Did the Stanford president and the Stanford law school dean apologize for what the DEI dean said to calm the students who were shouting down Judge Kyle Duncan?
That's what Ed Whelan asserts over at National Review. He says:
In an obvious reference to DEI dean Tirien Steinbach’s bizarre six-minute scolding of [Judge Kyle] Duncan, their letter observes that “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.”
As you know, I defended Tirien Steinbach.
I didn't find her speech "bizarre" or a "scolding of Duncan." Read my post, here. I didn't like what the students did, but student protests are part of free speech, though they shouldn't be allowed to deprive the willing listeners of their right to hear the speaker and the school needs to be able to assure speakers that their effort to make an appearance will not be in vain. Steinbach stepped up as an intermediary, and her remarks leaned in favor of empathy for the protesting students, but, in the end, she reclaimed the space for the speaker and those who came to hear him.My first question is whether Ed Whelan got it right: Were the president and the law school dean — Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Jenny Martinez — apologizing for the way Tirien Steinbach spoke? Let's read their letter, here.
They apologize for "the disruption" of the speech, which I think refers to the student protests. They attest to a policy that requires students to protest speeches without disrupting them. But then they say:
In addition, 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. We are taking steps to ensure that something like this does not happen again.
Did anyone other than Tirien Steinbach "intervene"? I think we have to interpret that as an accusation that Steinbach's short speech was "inappropriate" and that it was "inappropriate" because it did not adhere to the position established by the law school's policy. Tessier-Lavigne and Martinez are, I think, saying that the administrator enforcing the policy must adhere closely to its terms and not expound on other ideas and policies — even if the administrator enforcing the policy is the DEI dean and the additional ideas are the very substance of DEI. I guess the point is that policy against disrupting speakers entails a commitment to getting the speech back on track and ending the disruption quickly and without giving any reward or comfort to the disrupters.
So while I reject Whelan's characterization of Steinbach's speech as a "bizarre six-minute scolding," I agree that Tessier-Lavigne and Martinez apologized for it. They hung Steinbach out to dry. There was not a word of encouragement for the DEI mission, her mission.
Whelan calls attention to an earlier statement from the law school dean alone to Stanford law students — in two parts. That statement was more sympathetic to Steinbach. It credited her good intentions but said she "went awry." Whelan — who wants Steinbach fired — asks:
Why did Stanford president Tessier-Lavigne sign the apology to Duncan, rather than just leave it to [law school dean Jenny] Martinez to do so? One obvious possibility is that he was disappointed with her excuse-mongering for Steinbach and didn’t trust her to issue a proper apology.
Excuse-mongering?! To say that Steinbach meant well but went awry isn't to proffer an excuse — and it's certainly not "excuse-mongering," which would require some sort of trafficking in excuses. But it's interesting to speculate whether Tessier-Lavigne had to intervene because Martinez couldn't get it right on her own. That sounds very insulting to Martinez!
Anyway, I don't see how a school can have a strong commitment to DEI and not give more support to Steinbach. Steinbach invited students to use their legal training to consider and develop arguments for elevating DEI concerns over the right to hear invited speakers. Is that not an ongoing issue for legal analysis? I would prefer to see schools protect the invited speaker's forum, but that doesn't keep me from seeing the room for continuing debate. On the contrary, it's a lively issue that law professors ought to encourage students to delve into.
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