High-profile instances of attempted censorship at prestigious U.S. law schools have placed the training grounds for the nation’s lawyers at the center of the campus free speech wars.
Earlier this month, at Yale Law School, a group of left-wing students repeatedly tried to shout down Kristen Waggoner of the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, who was engaged in a panel discussion on freedom of speech issues with Monica Miller of the progressive atheist American Humanist Association.
The incident generated national headlines, with many decrying the student’s actions as unbecoming for aspiring lawyers who would make a living by confronting disagreements.
Concern about the behavior of the students made its way as far as the chambers of D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman, who reportedly sent an email to the nation’s federal judges saying they should “carefully consider whether any student so identified [in the protest] should be disqualified for potential clerkships.”
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In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Waggoner said the “bullying” and “aggressive” behavior of the students was “far below the professional standards of what you should expect in a law school and certainly future lawyers.”
“There’s no question that the manner in which, the timing in which, the place in which they did this causes great concerns about Yale being essentially run by a mob that will result in tyranny rather than producing critical thinkers and the hallmarks of an exceptional lawyer,” Waggoner said.
On Thursday, a letter signed by 1,400 politicians, activists, and attorneys to the Yale law school leadership was released that called on the law school to recommit its support for freedom of speech while also condemning the actions of the protesters and punishing those involved.
“What happened at Yale Law School on March 10, 2022 was disgraceful. But it creates an opportunity for you to send a clear message to the country about the importance of free speech and civil discourse,” the letter said.
Signees included 24 state attorneys general, five state governors, several members of Congress, and hundreds of lawyers, free speech activists, and academics.
The unruly protest at Yale was not the only recent instance of law school students challenging free speech on campus and demanding the silencing of a conservative voice.
At Georgetown Law School in February, a group of students confronted the school dean and demanded a space to cry amid fallout from a tweet sent by constitutional law scholar Ilya Shapiro, who had criticized President Joe Biden for vowing to nominate a “lesser” black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court in place of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.
Georgetown placed Shapiro on administrative leave pending an investigation, a move likewise widely condemned by proponents of academic freedom.
In an open letter to Georgetown law school dean William Treanor organized by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, over 200 college professors at various institutions nationwide called on Treanor to reinstate Shapiro and drop the investigation against him.
“Firing Shapiro for expressing his views will send a message to others in Georgetown — both faculty (and especially untenured faculty) and students — that debate about matters having to do with race and sex is no longer free,” the letter said.
The incidents at Yale and at Georgetown proved to be the most high-profile instances of free speech controversies, which have become commonplace at the undergraduate level, finding their way to the post-graduate level and to the law school campus.
And for Cherise Trump, the executive director of the campus free speech organization Speech First, the incidents indicate the same campus activists who previously roiled undergraduate universities in controversy are moving on to post-graduate studies and bringing their activism with them.
“The incident at Yale Law school is indicative of what happens when the woke-mob-undergraduates we hear so much about finally graduate and begin their post-graduate studies,” Trump told the Washington Examiner, noting the history of high-profile protests and activism that have led to numerous speaker cancellations and even riots on college campuses in recent years.
The Yale incident, Trump said, is a telltale sign that the progressive intolerance found on campuses is not constrained to the university quad and has led to believe that tactics such as shouting down speakers lead to positive results.
“We must remind ourselves that what happens on campus does not stay on campus,” she said. “The Yale Law school incident evidences that students’ totalitarian ambitions are not tempered by the realities of a new chapter in their life. Additionally, their undergrad experience has done little much to teach them otherwise.”
ADF’s Waggoner theorized that the reason law school students had resorted to mob tactics at events like hers was that they have seen such tactics yield positive results in other situations and “think that through aggression and belligerence, one can get one’s way.”
“Seeing that others have been successful in [mob tactics] in other places, I think has emboldened these young adults, that really should be behaving as adults,” Waggoner said.
Meanwhile, Trump listed a slew of policies and actions restricting campus speech that she said students promote every day at the undergraduate level, adding “is it any wonder these same students end up in post-graduate programs only to exhibit those same qualities?”
“It should be no surprise that undergrads whose tyrannical penchants are encouraged by their campus environments continue to shout down those who disagree with them after they graduate,” she continued. “They have learned to use the policies on their campuses to gain the upper hand and drown out dissenting voices thus, taking success for themselves.”
With an emboldened group of student activists that often sees their demands met when resorting to such controversial tactics, Trump says the law schools must take ownership and protect campus discourse.
“At this point, the onus is on the law school to encourage open debate and discourse and to condemn actions by their students that inhibit others from speaking freely,” Trump said.
