Stanford Law School students will be required to participate in a half-day session in the spring quarter to educate them on freedom of speech and the “norms of the legal profession.” Dean Jenny S. Martinez announced the move in an open letter on Wednesday, weeks after students and an associate dean disrupted a federal judge’s address earlier this month.
The school’s chapter of the conservative Federalist Society hosted the disrupted event and invited Stuart Kyle Duncan, a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, as a guest speaker. Kyle Duncan was appointed by former President Trump. In 2022, Kyle Duncan joined an unsigned opinion stating that the COVID-19 vaccine requirement violated Navy service members’ religious liberties.
When he attempted to speak at Stanford Law School, students interrupted him, and the school’s associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, Tirien Steinbach, took the microphone to voice her thoughts.
“For many people in this law school who work here, who study here and who live here, your advocacy, your opinions from the bench, land as absolute disenfranchisement of their rights,” Steinbach said in video of the incident.
In the open letter, Martinez said Steinbach is now on leave and that “commitment to diversity and inclusion means that we must protect the expression of all views.” Martinez acknowledged the school’s policy that “protest is allowed but disruption is not,” and said faculty will receive additional training.
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