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Kyle Duncan

Stanford Law DEI figure on leave after remarks at event where protesters disrupted a judge’s speech

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Stanford Law School associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion Tirien Steinbach is on leave, according to Dean Jenny Martinez.

Earlier this month, when protestors disrupted an event featuring Judge Kyle Duncan, Steinbach claimed that the judge has “caused harm” through his work.

“First, Associate Dean Tirien Steinbach is currently on leave. Generally speaking, the university does not comment publicly on pending personnel matters, and so I will not do so at this time,” Martinez noted in a lengthy memo to the Stanford Law School community.

“I do want to express concern over the hateful and threatening messages she has received as a result of viral online and media attention and reiterate that actionable threats that come to our attention will be investigated and addressed as the law permits. Finally, it should be obvious from what I have stated above that at future events, the role of any administrators present will be to ensure that university rules on disruption of events will be followed, and all staff will receive additional training in that regard,” Martinez wrote.

Video footage from the event shows Steinbach delivering remarks after the event had apparently been disrupted by protesters. During her remarks, while Steinbach suggested that Duncan should be permitted to speak, she also claimed that for many of the individuals at the event the judge’s work has “caused harm.” She also asked, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” questioning whether the man’s speech was worth the “pain” and “division.”

Martinez and Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne issued an apology to Duncan earlier this month.

“The President of the University and I have apologized to Judge Duncan for a very simple reason – to acknowledge that his speech was disrupted in ways that undermined his ability to deliver the remarks he wanted to give to audience members who wanted to hear them, as a result of the failure to ensure that the university’s disruption policies were followed,” Martinez wrote in the new memo.

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Slotkin: Judge Who Had Speech at Stanford Disrupted Was ‘a Little Bit of a Fragile Flower’

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On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) stated that Judge Kyle Duncan was “a little bit of a fragile flower” in how he handled his speech at Stanford University being disrupted and should “push through” the disruption, but schools should be a place where people are allowed to come and speak.

Slotkin said, “I represent a couple of universities now, including Michigan State University. It should be a place of free speech. It should be a place where all people, conservative, liberal are allowed to come and speak. I also have to say, as someone who is heckled all the time in public speeches, including this week when we were talking about gun safety on the steps of the Michigan Capitol and we had a Second Amendment group with bullhorns while you’re trying to speak, the speaker is being a little bit of a fragile flower here. Push through man, just keep going.”

Host Bill Maher then cut in to respond, “From what I saw, it was kind of impossible.”

Slotkin responded, “Okay, but — and the students, no one should ever be threatening violence, that’s never allowed, that’s not part of your First Amendment rights. But I don’t have a problem if someone comes and speaks and I don’t have a problem if people, in a civil and decent way, protest that speech.”

Maher then asked, “And you don’t have a problem if the officer of the university gets up there and defends the hecklers and not the speaker? Because that’s what she did. She defended the hecklers, not the speaker.”

Slotkin responded, “I don’t know the circumstances here, but –.”

Maher cut in to say, “You just saw it, that’s exactly what you saw.”

Slotkin then stated, “If the university invited this person or allowed this person to come and speak, then they’re hosting them.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

Stanford law dean apologized to Fifth Circuit judge shouted down by radicals on campus. The woke mob won’t let such civility go unpunished.

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Good manners and free speech are evidently no longer given any quarter on Stanford University campus.

The dean of Stanford’s law school has been targeted for abuse by leftists on campus in response to her decision to apologize to a conservative judge whom censorious students tried to shut up.

What is the background?

An esteemed Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judge was invited to speak to the Federalist Society at Stanford university last week about the dialogue between the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit concerning authoritarian COVID-19 restrictions and gun laws.

TheBlaze previously reported that rather than risk exposure to Judge Kyle Duncan’s real-world insights, a mob of students shouted him down.

“You’ve invited me here and I’m being heckled nonstop,” says the Trump-appointed judge in a video captured during the event.

Although there was at least one other adult in the room, Tirien Steinbach — a diversity, equity, and inclusion associate dean — she did little to help the situation.

Similarly allergic to differing worldviews, Steinbach launched into an unhinged six-minute rant denouncing Duncan, regurgitating remarks she had circulated to students prior to the event.

“In my view, this was a setup, [Tirien Steinbach] was working with students on this,” Duncan later told Reuters.

Duncan later demanded an apology, noting that the anti-free-speech protesters had treated their peers like “dogs**t.”

He later told the Washington Free Beacon, “If enough of these kids get into the legal profession, the rule of law will descend into barbarism.”

Mea culpa

Following the incident, Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez penned an apology to Duncan, noting, “What happened was inconsistent with our policies on free speech, and we are very sorry about the experience you had while visiting our campus.”

“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,” said the letter. “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 president and dean claimed they were “taking steps to ensure that something like this does not happen again.”

Duncan said in a statement obtained by National Review that he appreciated the apology and was “pleased to accept it.”

“I particularly appreciate the apology’s important acknowledgment 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,'” wrote Duncan. “Particularly given the depth of the invective directed towards me by the protestors, the administrators’ behavior was completely at odds with the law school’s mission of training future members of the bench and bar.”

Extra to suggesting that the members of Stanford’s Federalist Society were most deserving of an apology, Duncan wrote, “Given the disturbing nature of what happened, clearly concrete and comprehensive steps are necessary. I look forward to learning what measures Stanford plans to take to restore a culture of intellectual freedom.”

Anti-free-speech activists strike again

The apology enraged leftists on campus.

The Washington Free Beacon reported that hundreds of anti-free-speech activists crowded the hallways of the university Monday, protesting Martinez and her apology.

Martinez found that activists had plastered the whiteboard inside the classroom where she teaches constitutional law with placards denouncing Duncan along with copies of her apology.

One flier said, “We, the students in your constitutional law class, are sorry for exercising our 1st Amendment rights.”

Another flier, which was mass-produced, advanced the Orwellian claim that “‘COUNTER-SPEECH’ IS FREE SPEECH.”

This claim — that censorship constitutes free speech — was reportedly scrawled across the masks of the anti-speech extremists haunting Martinez’s classroom, dressed all in black.

Martinez’s faceless critics were joined by the majority of her pupils. Nearly 50 out of the 60 students enrolled in the first-year class got involved in the anti-free-speech protest, reported the Free Beacon.

Those who refused to participate were stigmatized.

“They gave us weird looks if we didn’t wear black,” first-year law student Luke Schumacher told the Free Beacon. “It didn’t feel like the inclusive, belonging atmosphere that the DEI office claims to be creating.”

Students writing on behalf of the Stanford chapter of the American Constitution Society condemned the apology, telling Marinez that Duncan was not a victim, but had “himself made civil dialogue impossible.”

The juvenile chapter of the ACS further implored the administration to “clarify that Judge Duncan’s behavior does not meet the standards this university expects of invited speakers,” suggesting that he had “walked into the law school filming protestors on his phone, looking more like a YouTuber storming the Capitol, than a federal judge coming to speak.”

According to Schumacher, when Martinez left the building, the anti-free-speech activists began to cheer and weep.

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