Bill has written a fine post about Jenny Martinez’s memorandum about the shouting down of Judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford Law School. I agree generally with Bill’s favorable assessment of the law school dean’s memo, but want to add a few thoughts. First, Martinez’s rationale for not punishing at least some of the shouters isn’t persuasive, in my opinion. Her first reason was that you can’t lawfully punish students for engaging in protected speech, and the line between that speech and unprotected speech — which can be punished — isn’t very clear.
Bill and Paul do a nice job of highlighting the good and the bad of Dean Martinez's response to the disruption of Judge Duncan's on-campus appearance. Time will tell which side tips the scale, but the fact the dean summarily protected all disrupters from sanctions is not a good sign. She says it's hard to separate protesters from disrupters, but there were probably cameras in the area, and there were no doubt witnesses to the mayhem who could identify bad guys. The Justice Department seems to have no problem picking wrongdoers from the January 6 crowd. If in fact an investigation had concluded disrupters could not be identified, we might go with that, but the dean apparently absolved them without any attempt to identify them. Dean Martinez's suggestion that Dean Steinbach's support for the disruption might have led the disrupters to conclude Stanford supported their action doesn't wash, for the disruption fire was burning when Dean Steinbach threw fuel on it. Indeed, she was supposedly there to put the fire out. And the fact the disrupters or their fellow travelers wore masks when they protested Dean Martinez's apology to Judge Duncan speaks volumes against the dean's suggestion the disrupters assumed official approval, for if they thought they had official approval they wouldn't have worn masks. An investigation in this case might not have followed constitutional due process, but it would have probably given the accused more process than those accused of sexual conduct receive. There is really no excuse for brushing this aside without an investigation. Jim Dueholm
Bill and Paul do a nice job of highlighting the good and the bad of Dean Martinez's response to the disruption of Judge Duncan's on-campus appearance. Time will tell which side tips the scale, but the fact the dean summarily protected all disrupters from sanctions is not a good sign. She says it's hard to separate protesters from disrupters, but there were probably cameras in the area, and there were no doubt witnesses to the mayhem who could identify bad guys. The Justice Department seems to have no problem picking wrongdoers from the January 6 crowd. If in fact an investigation had concluded disrupters could not be identified, we might go with that, but the dean apparently absolved them without any attempt to identify them. Dean Martinez's suggestion that Dean Steinbach's support for the disruption might have led the disrupters to conclude Stanford supported their action doesn't wash, for the disruption fire was burning when Dean Steinbach threw fuel on it. Indeed, she was supposedly there to put the fire out. And the fact the disrupters or their fellow travelers wore masks when they protested Dean Martinez's apology to Judge Duncan speaks volumes against the dean's suggestion the disrupters assumed official approval, for if they thought they had official approval they wouldn't have worn masks. An investigation in this case might not have followed constitutional due process, but it would have probably given the accused more process than those accused of sexual conduct receive. There is really no excuse for brushing this aside without an investigation. Jim Dueholm