We have been following the controversy at Stanford Law School in the aftermath of a disgraceful cancellation of remarks by federal appellate judge Stuart Kyle Duncan. The center of this controversy was Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) dean Tirien Steinbach, who seemingly joined the mob in denouncing the judge for his views. She was later publicly reprimanded by Law School Dean Jenny Martinez, who apologized to Judge Duncan and put Steinbach on leave. Now, Steinbach has publicly responded and appears to be doubling down on her actions in a Wall Street Journal opinion column.
First a short recap of how we got here.
The Stanford Federalist Society invited Judge Duncan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to speak on campus. However, liberal students, including members from the National Lawyer’s Guild, decided that allowing a conservative judge to speak on campus is intolerable and set about to “deplatform” him by shouting him down.
In this event, Duncan was planning to speak on the topic: “The Fifth Circuit in Conversation with the Supreme Court: Covid, Guns, and Twitter.” A video shows that the students prevented Duncan from speaking from the very beginning. Many called him a racist while others hurled insults like one yelling “We hope your daughters get raped.”
Duncan was unable to continue and asked for an administrator to assist him.
Dean Steinbach then took the stage and criticized the judge for seeking to be heard despite such objections.
Steinbach explained “I had to write something down because I am so uncomfortable up here. And I don’t say that for sympathy, I just say that I am deeply, deeply uncomfortable.” While reaffirming her belief in free speech and insisting that the judge should not be cancelled, she proceeded to attack the judge for the content of his views.
Steinbach declared “It’s uncomfortable to say that for many people here, you’re work has caused harm.” After a perfunctory nod to free speech, Steinbach proceeded to eviscerate it. She continued “again I still ask, is the juice worth the squeeze?” Is it worth the pain that this causes, the division that this causes? Do you have something so incredibly important to say about Twitter and guns and Covid that that is worth this impact on the division of these people.”
Dean Martinez later apologized and then released a letter with Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne that reaffirmed the commitment to free speech, but did not commit to holding the students accountable for their disruption. (The students with the National Lawyer’s Guild later complained about their names being mentioned in an article despite a campaign to name and shame conservative students).
Dean Martinez then issued another letter with a strong defense of free speech and declared that all students (including the victims of the disruption) would be required to attend a free speech appreciation session. However, she declined any action against the students responsible for the disruption. That is a familiar pattern at universities.
That brings us to Steinbach’s column. The Wall Street Journal was correct in running her account and it contains an important perspective to consider, even for some of us who were highly critical of Steinbach’s remarks.
First, Dean Steinbach rightfully points out that she tried to get the students to allow the event to proceed. At one point, she suggested that students walk out in protest over Judge Duncan’s views. She also insists that she opposed efforts to cancel the event before it was held and continues to oppose such attempts to limit speech. She reaffirms the classical liberal view that the solution to bad speech is good speech, not less speech. That is all to her credit.
However, the column has elements that are, frankly, less compelling or commendable.
Steinbach appears to be responding to this admonishment by Martinez:
In this instance, however, the failure by administrators in the room to timely administer clear and specific warnings and instead to send conflicting signals about whether what was happening was acceptable or not (and indeed at one point to seemingly endorse the disruptions that had occurred up to that point by saying “I look out and say I’m glad this is going on here”) is part of what created the problem in the room and renders disciplinary sanction in these particular circumstances problematic.
Steinbach insists that she was simply using her training at “deescalation” and that she was asked to attend the event by the Federalist Society for that reason:
I stepped up to the podium to deploy the de-escalation techniques in which I have been trained, which include getting the parties to look past conflict and see each other as people. My intention wasn’t to confront Judge Duncan or the protesters but to give voice to the students so that they could stop shouting and engage in respectful dialogue. I wanted Judge Duncan to understand why some students were protesting his presence on campus and for the students to understand why it was important that the judge be not only allowed but welcomed to speak.
The problem with the column, in my view, is two-fold.
First, in her remarks, Steinbach goes out of the way to show her agreement with the mob and indicates that she knew that they were going to stop the event. She soft pedals the attacks on Duncan and seems to blame both sides. She does not mention how the students prevented him from speaking, yelled about his being a racist, or called for the rape of his daughters. Instead, she describes how “a verbal sparring match began to take place between the judge and the protesters. By the time Judge Duncan asked for an administrator to intervene, tempers in the room were heated on both sides.” That sounds a lot like blaming the victim. If the mob had not prevented the judge from speaking, there would have been “sparring” before the event was opened up for questions.
She is not alone in such spins. Some like Slate’s Mark Stern suggested that Judge Duncan manufactured the controversy. Democratic members like Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) mocked Duncan as a “fragile flower.” Others at sites like Above the Law insisted, again, that silencing people like Judge Duncan is free speech. Senior Editor Joe Patrice rejected the effort to “recast ‘free speech’ as the right of a powerful person to speak at the silent and unprivileged.” (In this case, “the silent and unprivileged” are Stanford students at an elite law school, who were invited to ask questions but asked not to prevent others from hearing from Judge Duncan).
Second, Steinbach still chastises Duncan for his divisive viewpoints and clearly blames him in part for the controversy by refusing to yield to the sensibilities of the students — presumably by remaining silent.
At one point during the event, I asked Judge Duncan, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” I was referring to the responsibility that comes with freedom of speech: to consider not only the benefit of our words but also the consequences. It isn’t a rhetorical question. I believe that we would be better served by leaders who ask themselves, “Is the juice (what we are doing) worth the squeeze (the intended and unintended consequences and costs)?”
Steinbach appears utterly clueless about why this question is so offensive to free speech values. She continues to intentionally obscure her obvious desire for speakers like Duncan to curtail their speech by stating that we would “be better served” by speakers asking if their speech is worth “the intended and unintended consequences and costs.”
Avoiding “the squeeze” means being silent on points that have such consequences. Thus, to avoid angering these radical students, Duncan is expected to be silent on certain points or, in this case, any points that he might want to share. It is an invitation for self-censorship that would apply to any conservative jurist or speaker. While supporting free speech, Steinbach is condemning the exercise of speech when it could cause “pain” and “division.” Of course, such pain and division would not arise with a liberal jurist espousing the opposite viewpoints. Accordingly, liberal jurists would be free to speak without the sense of culpability while conservatives are expected to remain silent.
In the end, Steinbach did not “defuse” the situation but fueled the rage with her comments. To this day, she cannot understand why Duncan would persist in speaking when some take such great offense at his views. She asks “Is there a way that we can stop blaming and start to talk and listen to each other?” Yet, her answer appears to be for speakers like Duncan to recognize that their views are simply too hurtful for some and should not be voiced to avoid “the squeeze” of free speech.
The result is the type of doublespeak that is common on our campuses. Steinbach claims fealty to free speech while denouncing its exercise. She laments “how polarized our society has become,” but added to that polarization by expressing her own concerns over the “harm” that Duncan’s speech has brought for many at the school. She asked “how do we listen and talk to each other as people” while maintaining that, by stating his jurisprudential views, Duncan might not be worth the harm (or “squeeze”) to others.
Anti-free speech advocates often try to portray the exercise of free speech as a complex challenge. It is not. The Duncan controversy shows how the issue is stark and simple. Judge Duncan had a right to speak and others had a right to hear him. Those who disagree with him had a right to protest outside of the event and to ask tough questions inside the event. The only thing that they could not do is disrupt the event itself; to prevent others from hearing from Judge Duncan.
The solution is also stark and simple, though it has, once again, been ignored by an administration. Students who cancel events or classes on campus are taking a position that is not just antithetical to principles of free speech but of higher education. They should be suspended or, in extreme or repeated cases, expelled. Otherwise, the law school is not achieving any greater clarity than this column. It is professing an absolute commitment to free speech while declining to enforce that commitment.
US Judge gives a lecture on free speech at Notre Dame after being shouted down at Stanford
“A law professor at Notre Dame told the students to be respectful of the Trump-appointed judge who spoke there.”
https://justthenews.com/nation/free-speech/us-judge-gives-lecture-free-speech-notre-dame-after-being-shouted-down-stanford
This is what free speech looks like.
Is the juice worth the squeeze? If the squeeze is the ability to speak freely, yes, of course it is.
That idiot Steinbach quite clearly does not understand what the phrase means. It decidedly does not mean what she parenthesizes in her editorial. The squeeze is the effort (protecting and exercising free speech) and the juice is the outcome of having free speech, robust debate, etc.—including hurt feelings. Clueless on so many levels.
There is a lesson to be learned here if one merely takes these people at their word. ‘Juice being worth the squeeze’ is a shorthand for a purely consequential analysis, and for them the ‘consequence’ is winning their brutish power game at all costs. For her, she is literally weighing his free speech rights against her version of the ‘greater good’ and that’s how the Gulags got filled in Siberia. It’s more Maoist in some ways as these students are acting as a Red Guard, and this activist ‘professor’ is commissar running the local cadre. My goodness. 10,000 administrators on Stanford. I hate this world.
I would like Prof Turley to comment on why he believes these students, in their educational development, come to believe what they did was okay? How did they develop their philosophical priorities within the context of “free speech”? Who or what is it that has influenced their thinking?
I just read Churchill’s first book in his history of WWII and even as the loons were demanding that Britain disarm so as to not rile up Hitler (as if Hitler needed riling up!) Churchill still discussed the issues with his opponents with respect and honor. He described those opposed to arming as good people who wanted what they thought was best for their country and never disparaged them as being the dangerous fools that they were.
PS. Shortly before Hitler attacked France and bombed the heck out of England the student body at Cambridge voted to never serve in His Majesty’s armed services. This is a great example of the liberal mindset and their penchant for never being right.
PSS. Just to be fair, the American right was just as delusional and dangerous and the European Left during this period. This goes to show that politics has been ruined by the extremes for more years than we think possible.
hullbobby: hanks for the reminder. I was too young at the time, but I think the infamous Kent State Ohio and other school riots/protests were about our soldiers having to fight for other countries’ freedoms. Now we are being called to defend our own.
Churchill was the first to order the bombing of civilian areas in against Germany in WWII…And of course, a careful analysis of Churchill reveals him to have manipulated the Brits into a ‘War Guaranty’ for Poland which had a big contribution to Hitler attacking Poland, and the war then escalating with the Brits drawn in immediately. And of course, Churchill had no ability to deliver on that promise once in office, the Brit army was tiny and in now way could face the Germans in Poland. Instead, Churchill made the first move into Norway, engaging in a Naval war that was a disaster for both parties. Churchill was routinely criticized early and often by many for running the war from a “5 pm meeting”. His conduct of the war was horrible and costly in lives. Not to mention what a racist and imperialist he was. I never understood the hagiography of Churchill. https://youtu.be/z2c7d5RfkAA
Poor Hitler, forced to invade because the UK and France made a defense pact with Poland. Where do people get this crazy, clueless but increasingly common version of WW2 history?
Stanford Law Disruptions Were Orchestrated by the National Lawyers Guild (with Addendum)
Let us understand what the National Lawyers Guild is. Begun in the 1930s as an alternative to the American Bar Association, its original membership consisted of traditional left-wing liberals and communists. After Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union made the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, most of the liberals resigned.
The Guild has never abandoned its Marxist-Leninist provenance. It supports Antifa, (see here, here, here and here) which also employs violence to disrupt speakers.
The Guild has more than 100 chapters in American law schools. Its membership includes many law professors.
https://dersh.substack.com/p/stanford-law-disruptions-were-orchestrated-60d?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=373575&post_id=110230670&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Alan, giving her leave struck me as a defensible response, but she’s daring them to martyr her. She wants a student uprising. She probably also wants a book deal, and leave isn’t enough squeeze for that juice. Dostoevsky was right about these people.
Stanford can wait until summer break. Then fire her. Sic transit gloria mundi.
I also appreciated the link. Thanks. Very informative. Sadly, everything Professor Dershowitz wrote is true. The Lawyers’ Guild is insidious and–I suspect–probably beyond redemption. The only thing we can do is to dispute them with good speech.
I was struck by Steinbach’s claim that she was just trying to defuse the situation. I anticipated she would say that, and I don’t believe her. The whole thing looked staged, including her performance.
I think you have the juice and the squeeze backwards. And of course so do the marxists
We hold this squeeze to be self-evident that all juice is created equal.
This is what DEI does for America: BLM female basketball players does not get her way, so she sucker punches a while girl during the BB game
The Naturalization Act of 1802 was in full force and effect on January 1, 1863.
Compassionate repatriation was required by law.
Immigration was limited and restricted by specific criteria.
Immigration law must be strictly enforced retroactively by 150 years.
Roe v. Wade was recently struck down and corrected retroactively by 50 years.
_______________________________________________________________
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798 and 1802 (four confirming iterations)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all-important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.”
– Alexander Hamilton
That player should file charges for assault. Zero tolerance.
What did Judge Duncan say that was “so harmful”?
“Support for the Bill of Rights isn’t what it used to be on progressive campuses.”
The WSJ gave Tirien Steinbach an opportunity to explain herself and its editorial board reminds everyone of just how unwelcoming Steinbach was. If Steinbach truly saw her role as one who de-escalates volatile situations, she would have responded the very minute the students’ exhibitions of ill-temper began. She ought to have known the vilification would happen and been prepared to address it promptly for what it was. To leave Duncan alone to contend with it was cowardice.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/stanford-law-dean-jenny-martinez-letter-tirien-steinbach-kyle-duncan-free-speech-51c36461?mod=hp_opin_pos_3#cxrecs_s
Olly: Okay, I stepped back and reread what you had written. Now I think I understand what you were saying.
And stop bragging about the sunshine today; thanks a lot for sending the rain my way.
Sigh. It makes me think there just isn’t any hope for people in America under 40, and that is sad, indeed. She is incapable of actually thinking. At all.
So first come “The Squeeze” and then comes the “Beat to a Pulp”. Antifa has taught these students well. Ask Andy Ngo. https://libertycenter.org/antifa-member-charged-with-felony-for-2019-attack-of-andy-ngo/
If the goal is to alter Stanford’s behavior, act to impact its financial condition – interdict its huge revenue stream and stop sending money to Stanford.
Customers of Stanford appear very satisfied indeed.
_________________________________________
3-23-23
STANFORD UNIVERSITY IS DOING SOMETHING RIGHT
Stanford University is private property conducting free enterprise and only its owners enjoy the power to “claim and exercise” dominion.
Stanford University successfully engages in the “pursuit of happiness.”
_______________________________________________________
Student Enrollment
17,000
______
Total Cost of Enrollment
$79,000 (USD)
____________
Finances
“In 2023–23, Stanford is a $8.2 billion enterprise. This figure represents the university’s consolidated budget for operations, a compilation of all annual operating and restricted budgets that support teaching, scholarship and research, including the budgets of all schools and administrative areas and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. It does not include the $0.6 billion capital budget and excludes the budget for Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.”
___________________________________________________________________________________
Endowment
“Stanford’s $36.3 billion endowment (as of Aug. 31, 2021) provides an enduring source of financial support for fulfillment of the university’s mission of teaching, learning and research. It disbursed a $1.5 billion payout to support vital academic programs and financial aid during the fiscal year.”
– Stanford University