These are America’s lawyers of tomorrow. The Federalist Society at Stanford Law School invited Fifth Circuit
appellate Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan to speak. This would have allowed budding lawyers to have a thoughtful discussion about controversial issues with someone who didn’t agree with them. In 2020, Duncan was the target of Leftist anger. He refused to claim that a male sex offender is a woman as he claimed. He also took other positions that were simple but still considered conservative. Instead of engaging Duncan in lively discussion, Stanford’s future lawyers turned into a slavering mob. They refused to let Duncan speak as the school’s associate dean for diversity. These people will soon become lawyers. God save us.
Tirien Steinbach, Stanford Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, can be seen on video being anything but inclusive towards Duncan. We all know that Leftists mean “inclusion” as the inclusion of people from all races (except whites), genders (all of ’em), and beliefs that are deeply Leftist and align with current Leftist sensibilities. Diversity is valued, celebrated and sought after. However, diversity of thought is to be rejected.
When Duncan was confronted by a mob of alleged students from the law, Steinbach asked her to restore order. She then took the podium and started lecturing the judge. She said: “Your opinions form the bench land in absolute disenfranchisement of the rights of students.” Duncan tried to reply but the mob shouted “Let her Finish!” a courtesy that they never extended to Duncan. Steinbach continued, repeating, “Your work has caused damage.”
Steinbach also accused Duncan of “tearing apart the fabric of the community” and asked him: “Do you have anything so incredibly important about Twitter and guns or COVID that it is worth this impact upon the division of these people who have sat beside each other for many years and are going through what is the struggle of law school together?” Steinbach then said, “I look outside and I don’t inquire what is happening here, but I look out, and I say, this is what’s going on here,” and students followed her.
Duncan says nothing about the events. In a Washington Free Beacon interview, Duncan said that the protesters acted like “dogs**t” and that Stanford should discipline those students who won’t let him speak. Steinbach is likely to be fired for her “bizarre therapy sessions from hell.” Although Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez said that Duncan’s disruption was not in line with the institution’s commitment to freedom speech, she did not mention Steinbach being disciplined.
Martinez’s assertion that Stanford is committed to freedom of speech is absurd. In the weeks leading up to my 2017 Stanford speech, the Stanford student media conducted a smear campaign that lasted for weeks. After speaking for a few minutes at the event, the students walked out in large numbers. Video showed that Nanci, Associate Dean and Director of Student Activities and Leadership, and Snehal Nik, who was then Assistant Director and Associate Director of Student Activities and Leadership and now Senior Director of Office of Student Engagement, orchestrated the walkout. Naik continues to be involved in this event, even though he was a senior director of the Office of Student Engagement. Steinbach is seen hectoring Duncan while the fascist mob howls.
Students at Stanford even cite my disruption as an example that they should emulate. The Stanford Review published a March 3 article entitled “Apathy Decends on Stanford” which celebrated the attempts to stop me speaking. It stated that “Even five years ago people seemed to actually care.” The Stanford College Republicans (SCR), who invited Robert Spencer (a self-described Islamophobe), to speak on radical Islam on campus in 2017, were met with widespread protest from the campus left. President Marc Tessier Levigne even addressed the tension in a blog. SCR was also dedicated, going through dorms several times to flyer to stop their opponents’ attempts to tear them down. The Stanford Left is proud and continues to do so to keep those it fears and hates from speaking. At what is supposed be an institution of higher education, there is no respect for the importance speech freedom as the foundation of any society. These people are totalitarians.
Duncan warned of worse to come: “If too many of these kids get in the legal profession, then the rule of law can descend into barbarism.” Ah, yes.
