Shameful Stanford Law School incident all too typical

Several years ago, a student at Bryn Mawr College invited me to a forum where I would have represented a “diverse voice.” The only thing “diverse” about me in Bryn Mawr terms was the fact that I am a conservative. I was quite happy to represent that constituency for my alma mater. Unfortunately, my beloved school ultimately decided that a pro-life, Trump-voting immigration lawyer was a bridge too far, and they essentially disinvited me.

A short while later a women’s working group at the Philadelphia Bar Association invited me to speak about being a conservative woman in the legal profession. When word got out that I was the guest, an online mutiny broke out among lady lawyers who were triggered by the idea that any female could be pro-life.

Unlike Bryn Mawr, though, the Bar Association had the guts to let me speak. It was an interesting discussion, and there was indeed a great deal of hostility. I replied by telling them to move out of their liberal bubble.

I was supposed to speak at the Big Arts Forum in Sanibel Island, Fla. Hurricane Ida put the kibosh on that. Nonetheless, it was wonderful to be welcomed into a lecture series that included me and Al Franken as guests — on different days, of course.

It is rare that people want to hear more than one side of any issue. That came into focus at Stanford Law School. The Federalist Society chapter there had invited U.S. Judge Kyle Duncan to discuss cryptocurrency and gun regulations. The Federalist Society is a conservative organization, so it’s not surprising that it would have invited a Trump-appointed judge.

But even before Duncan had an opportunity to open his mouth, protests broke out from law students who have no concept of free speech, freedom of assembly and common courtesy. Duncan was subjected to jeers, to whining, to screeches and posters that made sexually explicit suggestions. And that was just the student body.

The administrators did little to nothing to stop the mob, leaving the judge to defend himself. He did an admirable job. It’s rare that a speaker who is under assault from a group of foaming-atthe-mouth radicals is able to give as well as he gets. In this case, the judge reminded the students where they were and what they were studying, and essentially exposed them for being mediocre thinkers with bottom-of-the-barrel reasoning skills. The rest of the world saw it as the video of the event went viral online, and Stanford was covered in shame.

That’s not to say that the media was overly critical of students.

Publications like the legal blog Above the Law attempted to justify the actions of the legal vultures by writing things like this:

“The whole point of the manufactured ‘campus cancel culture crisis’ is to make protesters look unruly and fringe speakers appear reasonable by comparison. A hate group shows up on campus, you take some disingenuously edited clips of the protest while the representative of a recognized hate group sits on stage and plays the patient victim. Rinse and repeat.”

The fact that the students were unruly is not a premise; it is a fact.

And that “hate group” is an organization of conservatives in the legal profession.

Apparently, being right of center now makes you a domestic terrorist to the sterling minds at Stanford and their allies.

A recent asylum client, a journalist from Pakistan, told me about how the Taliban tried to censor him. First, they asked him to tell their stories. When he refused, they sent letters threatening him. When that didn’t work, they destroyed his workplace. And when he continued to defy them, they murdered his colleague.

We’re not at that point yet, where words that upset us are the justification for murder. But those Stanford lawyers need to brush up on the concept of free speech.

Threats can come in many forms, even from kids who did well on their LSATs.