A year ago, Stanford University was embroiled in controversy after federal appellate Judge Kyle Duncan was shouted down by law students. Now a survey by FIRE has found that a majority of students believe that Duncan should have been cancelled. Seventy-five percent believe that it is appropriate to shout down speakers. A year ago, I wrote a critical column on the ridiculous response of Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Law School Dean Jenny Martinez who declined to punish any students. Instead all students were required to watch a widely mocked video on free speech.
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 showed 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, who was put on leave, later doubled down in defending her widely criticized actions.
Given the tepid response of the university, it is hardly surprising that students believe that stopping others from speaking is a form of free speech.
Academics later supported the students in shutting down the judge.
FIRE released “The Judge Duncan Shoutdown: What Stanford Students Think,” including 54% of Stanford students said that Judge Duncan’s visit should have been canceled by the administration.
Another 36% stated that using physical violence to shutdown a campus speaker is “always,” “sometimes,” or “rarely” acceptable.
75% said the same about shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking.
Not surprising, only six percent of conservative students now feel comfortable disagreeing with professors.
The survey is consistent with other surveys and polling in higher education.
These students have been taught for years that “speech is violence” and harmful. They have also been told by figures such as Pines that silencing others is an act of free speech. Academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech. In one instance, former CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek insisted that disrupting a speech on free speech is itself free speech.
Even schools that purportedly forbid such interruptions rarely punish students who engage in them. For example, students disrupted a Northwestern class due to a guest speaker from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (after the class had heard from an undocumented immigrant). The university let the protesters into the room after they promised not to disrupt the class. They proceeded to stop the class and then gave interviews to the media proudly disclosing their names and celebrating the cancellation. Northwestern did nothing beyond express “disappointment.”
At Stanford, law students received a mixed message in the law school denouncing the silencing of opposing views but refusing to hold any students or groups accountable.
These schools are enablers of the anti-free speech movement and the rising of a generation of speech phobics. As I discuss in my forthcoming book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, academics and administrators continue to foster an environment of orthodoxy and viewpoint intolerance in higher education. This survey vividly demonstrates how schools like Stanford mouth commitments to free speech while sending a completely different message in the actual actions that it takes in the face of anti-free speech campaigns.
When, as and if D. J. Trump is re-elected potus this November, and actually is inaugurated Jan. 20, 2025, those who hold themselves out to be ‘conservative’ voices might feel a bit more free to air their views. Right now, most are keeping those views to themselves as they face overt repression, such as what Stanford has been doing.
Indeed. In higher ed, You merely mention anything that opposes the woke left (not the moderate left) and you are scorned with snide remarks. So much for their push on inclusion and belonging. Simply lip service. I cannot freely say they are absurd, yet they can freely do so.
This is why I will never hire an ivy league grad regardless of how good their resume is…
You can’t trust it.
What??? Say it ain’t so! You wouldn’t hire an Ivory Tower-indoctrinated Nazi brat? As Demented Joe would slur, “Come on, man. Not a joke, You know, the ‘Thing’ “
The one overriding characteristic of those on the left is their abject cowardice. Instead of trying to win the election at the polls, they are trying to prevent their opponent, Trump, from even running. Instead of trying to win an argument in an open debate, they try to prevent their opponents from speaking.
But I have to admit, they are good at paper mache puppets and chants that rhyme. They are frightened children.
Leftists are triggered, cowardly bullies.
Tell me again why some of these students warrant having their college loans “cancelled”?
Why was Trump fined a half billion? Why not 3 trillion? He exaggerated real estate value. Me too. I’m gonna turn myself in. Later
Trump really burns me up!
Sweet little Jesus Boy — they made You be born in a manger.
Sweet little Holy Child — didn’t know who You was.
Didn’t know You’d come to save us, Lord; to take our sins away.
Our eyes was blind, we couldn’t see; we didn’t know who You was.
Long time ago, You was born,
born in a manger low, sweet little Jesus Boy.
The world treat You mean, Lord, treat me mean, too,
but that’s how things is down here — we don’t know who You is.
You done told us how, we is a tryin’!
Master, You done show’d us how, even when You was dyin’.
Just seem like we can’t do right, look how we treated you.
But please, Sir, forgive us, Lord — we didn’t know ’twas You.
Sweet little Jesus Boy, born long time ago.
Sweet little Holy Child, and we didn’t know who You was.
Professor Turley Writes:
“The Stanford Federalist Society invited Judge Duncan–
…………………………………..
Here one must note that it wasn’t Stanford University that invited Judge Duncan. It was ‘Stanford’s chapter of the Federalist Society’.
One might conclude that Stanford’s Federalist Society lacks popular support at said university. The Federalists are quite possibly viewed as a fringe organization out of step with the larger student body.
The Federalist Society was originally a project of the Koch Brothers. The Kochs, with their vast fortune, felt the best way to advance their Libertarian beliefs was through the Federal courts.
So the idea was developed to create a special society that would ‘groom’ Federal judges starting at the university level. Judges who would be rock solid in their Libertarian beliefs. The Federalist judges would, in essence, carry a seal of approval ensuring their ideological purity.
However the Federalist Society has always been guided by Catholic activist Leonard Leo. Therefore Federalists are also committed to promoting ‘religious freedom’ which doesn’t necessarily jibe with Libertarianism.
In any event, the values pushed by Federalists are quite out of step with people who have come of age in the 21st Century. That reality came into stark focus when the Supreme Court’s Federalist majority handed down the Dobbs decision.
To most people under 40, the Federalists are an aggressively regressive force that seeks to take America back to the 1920s. So not surprisingly, university students regard the Federalists as knights of darkness and treat them as such.
You haven’t said anything. They want to bring America back to the 1920’s? In what way? Do you have ane evidence of this statement? Now, back to the Marxists at Stanford, the point is the left student body and their Marxist teachers are out of step with the founding principles of the school. They are the totalitarian by their actions.
Arn’t Marxists.
English your second language? “Crap you hands, Chen!”
What’s wrong with the 1920’s? We were actually a free country then.
Why would you think libertarians don’t believe in religious freedom? They do – libertarians support all rights inherent in human beings as such – “natural” rights, which exist in any person, rather than merely as Governmentally stamped privileges. Note that the U.S. Constitution does not invent rights – rather, as specified in the first 10 amendments thereto, it acknowledges extant rights in humans which the government may not infringe/abridge. Freedom to practice one’s religion is one of them. Libertarians are solidly on the side of Masterpiece Cake Shop and 303 Creative.
Here one must note that it wasn’t Stanford University
The bit you cut an paste, never uses the word, University. You have to lie before you drag our your silly pedantry
Those aren’t liberals.
Are ‘leftists’ either.
Aren’t
I guess that’s one way to ensure Biden covers your student loans.
I hope those law students do not practice in florida
The conclusion is faculty, staff and students aren’t interested in the USA and the Constitution except to abuse Americans with mockery in its use. It is after all a white document written to harm the less advantaged, minorities and pregnant and abortion people. They aren’t interested in your schools except as abusing localities for anyone seeking an education.
How appropriate for Real President Donald J. Trump to issue a “gag order” in the Juanito Merchan, Brotha “Big Al” Bragg cesspool.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“I think the real danger to the country is the progressive agenda.”
“A continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide.”
“I will vote the Republican ticket. I will support the Republican ticket.”
– Former Attorney General William Pelham Barr
Nice words but the SOB, Barr, CANNOT be trusted to do anything he says.
The progression is listen, speak, read, write. The founders wisely took 2 endpoints as speech and press. Press and speech can be fictions. Political speech and political press also can include fictions. Is the speech and press lawful? Runaway trolley. 😂. It is a reserved States freedom.
Stanford is overrated. School for snobs. Every single person I knew from Stanford had a chip on their shoulder and their nose in the air. My brother included. School teaches nothing of value or substance.
It seems Trump is issuing his own gag order to the court
Oder in the court!!!!!
https://nationalzero.com/2024/04/19/gas-attack-reported-in-manhattan-courtroom/
^^^^Look at the illiterate shitstain who cant spell “odor”
Headline
“Trump doesn’t wait until court recesses to shit all over the proceedings”
Bwahahahahaha
I hope trump shits up every courtroom he is forced to be in between now and november.
Better yet, he should pay his lawyers extra to do the same.
Brilliant. Make those pigs gag.
What the Stanford student demographics would be in the absence of irrefutably unconstitutional affirmative action is not publicly known.
The communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) in America forcibly compel the diminution of the experience of actual American students and the redistribution of college admissions as appropriate and necessary social engineering, ignoring the sole material qualification that bears in a sane world, merit.
The enrolled student population at Stanford University, both undergraduate and graduate, is:
28.9% White
19.8% Asian
12.3% Hispanic or Latino
6.81% Two or More Races
5.21% Black or African American
0.452% American Indian or Alaska Native
0.147% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders
In so far as it is possible, the communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) in America keep actual Americans out.
First of all, your numbers are highly suspect. Adding your percentages comes to 73.62%, obviously less than 100%.
Second, who are the “actual American students” that you speak of. The implication seems to be that races other than white are not “actual American students”. You obviously believe that Asians, Hispanics, African Americans cannot possibly be “ACTUAL AMERICANS”.
This is further confirmation of the Republican embrace of White Nationalism. I think your white hood is showing.
If its true that Trump was crop dusting the courtroom that is hilarious!!!
I wonder what he ate? A pound of kale and cabbage, with a side of gorgonzola would be the right recipe. Maybe a dozen deviled eggs to boot. A bowl of kidney beans just to light the blaze.
And these idiots think it wasn’t intentional, thats the funniest part.
@Anonymi
You are crass, ignorant, and not convincing anyone of anything. Consider it a blessing that you get to do this everyday due to the egalitarianism of Jonathan Turley. The sad thing is, your gastric nonsense is about as good as the case against Trump gets, so you’d better hope the threat of farts is more important to people than paying upwards of a minimum of an additional $20,000 per year for basic necessities without ever upgrading lifestyle is good enough. Spare us the ‘convicted felon’ boosheet. Straight up lie.
But for the ivory towered and glass housed – it isn’t. And you are about to see, just as in 2016, that you are a sad and thoroughly sequestered and ignorant minority; nobody cares about your money or your lineage. Actual Philistines are looking down on you and shaking their heads. Also try not starting your drinking at 9 AM. mixing it with your meds is likely a bad idea, anyway. Maybe we’ll get lucky and you’ll light yourself on fire now that storied, idiot psychiatrists have proclaimed that the pinnacle of mental health. Pfft. The insanity on that one broke all of the detectors.
Regardless, your efforts and your (possible employer’s) money are as wasted here as your asinine comments. Paid or not, you are brain dead and likely a sociopath to go along with even the paycheck. Nobody cares. 🙄🙄🙄
Voting. For. Trump.
hear hear!
https://lamag.com/politics/something-stinks-about-donald-trumps-trial-it-might-be-trump
Lame-o thinks it was an accident.
What a douche