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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34483 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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Let's talk about the Stanford Law School situation that has gone on for a few days.

A Timeline:

  • The Federalist Society invited a judge, Kyle Duncan, to speak. 70 students emailed FedSoc to cancel the event. [https://freebeacon.com/campus/dogshit-federal-judge-decries-disruption-of-his-remarks-by-stanford-law-students-and-calls-for-termination-of-the-stanford-dean-who-joined-the-protesters/]("When the Federalist Society refused to cancel, students began putting up fliers with the names and faces of everyone on the board. "You should be ashamed," the posters read.")

  • Duncan was basically shouted down during his talk. Most in attendance were protestors to his speech, with people showing up with signs like "Duncan can't find the clit" and such. They accused him for ruling on cases that were against their beliefs, for example taking the right to vote away ("The students appeared to have little familiarity with Duncan’s jurisprudence. Some accused him of suppressing the voting rights of African Americans, Duncan said—only to cite a case in which Duncan had actually dissented from the majority.")

  • Duncan asked administrators to control the situation, and a DEI Dean went up to the podium and instead of controlling the crowd, read out a statement accusing Duncan of causing harm (video)

  • Duncan was escorted out by federal marshals

  • Dean of Stanford Law School + President of Stanford issued a joint apology letter to judge Kyle Duncan, and the Dean also sent an email to alumni

  • Now, the Dean of Stanford Law School is being targeted. She teaches Constitutional Law and her classroom white board was plastered with statements that argue for their 1st amendment rights and the heckler's veto (source). Some excerpts below:

  • When Martinez’s class adjourned on Monday, the protesters, dressed in black and wearing face masks that read "counter-speech is free speech," stared silently at Martinez as she exited her first-year constitutional law class at 11:00 a.m., according to five students who witnessed the episode. The student protesters, who formed a human corridor from Martinez’s classroom to the building’s exit, comprised nearly a third of the law school, the students told the Washington Free Beacon.

  • The majority of Martinez’s class—approximately 50 students out of the 60 enrolled—participated in the protest themselves, two students in the class said. The few who didn’t join the protesters received the same stare down as their professor as they hurried through the makeshift walk of shame.

  • "They gave us weird looks if we didn’t wear black" and join the crowd, said Luke Schumacher, a first-year law student in Martinez’s class who declined to participate in the protest. "It didn’t feel like the inclusive, belonging atmosphere that the DEI office claims to be creating."

  • The Stanford National Lawyers Guild said Saturday that Martinez had thrown "capable and compassionate administrators" under the bus. The law school’s Immigration & Human Rights Law Association issued a similar declaration on Sunday, writing to its mailing list that Stanford’s apology to Duncan "has only made this situation worse." And Stanford Law School’s chapter of the American Constitution Society expressed outrage that Martinez and Tessier-Lavigne had framed Duncan "as a victim, when in fact he himself had made civil dialogue impossible."

This follows on the heals of similar kind of situations at Yale Law School (no.1 in the country, Stanford's usually no.2).

Don't have much to add here. I've seen a few student protests (but didn't go to UC Berkeley and wasn't present at any big ones). None were like this, but maybe law school is different. Also I wonder whether Stanford and Yale law schools sizes (300-500 law students, versus Harvard's ~2000 law students) means that it's easier to pressure everyone to join in on something. Being starred down by a large % of your classmates is probably not a fun experience, especially when you know most of them.

I think fundamental to free speech is a right to NOT here someones speech. Call it a limit in time or that two people can’t speak at the same time limit. A right to ignore seems fundamental to balancing out two peoples right to speech.

The left seems to not realize that. I can’t have free speech if when I’m having a conversation you have a megaphone yelling next to me. Law students should get this complexity.

While Rights always need balanced since they often interfere with others rights. I don’t think a lot of 2020 riots were 1st amendment protected. Because they interfered with others right to speech. If I owned a sandwich shop or say a CVS I can’t advertise my goods/sell if a crowd is outside yelling. A merchant would seem to me to have a right to communicate with their customer.

Obviously all things need to be balanced. On a typical walk in the city their are the annoying people trying to sell some do-gooders, they asks if I have time to stop and chat. And it’s admittedly annoying have to turn them down everyday. Sometimes I walk a marginally longer route because I know where they set up. I think they do violate my right to ignore but it’s relatively minor versus them having a spot to give their message. Sometimes I’m probably even posting on the motte some times while walking so their interruption interferes with my first amendment rights.

Point is there are always balancing acts. And I don’t think the first amendment is a right to interfere unlimited to others.

The 1A doesn’t come into it at all.

The broader right of free speech, yeah, it’s good practice. In a golden-rule sense we can argue that the privilege of the strong (or loud) ought to be limited. “There but for the grace of God go I.” This is not up to the 1A, which only keeps the government from infringing, and even then only to a point. It’s not obligated to secure your platform for commercial or private speech.

So what if a corporation released noise pollution. So other people can’t speak. That noise pollution is 1A protected Speech correct so the government can’t block it. Which means there is no free speech.

A freedom of speech seem to include a freedom to hear (ie to have effective communications). Without a freedom to hear then you can’t have free speech.

The exact hypothetical would be the Koch brothers hating Yale so they shutdown Yale with giant noise machines. This is essentially what Stanford allowed to happen to the judge.

The government is perfectly allowed to regulate noise pollution. That’s mostly for the other rights like life, liberty and happiness, I suppose, so the hypothetical isn’t a very good fit.

More importantly, there is a difference between positive and negative actions. Stanford is not obligated to make a welcoming channel for any particular idea. It’s merely prevented from clogging those channels itself.

I think there’d be a case if Stanford actively set up the interference as viewpoint discrimination. This gets thorny very quickly when separating private speech from employee speech from public speech. Perhaps the DEI Dean’s involvement counts, and we’ll see a lawsuit accordingly.

I mean invading another groups space and yelling so they can’t speak sounds exactly like noise pollution to me.

So the Koch brothers could just blast I love Jesus outside of Yale and that’s Speech right?

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