UNIV.’S SORRY WOKE STATE

Stanford apologizes to heckled fed judge

Stanford University finally has apologized to the Donald Trump-appointed federal judge whose talk was hijacked by student protesters and a woke dean.

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez wrote to Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan on Saturday, two days after his ambushed event.

They offered their “sincerest apologies” for what Duncan had called “deeply uncivil behavior” by “hypocrites,” “idiots” and “bullies.”

“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 told Duncan a day after he called for such an apology.

“We are very clear with our students that, given our commitment to free expression, if there are speakers they disagree with, they are welcome to exercise their right to protest, but not to disrupt the proceedings.”

Without naming her, the letter addressed Tirien Steinbach, the law school’s associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion who harangued Duncan with a lengthy written speech to stop his talk — with students apparently missing the irony.

“Staff members who should have enforced university policies failed to do so, and instead intervened in inappropriate ways that are not aligned with the university’s commitment to free speech,” the letter conceded. “We are taking steps to ensure that something like this does not happen again.”

The pair noted that the school even has a specific “disruption policy” that forbids “heckling or other forms of interruption” at such events.

“Freedom of speech is a bedrock principle for the law school, the university, and a democratic society, and we can and must do better to ensure that it continues even in polarized times,” Tessier-Lavigne and Martinez wrote.

‘Went awry’

Martinez wrote a similar letter to students on Friday, saying that “however well-intentioned, attempts at managing the room in this instance went awry.”

Duncan told the National Review he was “pleased to accept their apology,” while again ripping Steinbach, who was supposed to be an administrator at the event.

“Particularly given the depth of the invective directed towards me by the protesters, the administrators’ behavior was completely at odds with the law school’s mission of training future members of the bench and bar,” Duncan said.

“They are hypocrites and they are bullies,” he said. “That doesn’t work in my courtroom.”

Many thought that apologies were not enough.

“Perhaps the only thing uglier than the Stanford Law School building is the events that took place there on Thursday,” the independent student paper the Stanford Review wrote on Twitter, noting the hypocrisy of students angrily telling Duncan to stop interrupting Steinbach as she stopped his talk.

The administrators’ behavior was completely at odds with the law school’s mission of training future members of the bench and bar.

— Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan (right), who was interrupted in a speech at Stanford by law school associate dean Tirien Steinbach (left)