This story originally appeared in the Thursday, March 23, print edition of the Daily Post. If you want to read the local news first, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.
BY BRADEN CARTRWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
An associate dean at Stanford who supported law students heckling a conservative judge has been placed on administrative leave, while the students won’t be punished, Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez said yesterday (March 22).
Martinez wrote a 10-page letter defending freedom of speech and announcing the suspension of Tirien Steinbach. Instead of discipline for students, they will be required to go to a half-day session in the spring quarter on freedom of speech and “norms of the legal profession,” Martinez said.
Martinez’s letter was about the appearance of federal Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan on March 9, which was marred by a protest of law students supporting LGBT rights who screamed “scumbag” and “you’re a liar” at the judge.
Duncan had been invited to speak by the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, on the topic of “Covid, Guns and Twitter.”
Duncan asked for an administrator to keep order, and Steinbach, the law school’s associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, took to the microphone to give prepared remarks, the video shows.
“Do you have something so incredibly important to say,” she asked him, that it is worth the “division of these people?”
In the video, Duncan is heard calling Steinbach’s decision to take the podium “a setup.”
Later, the judge said, “I think this entire thing is a joke.”
Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Martinez apologized to Duncan in a letter on March 11.
“What happened was inconsistent with our policies on free speech, and we are very sorry about the experience you had while visiting our campus,” they wrote.
Martinez said in yesterday’s letter that she stands by her apology, and administrators will be trained on how to prevent disruption of events.
‘Conflicting signals’
Martinez didn’t explain in her letter why Steinbach was placed on leave because Stanford has a policy of not commenting on personnel matters. But she alluded to her reasoning in the letter.
Steinbach “sent conflicting signals about whether what was happening was acceptable or not,” Martinez said, “and at one point seemingly endorsed the disruptions by saying, ‘I look out and say I’m glad this is going on here.’”
Administrators shouldn’t criticize speakers or suggest they reconsider whether what they plan to say is worth saying, Martinez said.
“That imposes the kind of institutional orthodoxy and coercion that the policy on Academic Freedom precludes,” Martinez wrote.
Martinez said the protest originally grew out of a desire by students to bring “greater attention to discussion of LGBTQ+ rights in the current legal environment.”
Recognizing that, Stanford Law School will have more events in the spring quarter on the topic, Martinez said.
“Such programming, rather than disruptive protests, better advances students’ education as lawyers and advocates,” she said.
DEI policy
Stanford Law School supports diversity, equity and inclusion — also known as “DEI” — by encouraging critical discussion, training students to critique injustice and teaching future lawyers how to gather evidence that supports their point of view and make convincing arguments, Martinez said.
“At the same time, I want to set expectations clearly going forward: our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is not going to take the form of having the school administration announce institutional positions on a wide range of current social and political issues,” she wrote.
Send a message and fire her.
So glad I don’t live in Uber-woke California
Jane, I’m sorry to say that it’s all over between us now that you won’t live in my hometown of Uber-woke, California.
So basically the DEI Dean gets a paid vacation, none of the student hecklers – not the ringleader, not the person who yelled out to the judge for his daughters to get raped – is punished, and all students, including those who took no part in the incident, have to attend a 4 hour seminar on free speech. This guarantees that disruptions, that prevented the judge from delivering his talk, will occur again in the future.
And we know the only reason the head Dean did this was because of public and alumni outrage. Had this incident been kept out of the media, nothing would have happened, not even the apology.
DEI has become an $8 billion industry, according to a March 2023 article in Harpers Bazaar. It’s a shield the powerful use to fend off critics who might accuse them of being racists. DEI screws the working class and protects the powerful. People like this dumb associate dean just get tricked into becoming one of the DEI soldiers without understanding that DEI increases oppression and marginalization. Does she honestly think any of these students who painted their faces and shouted down this judge will get good jobs when they graduate? She knows they’ll be relegated to the ranks of public defenders and urban poverty projects. A big corporation with DEI protectors wouldn’t let any of these kids in the door to deliver a sandwich, much less apply for a job. This is why Stanford and other law schools wanted to shut down the U.S. News rankings. Those rankings took into account the amount graduates were paid in their first job, and social justice warriors just aren’t going to get the good-paying jobs you might have expected Stanford law graduates would have received.