Inside Stanford’s disgrace: Judge Duncan speaks

March 18, 2023 by Scott Johnson  @ Powerline

Judge Michael McConnell to the contrary notwithstanding, we seek to publicize the ringleaders, perpetrators, and administrators involved in the shout down of Kyle Duncan at the March 9 Stanford Law School event sponsored by the school’s Federalist Society chapter. To borrow a phrase from Bob Dylan, we seek to tear the rag away from their face. Judge Duncan himself is not inclined to let it ride. The Wall Street Journal has published his first-person account as “My struggle session at Stanford Law School” (behind the Journal’s paywall). The headline of course alludes to the Maoist practice of denunciation and humiliation of “class enemies.” See also the “Two Minutes Hate” depicted by George Orwell in 1984.

What is it like to be the object of a “struggle session”? Judge Duncan recounts:

When I arrived, the walls were festooned with posters denouncing me for crimes against women, gays, blacks and “trans people.” Plastered everywhere were photos of the students who had invited me and fliers declaring “You should be ASHAMED,” with the last word in large red capital letters and a horror-movie font. This didn’t seem “collegial.” Walking to the building where I would deliver my talk, I could hear loud chanting a good 50 yards away, reminiscent of a tent revival in its intensity. Some 100 students were massed outside the classroom as I entered, faces painted every color of the rainbow, waving signs and banners, jeering and stamping and howling. As I entered the classroom, one protester screamed: “We hope your daughters get raped!”

I had been warned a few days before about a possible protest. But Stanford administrators assured me they were “on top of it,” that Stanford’s policies permitted “protest but not disruption.” They weren’t “on top of it.” Before my talk started, the mob flooded the room. Banners unfurled. Signs brandished: “FED SUCK,” “Trans Lives Matter” (this one upside down), and others that can’t be quoted in a family newspaper. A nervous dog—literally, a canine—was in the front row, fur striped with paint. A man with a frozen smile approached me, identified himself as the “dean of student engagement,” and asked, “You doing OK?” I don’t remember what I said.

The protesters weren’t upset by the subject of my talk—a rather dry discourse on how circuit courts interact with the Supreme Court in times of doctrinal flux. Rather, I was their target. While in practice, I represented clients and advanced arguments the protesters hate—for instance, I defended Louisiana’s traditional marriage laws. As for my judicial decisions, among the several hundred I’ve written, the protesters were especially vexed by U.S. v. Varner. A federal prisoner serving a term for attempted receipt of child pornography (and with a previous state conviction for possession of child porn) petitioned our court to order that he be called by feminine pronouns. As my opinion explained, federal courts can’t control what pronouns people use. The Stanford protesters saw it differently: My opinion had “denied a transwoman’s existence.”

When the Federalist Society president [Tim Rosenberger] tried to introduce me, the heckling began. “The Federalist Society (You suck!) is pleased to welcome Judge Kyle Duncan (You’re not welcome here, we hate you!). . . . He was appointed by President Trump to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Embarrassing!).” And so on. As I began, the heckling continued. Try delivering a speech while being jeered at every third word. This was an utter farce, a staged public shaming. I stopped, pleaded with the students to stop the stream of insults (which only made them louder), and asked if administrators were present.

Enter Tirien Steinbach, associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion. Ms. Steinbach and (I later learned) other administrators were watching from the periphery. She hadn’t introduced herself to me. She asked to address the students.

Something felt off. I asked her to tell the students their infantile behavior was inappropriate. She insisted she wanted to talk to all of us. Students began screaming, and I reluctantly gave way. Whereupon Ms. Steinbach opened a folio, took out a printed sheaf of papers, and delivered a six-minute speech addressing the question: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

What could that mean? While the students rhythmically snapped, Ms. Steinbach attempted to explain. My “work,” she said, “has caused harm.” It “feels abhorrent” and “literally denies the humanity of people.” My presence put Ms. Steinbach in a tough spot, she said, because her job “is to create a space of belonging for all people” at Stanford. She assured me I was “absolutely welcome in this space” because “me and many people in this administration do absolutely believe in free speech.” I didn’t feel welcome—who would? And she repeated the cryptic question: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

I asked again what she meant, and she finally put the question plainly: Was my talk “worth the pain that this causes and the division that this causes?” Again she asserted her belief in free speech before equivocating: “I understand why people feel like the harm is so great that we might need to reconsider those policies, and luckily, they’re in a school where they can learn the advocacy skills to advocate for those changes.” Then she turned the floor back over to me, while hoping I could “learn too” and “listen through your partisan lens, the hyperpolitical lens.” In closing, she said: “I look out and I don’t ask, ‘What’s going on here?’ I look out and I say, ‘I’m glad this is going on here.’ ” This is on video, and the entire event is on audio, in case you’re wondering.

• Twitter Files reveal government-sponsored suppression of the truth with the help of Stanford University March 19, 2023 When the powers that be deem it necessary to suppress what they themselves acknowledge is “truthful” information, a Rubicon has been crossed from which it is well-nigh impossible to return. ...............
• Let’s talk about Stanford’s law students, March 18, 2023  By Andrea Widburg - I was on vacation when Judge Stuart Duncan appeared at Stanford Law School at the invitation of the Federalist Society. As you all know, he was greeted with strident, often obscene slogans and personal invective, all of which culminated with the “associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion” joining with the students to say that Duncan was so hate-filled that, while theory dictated he should be heard, in fact, he wasn’t worth it. Afterward, the students harassed the dean who eventually apologized to Judge Duncan, only for them to become hysterical and paranoid when their names became public. Stanford is training its students to be members of Mao’s Red Guard, rather than lawyers in a representative, constitutional democracy.............