Stanford finally apologizes to Trump-appointed judge whose talk was ambushed by students, woke dean
Stanford University has finally apologized to the Trump-appointed federal judge whose talk was hijacked by student protesters and a woke dean.
Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez wrote to US Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan on Saturday, two days after his ambushed event.
They offered their “sincerest apologies” for what Duncan had called “deeply uncivil behavior” by “hypocrites,” “idiots” and “bullies.”
“What happened was inconsistent with our policies on free speech, and we are very sorry about the experience you had while visiting our campus,” the pair told Duncan a day after he called for such an apology.
“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.”
Without naming her, the letter addressed Tirien Steinbach, the law school’s associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion who harangued Duncan with a lengthy pre-written speech to stop his talk — with students apparently missing the irony.
“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,” the letter conceded.
“We are taking steps to ensure that something like this does not happen again.”
The pair noted that the school even has a specific “disruption policy” that forbids “heckling or other forms of interruption” at such events.
“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,” Tessier-Lavigne and Martinez wrote.
Martinez wrote a similar letter to students on Friday, saying that “however well-intentioned, attempts at managing the room in this instance went awry.”
Duncan told the National Review he was “pleased to accept their apology,” while again ripping Steinbach, who was supposed to be an administrator at the event.
“Particularly given the depth of the invective directed towards me by the protestors, the administrators’ behavior was completely at odds with the law school’s mission of training future members of the bench and bar,” Duncan said.
He’d earlier called the protesters “idiots.”
“They are hypocrites and they are bullies,” he said. “Maybe that’s where we are going as a society, but that doesn’t work in my courtroom.”
Many, however, thought that apologies were not enough.
“Fire Tirien Steinbach,” the independent student paper the Stanford Review wrote on Twitter and as a headline to an op-ed on Sunday.
“Perhaps the only thing uglier than the Stanford Law School building is the events that took place there on Thursday,” the paper wrote, noting the hypocrisy of students angrily telling Duncan to stop interrupting Steinbach as she stopped his talk.
“Firing Dean Steinbach is a good start. The university’s apology will be completely meaningless unless concrete actions are taken to rid the administration of anti-speech zealots,” it said.
The event, hosted by the Stanford chapter of the conservative Federalist Society, was titled “The Fifth Circuit in Conversation with the Supreme Court: Covid, Guns, and Twitter,” a reference to some of his court’s biggest cases.
The protest was spearheaded by the campus group OutLaw, which accused Duncan of threatening the rights of LGBTQ people, immigrants, black voters and women.
