Stanford University told students involved with a campus conservative group to “reach out” to the law school’s diversity dean and others who had helped shut down its recent event with a federal appeals court judge appointed by Donald Trump.
The Stanford Federalist Society chapter received an email from Dean of Students Jeanne Merino touting “safety and mental health” support resources for those affected by the raucous March 9 event featuring Fifth Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan.
Oddly, Tirien Steinbach, the Dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, was among those resources offered. Steinbach incited protesters to shut down the event by denouncing Judge Duncan in prepared remarks she read from the podium, encouraging protesters to be even more disruptive.
“Is the juice worth the squeeze?” Steinbach asked Judge Duncan, suggesting that benefit of letting him speak on campus was outweighed by the potential harm his presence was doing to progressive students. She paid lip service to the importance of the First Amendment, but then wondered if Stanford should “reconsider” its policies allowing controversial speech if “some people feel like the harm is so great.”
In addition to Steinbach, Merino and two college officials in attendance at the Duncan event — who did nothing to discourage protesters’ disruptions — were listed as support resources, according to a story in the Washington Free Beacon:
Merino went on to discourage the Federalist Society from tweeting about the disruption “until this news cycle winds down,” stating that “trolls are looking for a fight.” That warning came after Stanford endured a brutal 24 hours on social media, with numerous lawyers–including Duncan himself–calling for Stienbach to be fired and the protesters punished. …
Merino’s Saturday email implied that some students had received physical threats following Duncan’s talk. Merino encouraged Federalist Society members “who are not feeling safe” to contact the university’s director of “threat assessment,” Alejandro Martinez, who is part of the Stanford police department.
“He can read social media interactions and direct communications to assess whether the implied or actual threats are likely to become a reality,” she said.
Meanwhile, the officers of Stanford’s chapter of the National Lawyers Guild had commended “every single person” who helped disrupt the Duncan event, calling them “Stanford Law School at its best.”
Protesters shouted at and heckled Fifth Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan at a Federalist Society event, preventing him from giving most of his speech and making his words unintelligible to the audience most of the time.
Then DEI Dean Tirien Steinbach entered the fray, and made things worse by explicitly sympathizing with the disruptive students and questioning whether free speech is “worth the squeeze.”
Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Law Dean Jenny Martinez later issued an apology to Judge Duncan, but nobody was disciplined for disrupting his speech.
The Stanford chapter of the progressive American Constitution Society — many of whose members have clerked for progressive federal judges appointed by Obama and Biden — blamed Judge Duncan for the raucous events of March 7, when he attempted to speak and was disrupted.
