due to this happening mostly to conservative, right leaning and even far right speakers but I don’t doubt that FIRE would engage if this were to happen to a liberal/left speaker at Hillsdale or Liberty.
Listen to her actual words before you call her worthless. Who’s more nearly worthless, her or you?
She's part of the "diversity and inclusion" hustle, which makes her worthless by definition.
Read my update. I am supporting the dean.
C'mon you guys...the dean was practicing "cruel neutrality". You know, "neutrality" that is cruel to conservatives and the Right.
and Mao's Cultural Revolution
Hopefully we can avoid reopening his mass abortion fields and forward-looking collateral damage.
Responding to him and needing to manage a noisy group of students, she spoke in a "thinking out loud" way
From prepared remarks.
I am a little surprised and disappointed that the professor was taken in by this woman's dog and pony show, giving lip service to principle while justifying hatred and a two tiered system of opportunity to speak.
And yes, I listened to her full remarks.
Ah. So then you were bamboozled.
I strongly disagree with Ms. Althouse.
Nobody was going to be “harmed” if they heard Duncan out. If students at a law school believe they will be harmed by hearing words that they disagree with they have selected the wrong line of work to pursue.
A competent administrator who actually cared about students would have advised them of Stanford’s policies and insisted that the outburst stop immediately and listed to what the man is saying.
It should be noted that protesters had put up posters with the pictures and names of FedSoc members during the days leading up to this in an attempt to intimidate them.
DEI (Division Exclusion and Indoctrination) is a cancer that needs to be eradicated. It has already destroyed the humanities at many elite schools and has spread to STEM.
In order to combat it I would advocate the following:
1. Federal funding for a university, including research, should be contingent on that university’s adherence to Constitutional principles.
2. Institutions that have mandatory land acknowledgments must pay reparations to the last tribe acknowledged in the amount of market value of the land in question. If the University believes that the land was stolen from the Hekawis they should have to turn over so Wild Eagle and Crazy Cat can convert the campus to a casino.
3. In order to qualify for any federal funds a university must resort to the administrator to student ratio that existed in 1979.
Althouse @ 8:36: “[Steinbach] didn’t say [that she thinks the free speech principles she is supposed to enforce…should be changed].”
You may be technically correct. She doesn’t quite say that. Instead she ladles out a gooey treacle of “concerns” for “comfort” and “safety” of “everyone” in her “community” —as someone up the thread put it, the kind of talk you get in hospice care— all in the context of very pointedly challenging the Judge “is the juice [his talk] worth the squeeze [all the sads and outrage we are supposed to believe these children are suffering]?” In other words, “Judge, you should accept my premise that free speech is only OK if it’s comfortable and safe, and here we see that your speech is neither, and therefore it should not be spoken. The original bargain that the school made with you needs to be torn up, you heartless thug. Surely you will agree?”
Althouse. Been a long term lurker. First time posting. I disagree with your support of the Dean. I watched the video. The Dean’s actions and words completely obliterate the views and principles held by the students who support the Judge. Also, her lecturing of the Judge was unprofessional and poorly conceived.
Here is Dean Jenny Martinez's opaque but considered opinion on the DEI dean's efforts to preserve free speech:
"However well-intentioned, attempts at managing the room in this instance went awry. The way this event unfolded was not aligned with our institutional commitment to freedom of speech."
I'll take Ann's word for it that the dean's impromptu speech was "professional" and had a calming effect on the situation. However, the situation called for anything short of an unqualified condemnation of the students' conduct, followed by discipline.
These are law students. Do they imagine that, once they get into a real courtroom situation, it'll be deemed understandable and acceptable for them to shout down opposing counsel or a judge whose rulings they don't like? What the students did was completely wrong and inappropriate, and the dean's words should have made that point unmistakably clear.
People who embrace any element of the Pro-Choice ethical religion, class-disordered ideologies, exercise liberal license to indulge political congruence ("="), will appreciate the challenge of threading the baby... fetal-baby through the eye of the needle. They're playing with a double-edged scalpel.
No BS, I was sent to a metal institution as a teen for acting less ridiculous than these fucking brats (that was a trend in 80’s: a number of movies were made about it at the time, look it up). The writing is on the wall: this nation is about to fall into a very dark period where mobs exercising the Heckler’s Veto will chase all opposing views from the public square and so-called ‘elites’ will cheerlead them, no matter their actions. This is not going to end well, and for those stupid enough to think if the modern left gets their way that then, and only then, we will have peace; I’ve got some very bad news for you. Political Revolutions don’t always work out the way you think they will.
Particularly because the other side is VERY well armed.
Ann, you agree with the Dean? Who openly questioned whether the school should be committed to Free Speech? Who said that the judge's rulings cause *actual* harm *to Stanford students*? Who told the crybullies, in essence, you're free to walk out of here, you should do that?
I'm assuming your agreement arises from her calming the crowd and allowing him, later, to speak. But she did so at the cost of pedagogy and discipline. A disservice to the students and the bar.
Can you imagine hiring one of those students to defend you if your liberty was on the line?
"material that explains the students' hostility"
But it doesn't explain the shut-down antics. That is explained by prog hegemony--the arrogant assumption that it is perfectly fine to suppress the speech of non-progs, that the institution will side with you, and that you will not be held accountable and more likely be praised for your illiberal shenanigans.
When was the last time righties tried to shut down a prog judge based on their "hostility"? How many times have administrators had to stand up for lefties? 'Nuff said.
Ann Althouse said...
She didn’t say that!
Listen to her actual words before you call her worthless. Who’s more nearly worthless, her or you?
Pathetic.
Go look in a mirror.
Free Jacob Chansley.
No, respectfully I disagree. She used pandering techniques to get to the students, indulging them like infants for their infantile behavior, and holding her own authoritative, highly biased response up as a learning/teaching experience, rather than enforcing order. She did not bring order - she brought consensus, on their terms. Is that what they're there for?
And why should this behavior be 'understandable'? There's a tricky word, one that's been used a lot in recent years. It's not whether it's 'understandable', I would bet that most of your readers understand this behavior very well indeed. But is it acceptable? Will these students one day decide this behavior is suitable in the courtroom for a judge they don't like, because her political views are different? And if not, then they know the difference between right and wrong now, and have simply gotten away with this disgustingly childish outburst. They have scorned education.
by "easily find material that explains the students' hostility," the actual meaning is "easily find ideas they disagreed with" and then went into full Red Guard mode.
2013: "Hahaha, look at all these snowflakes. Wait till they get out in the real world and have to cop with reality."
2023: "We're snowed in."
So….if she had prepared remarks it sounds just like when Ben Shapiro was at UW-Madison.
When we entered the lecture hall we were all given a paper that said anyone protesting, heckling would be removed.
Shapiro entered the hall and the protesting & shrieking began. Students rushed the stage.
This went on for 15 minutes with the security in attendance doing nothing.
Shapiro had his own bodyguards that he stood behind while the students came closer & closer to the stage.
I went up to a policeman & said why aren’t these students being removed according to your own printed policy?
I was told “lady-sit down and be quiet”.
They students protested and after 15 minutes the police finally moved in to get them out of the room.
Once they were in the hallway (still shrieking mind you) Shapiro approached the podium and told those remaining that he was under orders from the University Chancellor that he had to allow this garbage to happen for 15 minutes. If HE protested HE would be removed and he would not be allowed to speak.
What kind of special stupidity is that?
Some nice words from that gal- but the idea that one person is expected to self-censor speech in order to appease delicate left-wing college-age sensibilities and unwritten speech codes - insanity.
The left supposedly want their open-free speech - as long as everyone complies... and minds the landmines. It's like speaking in front of a communist cowboy shooting bullets at your feet.
David Lat has more detail and commentary at Substack.
Here's what Althouse apparently approves: "She told Judge Duncan that “she was pained to have to tell him” that his work and previous words had caused real harm to people. “And I am also pained,” she continued, “to have to say that you are welcome here in this school to speak.”"
And, no, Ann, what the DEI lady did was NOT fine.
( this is fine meme )
Yell, scream, throw things, scream absurd non-related accusations... these fledgling leftists are merely mirroring what they see on the streets of Portland... What they are told to do by Joy Behar, MSNBC, CNN and PBS News. Hate.
Did anyone in class bring a concrete milkshake? After all -this man is a Trump appointee - he must be pure evil. Biden told us -
trickle down hate from on high.
Yale Law is trying to regain some institutional respect by inviting the federal judges who are boycotting them to speak.
Dean of Stanford Law has an "oh shit" moment when she realizes this story might go wide.
See also Free Beacon.
In this case the Stanford law dean is pretending like the school is committed to the freedom of speech. No, you've vetoed the freedom of speech, Stanford, and it was intentional, and we all know it.
The dean wrote her speech out in advance!
The judge was Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee. Here's his Wikipedia article where you will easily find material that explains the students' hostility.
Why does it matter if he was a Trump appointee? For that matter, why does it matter why the hecklers had — or thought they had — a reason for their “hostility.” You are no longer indulging in “cruel neutrality”; since your retirement you’ve been transforming yourself into just another hardcore lefty asshole.
The actions of the DEI administrator aside, the behavior of the students is indefensible. Why no discussion of that? Who is raising Stanford students to behave so deplorably?
Aside from the lack of respect for free speech, what is really astounding is the lack of respect for the law and the judiciary. At a law school!
Screaming at judges is what you do when your law advocacy utterly fails and you're now making a symbolic protest as you prepare in your mind for a visit to the jail.
"I fuck men," said one law student. "I can find the prostate. Why can't you find the clit?"
Why would anybody take on massive debts to go to a place where the lawyers are ill-equipped for advocacy and in a big showdown all they can do is mouth off like a child?
The outcome at this event (at a prestigious procedure place of learning) is proof we are a long, long way from "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (2022).
Netflix: "Oh no! This title currently isn’t available to watch in your country."
This title should've been released in its entirety everywhere, all at once.
Ughhh. Appalling and then again even more appalling after a second run through and I am no Republican nor particularly a conservative.
This is one of those informative little vignettes that add up and accumulate along the timeline of an era. And, sadly, this kind of student behavior will not stop of it's own volition. When I taught Civics, Federal Govt and the Constitution back in the olden days to High School students I would have landed on those badly behaved students like a ton of bricks and my back up Admins who actually stormed through Nazi bullets would have had my six.
But goodbye to all that...
The DEI lady spoke from prepared remarks. The whole thing was a set up.
“When he asked for an administrator to control the situation, Stanford’s “associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion” got up and lectured him for nearly 10 minutes.”
I’m surprised he knew how long the lecture lasted. I would have simply left after about 30 seconds.
Althouse: "... the schools' interest in making students feel valued and supported ...."
What interest does a university have in valuing or supporting anti-intellectual, anti-constitutional activities by extremists?
Diversity of sex, gender, race, etc., good. Diversity of opinion, bad.
The untruths held by Gen Zers in Jonathon Haight's article cited by Althouse yesterday seems apt.
"They came to believe that they were fragile and would be harmed by books, speakers, and words, which they learned were forms of violence (Great Untruth #1).
They came to believe that their emotions—especially their anxieties—were reliable guides to reality (Great Untruth #2).
They came to see society as comprised of victims and oppressors—good people and bad people (Great Untruth #3)."
Ann, this post should get your "r"tag -- whatever it means!
I honor you for responding to the commenters, and then allowing them to have their say in this section, even those who are not totally respectful.
"She told Judge Duncan that “she was pained to have to tell him” that his work and previous words had caused real harm to people.“
Tolerance will not be tolerated and DIEversity in the cause of social justice is no vice.
The not so quiet protests of the politically congruent ("="), inequitable, and exclusive.
That said, civil unions for couples, couplets, and all consenting adults. Wait until boys and girls pass puberty, the age of confusion, before indulging Levine's personal affirmation. Empathy for the victims of [elective] abortion, the wicked solution, feminist/masculinist/social progressive pride and prejudice.
The DEI lady's comments aside, the main issue, surely, is the behavior of the students. The dean of the law school released a statement characterizing this conduct (heckling to disrupt an invited speaker) as a violation of university policy. What's the enforcement mechanism? In the absence of any penalty or sanctions -- as seems likely -- it's effectively a tacit authorization of the heckler's veto, no?
>Maynard said...
Althouse likes to troll on Saturday mornings.<
Sycophantic excuse-making for screwball ideas emanating from Althouse.
Was the judge invited to Stanford to speak or to be protested?
Oh. I see.
Universities are clown shows.
paminwi said...So….if she had prepared remarks it sounds just like when Ben Shapiro was at UW-Madison.
UW-Madison has a long history of suppressing free speech. Always left-on-right My first taste was in the early 80's as student.
UW-Madison and Stanford--two peas in pod as far as the good and bad.
>Ann Althouse said...
"What the associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion did was just fine."<
Not even...
Here's what would have been just fine from her: "You are blatantly violating Stanford's rules for student conduct. Any one of you who continues to do that will be summarily removed from this place by Campus Police and reported to the Dean of Students for punitive action."
Disappointed in you Ann
DEI is just IED spelled backwards. Both deadly.
I stand with the Professor. Wouldn't have bothered to read this story had it not been for her Update. "I am pained to say that you are welcome here...to speak" is the essence of Free Speech.
Misinforminimalism: "Ann, you agree with the Dean? Who openly questioned whether the school should be committed to Free Speech? Who said that the judge's rulings cause *actual* harm *to Stanford students*? Who told the crybullies, in essence, you're free to walk out of here, you should do that?
I'm assuming your agreement arises from her calming the crowd and allowing him, later, to speak. But she did so at the cost of pedagogy and discipline. A disservice to the students and the bar."
Any conservative can speak on campus as long as they are willing to submit to maoist struggle session insults, sex jokes about the speaker and his/her spouse and potentially physical abuse and mandatory reeducation first....followed by most of the lefties walking out after sucking up as many spaces as possible and then departing.
See? All the "free speech" you want.
HBTPFH: "Some nice words from that gal-...."
Pre-prepared written "nice words"...which exposes the entire set up nature of the maoists response to the event.
Whatever the student's complaints is not the central issue.
The students are there to learn about procedure, but the lesson they are getting instead is to disregard procedure at their pleasure. (I wonder who believes that exactly)
There was a reason why the judge was invited to speak and not a student chosen speaker.
If you have a problem with the selection process, air that grievance at the proper forum.
These so-called students are going to be terrible officers of whatever court they end up serving... strike that; whatever court they end up complaining to and about.
Wich leads me to believe in conspiracy theories.
They (the long-term planers) are not plotting these; they don't have to. All they have to do is create the conditions in which this kind of demonstration is a possible outcome.
Why?
Because by now, this kind of fracas can be expected easily. If they continue to happen is because it is a desired outcome. To believe otherwise is to believe the audience consuming all of this is stupid.
David Lat was very fair.
Ann:
It is wrong to rationalize some students' behavior in shouting down the judge because they disagree with his opinions and the clients he represented.
Humperdink said...
"Where are the "free speech" lefties? Inga? gadfly? mutaman? Mark?"
There are none. Especially that group. Their morality only goes one way. Towards the arc of tyranny.
My opinion? The dean equivocated. While I think she did defuse the situation it isn't her place to lecture a guest. He was invited for his views and opinions. If you think that will be a problem then don't go. But then I expect some measure of maturity in the people I instruct. The trades will do that to you.
Best take so far, Darren Beattie:
"Imagine being a high IQ person at Stanford having to listen to this dumb bitch who belongs at the cafeteria counter"
That Judge's mere presence is a trigger fest for the delicates!
How dare he even be there! Guards - seize him.
Althouse has called BS on much lefty nonsense over the years and seemed to have recognized prog subversion for what it is, so her stance on the Stanford debacle is surprising.
But here we are. Too many nice liberals stand by and rationalize while prog mobs destroy the principles and tear down the institutions nice liberals once cherished.
Disappointed Professor. You’re better than this (at least you used to be). I think maybe you should take a more sober look at this and have your Naomi Wolf moment.
I’ll never understand this f-ing childlike behavior from law students (who are adults -at least in age). It’s theatre. Plain and simple.
If any of them were “offended” or “hurt” or “triggered” by what they thought the Judge was going to say (or by thoughts he expressed in the past) why go to the event? Stay home in your safe space.
Civility bullshit indeed.
"I am also uncomfortable because it's my job to say you were invited into this space, you are absolutely welcome in this space... "
Why does that make her uncomfortable to say? Maybe it just makes her nervous. She is clearly emotional about this, emotional and nervous. She repeats "uncomfortable" dozens of times, it is her talisman. I think she says the above because, implicitly, she is saying she agrees with the protestors and wishes, personally, that he were not there. Too dangerous a spot for her? But then she wouldn't have had the probably planned opportunity to get up and make her obviously well-rehearsed speech.
Then came the howler:
"Because many people in this administration do absolutely believe in free speech...."
That's good to know, isn't it? The Stanford Law School DOES have some administrators that actually believe in free speech, yes they do. In fact, many of them! Such daring pioneers.
AMDG @ 9:00AM
That.
You gotta be kidding me?? You are really ok with THAT??? God help the people.
Judge Duncan responded to the Washington Free Beacon.
"Duncan is calling on the school to discipline the students who disrupted his talk and to fire the school’s associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion, who stepped in during the event to chastise him and deliver what the judge described as a “bizarre therapy session from hell.”
Duncan’s remarks come after nearly a hundred students at Stanford Law School disrupted his remarks in brazen violation of Stanford University’s free speech policies.
One source of the students’ ire was Duncan’s refusal, in a 2020 opinion, to use a transgender sex offender’s preferred pronouns. The Stanford event, which was sponsored by the law school’s chapter of the Federalist Society, got so out of hand that federal marshals eventually escorted Duncan from the building.
Tirien Steinbach, the school’s diversity dean, arrived on the scene when Duncan himself asked for an administrator to restore order. She then took to the podium and, in a video that has now circulated widely online, accused the judge of causing “harm.”
“Your opinions from the bench land as absolute disenfranchisement” of the students’ rights, Steinbach said, accusing him of “tearing the fabric of this community.”
“Do you have something so incredibly important to say,” she asked him, that it is worth the “division of these people?”
Duncan warned that what happens at Stanford, long the second-ranked law school in the country, behind Yale, is unlikely to stay there. “If enough of these kids get into the legal profession,” he said, “the rule of law will descend into barbarism."
I would have strongly preferred that the dean had the protesters be quiet and actually listen to the presentation, then encourage the students to let fly with their spittle-flecked rage in the Q&A.
These kids should sign up with the Wagner Group to go fight some their so called Fascists. They are cowards if they don't. Long live the USSR, Comrade!!!!!
I was listening to Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn this morning on "America This Week". They discussed Taibbi's and Schellenberger's appearance in front of the HR committee on the weaponization of government. Taibbi and Kirn were both flummoxed by Del. Plaskett's accusation that Taibbi and Schellenberger of the Twitter Files represented a "threat" to anyone who opposed them.
As I listened to these two earnest old-time liberals try to figure out how to make sense of that accusation, I realized that, compared to anyone else in favor of free expression, Kirn and Taibbi have been living in a bubble. How many times have we heard that people in "marginalized" or "historically oppressed" groups or BIPOC people feel "unsafe" or have been "harmed" or "threatened" by words or ideas that can be easily debated? Answer: many times, particularly in academia and adjacent activities. It is the go-to conversation-stopper, the trump card pulled out to attempt to put an opposing viewpoint out of bounds. Del. Plaskett pulled that out and Taibbi could not figure out what she was referring to. Well, I knew, and we just got a full dose of that tactic at Stanford Law School.
Taibbi called his appearance in front of the congressional committee Blackadder: Congress, and Kirn said it was HUAC for Dummies. They could laugh at it, but they were troubled.
I don't know anything about Stanford Law School, but clearly there is a template for controversial figures: let them speak, and then ask tough questions. That is what Stanford's policies call for. That is what happened when the same judge appeared at Stanford in 2019. That is not what "managing the room" delivered in 2023. What managing the room delivered was sanctimonious wittering by the DEI dean and total disruption of the event.
There is a long history in the 20th century of universities allowing themselves to be bullied into silence by disruptive students. Some of it ended very badly (see WWII, the Holocaust, and the Great Cultural Revolution).
Shame on Stanford for letting this get out of hand. They should follow their own policies.
Ann: I've read your update, and I've watched the posted clips of the dean's remarks.
Within the context of what we often hear from DEI administrators, I agree that Dean Steinbach handled this better than others have handled similar incidents elsewhere.
What troubles me, however, is less her commentary directed at Judge Duncan and more her repeated references to the protesting students as individuals who will soon become "amazing" advocates and lawyers. She's wrong. It's very difficult to reconcile her coddling of these students as people who are "harmed" by opposing viewpoints with the idea that they will become competent, let alone excellent, lawyers. The best lawyers I have worked with are not thin skinned, not easily intimidated, and certainly not inclined to feign injury because someone offended them.
Truly great lawyers, like all great debaters, can argue either side of a position as well as facts will permit. These students seem to lack the maturity and perspective necessary to do this or to become great lawyers.
Wrong. She allowed the mob to veto a speech for the first time at Stanford. This is not progress. Not good. We need administrators with the backbone to stand up to whiny emotional mobs and encourage them to hold their own events instead of attacking others and preventing them from exercising their Constitutional rights to free assembly and free speech. They don’t have the right to control others and threaten people with whom they disagree. Until deans of “Inclusion” stop EXCLUDING white people and others they despise we should dismantle every goddamn DEI office in every organization in America.
I’m tired of the same old scam and Orwellian use of language. “Diversity” means no white men. “Inclusion” means exclude white men and Asians if they get too uppity. And “Equity” is the pale psychopathic sister of Equality, a completely different concept altogether. Fuck these people.
Once again, colleges have proven themselves to be bastions of fascism. Any conservative who hopes to present a talk at one of these fascist hell-holes needs to be prepared:
1 - Bring security
2 - Bring paint guns and do not be afraid to use them.
3 - Bring an aircraft warning siren (available from Amazon) and use it to get the fascist's attention.
4 - Kick off the stage any college official who agrees with the fascists. Do not be gentle.
5 - Sue.
On Twitter many law school professors are saying the woman’s statement was weak.
I am going to say after reading many things from professors from Georgetown to Norte Dame to Columbia and other practicing lawyers Althouse is definitely in the minority.
Having read the Wikipedia article I now see why it is perfectly permissible to burn the witch (judge)
I now see why he is such a horrible person.
He argued against gay marriage as a lawyer. He supported a state'right to push back on the cross dressing insanity.
OF COURSE, Ann will be in favor of shouting him down. She ba has to
John Henry
I don't know about the judge, but this is a kind of behavior that would (unfairly perhaps) ensure that I would harden, or at the very least make it more difficult to change my position on whatever it is the students care about.
Which could, in a malevolent world, be what is desired.
See Alinsky rules for radicals.
The dean supported the fascists trying to shout down the judge. The dean deserves a flogging to teach him the errors of his way and his abuse of authority. The next time the fascists in his student body try to do the same thing, he won't be so quick to join them.
Sorry, Judge Duncan's wikipedia page does not explain the students' hostility. It only says what they are hostile about. Even severe disagreement does not explain hostility.
Hello professor,
If you watch the video, you will see that much of what she said came from a prepared statement that she read.It was not spontaneous.
The men who brought negro slaves to this continent committed a great crime, but at least they had comprehensible motives, and it was not immediately obvious that it was a mistake. You can't say the same for the persons who thought it was a good idea to enroll a horde of stupid criminal in law schools. Note my use of "men" vs "persons".
No. PROGRESSIVISM being woke is what “explains the student’s’ hostility” and nothing the judge has done validates their thuggish behavior. Stop indulging these garbage people tactics.
As an avid reader of your blog, I have to say I'm confounded by your endorsement of the dean's comments. She endorsed the student's complaints about the judge and insulted the speaker in a long drawn out manner. What she should have done is reminded the students that as future lawyers they need to listen respectfully to those they disagree with and engage in civil debate. She needed to tell them that there is a DIVERSITY of opinion in this country and certainly in the law profession. Finally, she should have told the students that those students who interrupt speakers will be disciplined or expelled. That's all she needed to say everything else acted as an endorsement of the student's behavior.
"..the associate dean of DEI got up to speak…. She opens up her portfolio and lo and behold, there is a printed speech. It was a setup—and the fact that the administration was in on it to a certain degree makes me mad.” - 'Original Jurisdiction, David Lat (Interview with Judge Duncan)
Numerous commenters have questioned if the students believe this behavior will go unsanctioned in a hypothetical future courtroom.
That is not an issue. These students will be working in administrative, planning, regulatory, and government roles. Few will be in court, ever.
So they Will be able to continue with this behaviour, or at least, with the mindset underlying it, forever. To our detriment.
Fascists only understand one thing - violence. Antifa practices violence all over Portland OR. Portland has turned into a hell hole. People and businesses are leaving and the city government will do nothing to restore order.
The only way to control fascists is with force. The guest lecturer must be prepared to use force to suppress the fascists so he/she can give his/her talk. Unfortunate, but true.
"... the protesting students' passion and outrage ...".
Give it a rest. Those "students" are a collection of moronic puppets. Someone pushed their "outrage" buttons. They probably don't even know who it was. And they're too stupid to care.
Hey Ann, are you still supporting Jane Fonda, too? I mean, she didn't call for pro-life people to be tortured, just murdered. I mean, that's moderation in a liberal, isn't it?
If you think that this Diversity Dean was defending the principle of free speech in her prepared remarks, I'd guess that you also think that Shakespeare really meant that Marc Antony came to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
Now explain what you think "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" is intended to convey, if not an endorsement of the heckler's veto.
Dean Steinbach keeps saying that her goal is for SLS to support a "culture of belonging for all." Except for members of the Federalist Society, of course.
Yeah, that's one hell of a free-speech defender-like Frito Pendejo was for my eponym.
I just have to say I've lost a lot of respect for Prof. Althouse over her endorsement of the dean's actions and words. (Don't worry Ann, I know you don't care). I have been practicing law for 30 years and this behavior is shocking. The actions of the disrupting students and dean should be condemned completely. If we can't respectfully listen to those with whom we disagree and debate issues in a peaceful manner we are done as a free society.
AA - stated - "...Listen to her actual words before you call her worthless. Who’s more nearly worthless, her or you...?"
Interesting comments? I did listen to her words and saw her prepared written words as a set up for the Judge. Ann given your long history in Academia I'm surprised that you would fall for this propoganda. You should call Dr. Naomi Wolf and commiserate. Cause this entire event is exactly what Dr. Wolf opines on. You believe in propoganda and tried to get out of your original remarks. My question for you and your Liberal/Leftist friends is - when 'free speech' is no longer allowed in Schools, Colleges and Universities what is left for our society. Will you advocate children turning in their parents because the parents speak at home against the Party?
The students could have protested in a (semi-)orderly manner outside the building. That they were allowed to enter under false pretenses and indulge in verbal assault instead (whether or not in a legal sense) is simply shameful. Instead of rebuking them, the Dean just patted them on the head. It may have defused the immediate situation, but did nothing to discourage recurrence.
“She didn’t say that!”
But she said this: "Do you have something so incredibly important to say that it is worth the division of these people?"
Is this the standard by which we decide who gets to speak and who is heckled into silence?
ps Steinbach had prepared remarks from which she read. This is not “thinking out loud.”
I am truly amazed at the number of commentators on this thread who didn't even bother to watch the full video or read all of Ann's posts.
"Read my update. I am supporting the dean."
As of about 3 minutes in, the description of the dean attacking the speaker is true. The hero here is the invited speaker, not a dean who shamefully attacked an invited speaker. And no. It doesn't matter if she eventually restored order.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
Read my update. I am supporting the dean.
The retired law professor supports the heckler's veto as long as the hecklers are lefties. Well, we can't be sure because we have no examples of right wingers shouting down a lefty. And then, of course, Trump appointed the judge so it is all OK.
Those who are commenting on what will happen to these students in a courtroom are mistaken. These students will never appear in a courtroom. They will all be part of government and they know it. As long as Democrats get "elected" there will be plenty of jobs for angry leftists.
Ann, you really outed yourself today.
"I am a little surprised and disappointed that the professor was taken in by this woman's dog and pony show, giving lip service to principle while justifying hatred and a two tiered system of opportunity to speak."
Same here.
"I am truly amazed at the number of commentators on this thread who didn't even bother to watch the full video or read all of Ann's posts."
You must be new here.
They're here to try to demonstrate how my uch smarter than her they are. It's pretty funny to read their posts through tbe proper filter once you realize their MO.
If you’re invited to speak at an academic institution you should not expect you’ll be treated with the respect of a guest.
‘Fuck you Stanford- I don’t waste my time with brats’ is a good free speech.
These stalinists Law students are the Elite. Many of them are going to end up on the Federal Bench, maybe one will be a SCOTUS judge. Others may become State supreme Court judges.
Since Conservatives are NOT willing to challenge the Leftwing Stalist control of the Law schools will they reduce the power of the Judiciary?
Of course not. The Right on REACTS. They NEVER think ahead."Haha look at those snowflakes." DUMB!
BTW, why are the Federal judges always running around the country giving speeches? They aren't running for office, and talking to Students doesn't help them do their job.
These are low-IQ, racist morons who, thanks to the insidious disease of DEI are going to lord their newfound (and unearned) power over whitey.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
As others have mentioned, these students will go in to careers in academia and government, not the courtroom. The dean even acknowledged this when she listed advocacy first in what they are studying.
I’m as shocked and disappointed as others at Althouse’s opinion, and I can’t understand why she describes the scene as “harrowing.” The dean’s behavior was the only thing that could be described that way. Otherwise it was a room full of infantile jackasses shouting down a conservative speaker, a scene we see all the time these days.
The issue was not the Dean or what she said. The issue was the misbehavior of the student (?) protestors. Angela Davis wants to speak? Opponents need to be quiet and listen to her. Same goes for a conservative judge/blogger/author. Being respectful doesn't mean you agree with what you're hearing. Both (or more) sides of an issue need to be heard and shown respect. Because if people conclude that their speech is ignored, those people will find other means of communicating their feelings and thoughts. See the City of Portland as an example.
Shorter Dean Steinbach - ‘we are here to destroy free speech to save free speech.’
Law school, like most higher education, is for girls.
Surprised this judge would waste his time at Stanford. That place is a fucking joke. There’s no status in a Stanford degree anymore.
Eventually these pussies will experience actual harm when someone kicks the shut out of them for whining.
Ann ("she wore a short skirt and deserved to be raped") Althouse writes: "Here's his Wikipedia article where you will easily find material that explains the students' hostility."
rcocean says: “ BTW, why are the Federal judges always running around the country giving speeches? They aren't running for office, and talking to Students doesn't help them do their job.”
Maybe they’re doing it so that law students are exposed to different ideas, to expose them to the thought process of judges.
AMDG said (and Birches also pointed out):
It should be noted that protesters had put up posters with the pictures and names of FedSoc members during the days leading up to this in an attempt to intimidate them.
A prime example of what the protesters, who have less maturity than my 8-year-old, would call stochastic terrorism.
I find it impossible to believe that the angry, protesting students would all have gotten up and walked out on cue based on the administrators pleading.
It was a set-up and the administration was the setter.
That's unacceptable because it shows that some of the school's leaders endorsed and participated in the protest and shout-down.
It's reminiscent of the Oberlin/Gibson's situation in which school administrators were behind the protest.
So you basically have no issues with the heckler's veto. That is a real issue. Which will inevitably lead to tragic real world consequences.
Do you have something so incredibly important to say that it is worth the division of these people?"
Do you-all at SLS have anything so incredibly important to teach that it is worth the $65k you charge each of these people? Pretty clearly not. They can learn what you are teaching them, for free, at a European soccer fan clash.
Drago de-contexts just like leftist do.
Your blog host has made clear many times that she considers your calls for student civility to be complete and utter bullshit.
"Althouse Added:
The judge was Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee. Here's his Wikipedia article where you will easily find material that explains the students' hostility."
This is why our fraud host moderates comments. She's weak.
With these law students becoming the next generation of lawyers in this country, I fear for the freedoms the Bill of Rights is supposed to protect. Freedom of speech/press is already no longer a favored principle, and with this lot assuming power in the future, those freedoms will be further infringed. Not to mention freedom of religion, right to bear arms, limitation of Federal government to its enumerated powers, etc. Welcome to the next Cultural Revolution! Time to get fitted for your dunce-cap!
She struck me as a professionally trained loon. She is feeding the mob and then trying to appear as the voice of calm and reason as she tyrannically inhibits free speech. If I were that judge, I’d calming say to these budding lawyers that they’re too fucking stupid to benefit from anything he has to say and that none of why wining crybaby snowflake horseshit will flying in his courtroom. Someone needs to tell them.
I don't understand why these idiots keep going to universities to speak. Okay, I do know, it's for the money. And the activist ones get some clicks.
But why go to a place to give a talk when you know the school, the faculty and students are disciplined enough to behave maturely? Yes, it's a minority of students, but they are supported by the administration and at least a good portion of the faculty or they would only do it once before not being students at that school anymore.
So why go to a college to speak? Do a youtube video, go on a podcast. Speaking to a venue of toddlers? Why? This is not 1923, there are ways to speak without this BS.
Just another example that colleges, even law schools, are places for the immature and not places where someone can learn how to become educated. Schooled, yes, credentialed, yet, but discipline of intellect, regulation of emotions? NO
Colleges are no longer "hot houses" where minds are forced to mature faster, but rather filled with "hot house flowers" that wilt at the slightest exposure to the real world.
Nonsense, Ann. This entire action against the professor was orchestrated by the disruptors and this DEI activist. She is merely using her authority to say exactly what the students are shouting. She wrote down these remarks in advance, indicating collusion. She feigns "fear and anxiety" at the professor's mere presence. The students' immediate quieting when she starts talking also indicates collusion with her.
Who cares what tone of voice she's using? She's trained to Mau Mau people in this way. She's paid by the school to Mau Mau people, and this is what we are seeing -- and what a court should see. She, a paid administrator, is colluding with students to attack an invited speaker. He is not shouting: he is being subjected to a one-way attack, and she is participating in the attack. This makes the attack even worse, unambiguously putting the school's stamp of approval on demented, even threatening accusations that he is dangerous.
At this point, being told he is dangerous by an official for the school, this speaker cannot reasonably expect safe passage from campus. This is a very serious and real, not imaginary snowflake garbage, violation of his safety -- committed by a representative of the school itself.
You are astonishingly naive about these radicals. The shouting students and she staged the whole thing. The invited speaker has now been publicity defamed by school officials. He should take legal and legislative action.
Mark, I watched the whole thing and read the links. If you choose to call me a liar, have the courage to use your real name, as I do.
No. It's a hypothesis — a test. Whatever you're proposing to do, put it through this test: If you had to argue that this would perpetuate/increase the subordination of women, what would you say? Take it seriously. Go through the exercise. Then judge the results. It's the same thing Critical Race Theory requires: Given the history of subordination, presume, for this analysis, that what you are looking at causes/preserves/worsens the subordination, and see what you come up with. That doesn't make it correct. It just smokes it out into the open where it can be judged.
So did the dean and the protestors have a duty to question their beliefs and consider the possible truth of the judge's speech? Because it sure seems that they all prejudged his remarks and refused to even hear them, much less consider them.
This is a standard you created only yesterday Althouse.
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