The rest of that WSJ article on WOKEness in Stanford Law School.
Judge should have asked himself:
Is the juice really worth the squeeze?
After taking a verbal beating from the students and from the idiot Dean of DEI in the school.
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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 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.
The most disturbing aspect of this shameful debacle is what it says about the state of legal education. Stanford is an elite law school. The protesters showed not the foggiest grasp of the basic concepts of legal discourse: That one must meet reason with reason, not power. That jeering contempt is the opposite of persuasion. That the law protects the speaker from the mob, not the mob from the speaker. Worst of all, Ms. Steinbach’s remarks made clear she is proud that Stanford students are being taught this is the way law should be.
I have been criticized in the media for getting angry at the protesters. It’s true I called them “appalling idiots,” “bullies” and “hypocrites.” They are, and I won’t apologize for saying so. Sometimes anger is the proper response to vicious behavior.
Judge Duncan serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.