Reply to Stanford dean of DEI attacks invited speaker, Judge Kyle Duncan

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here is a portion of an interview with this judge following this incident. 
Read the whole thing.  Food for thought.

[b]Did you ever get to deliver your remarks?[/b]

No. You might read comments somewhere that I was, at some point, given “permission” to deliver my remarks by the DEI Assistant Dean, Steinbach. Nonsense. For a good 20-30 minutes (I’m estimating), I was ruthlessly mocked and shouted down by a mob after every third word. And then Steinbach launched into her bizarre prepared speech where she simultaneously “welcomed” me to campus and told me how horrible and hurtful I was to the community. Then she said I should be free to deliver my remarks. Try delivering a lecture under those circumstances. Basically, they wanted me to make a hostage video. No thanks. The whole thing was a staged public shaming, and after I realized that I refused to play along.

[b]You have called for the firing of the DEI dean and the disciplining of law students involved in the protest. Why?
[/b]
Naturally, I realize that it’s up to Stanford what to do about the jeering mob of students and the DEI dean, Steinbach. But I said what I did because what went on in that classroom was an utter disgrace. Start with the students screeching vulgarities and interrupting me every other word. This is a law school, for crying out loud. It’s supposed to be training students to enter a profession where respectful disagreement, even about supremely important things, is the most basic tool of the trade. You can’t be a lawyer unless you understand that the role of a lawyer is to explain—zealously, yes, but also with care, precision, and respect for your opponent—why your client should prevail.

Ask yourself: how is anything that went on in that classroom remotely compatible with that mission? Answer: it is the opposite of what it means to be a lawyer. Unless those students undergo a radical change in their whole approach to argument and disagreement, they are unfit to be members of any bar.

But if that isn’t bad enough, now consider the DEI dean. Now, I don’t know this woman. I have nothing personal against her. I’m only reacting to how she played her role as an administrator of one of the most prestigious law schools in America, and during a very tense situation where students are spiraling out of control.

She did exactly the opposite of what a law school administrator was supposed to do. Instead of explaining to the students that they should respect an invited guest at the law school (yes, a federal judge, but really this applies to any guest), even one they might disagree with passionately, she launched into a bizarre (and already printed out) monologue where she accused me of causing “hurt” and “division” in the law school community by my mere presence on campus. So, this had the effect of validating the mob.

Then, at the same time, she pretended to “welcome” me to campus so that I could express my views. All of this was delivered, as anyone can see from the video, in the voice and idiom of a therapist. I found it profoundly creepy. It was the language of “compassion” and “feelings,” but it came across as deeply controlling and aggressive.

Many people are talking about the weird metaphor she used: “Was the juice worth the squeeze?” I had no idea what she was talking about, but at some point I realized that she meant, “Yes, you were invited to campus, and we ‘welcome’ you. But your presence here is causing such hurt and division. So, was what you were going to talk about really worth all this pain you’re causing by coming here?” In other words, it’s just a folksy way of giving these students a heckler’s veto. If they hate you enough, then surely it wasn’t worth your coming to campus. Apply that twisted idea to the civil rights movement, and see where you end up. It isn’t on the side of the people marching across the Selma bridge.

In other words, what the dean was preaching is the exact opposite of the law of free speech. We protect the speaker from the mob, not the mob from the speaker. And here was a dean of one of the best law schools in the world using the exact opposite of that basic principle to silence a sitting federal judge. I just read back through what I wrote, and I find it hard to believe what I’m describing. And yet it happened. You can watch the video.

https://roddreher.substack.com/p/exclusive-us-judge-kyle-duncan-interview

[/quote]

I absolutely, unequivocally agree with every word he said.  He was set up from the beginning and that dean should be fired.  [/quote]

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