Students who
disrupted a lecture
by U.S. 5th Circuit Court Judge Kyle Duncan at
Stanford
Law School earlier this month will not face discipline, the law school announced Wednesday, but the school’s
diversity, equity, and inclusion
dean has been placed on leave.
Jennifer Martinez, dean of the law school, published a
letter
to the school’s community Wednesday in which she announced that the students who had disrupted Duncan’s lecture would not face discipline because administrators in the room, including Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Associate Dean Tirien Steinbach, had offered mixed signals as to whether the disruption was acceptable behavior.
While the students won’t face punishment, Martinez announced that Steinbach, who berated Duncan for several minutes and contributed to the disruption, had been placed on leave. Martinez declined to provide further details citing institutional policy on personnel matters. Additionally, the law school’s entire student body will be required to attend a session during the spring quarter on freedom of speech.
STANFORD LAW HECKLING SIGNALS LATEST TROUBLE FOR LEGAL PROFESSION: ‘INSTITUTIONAL ROT’
“As a law school, it is within our educational mandate to address with students the norms of the legal profession with regard to, for example, offering substantive criticism of legal arguments and positions rather than vulgar personal insults, and the potential consequences for their professional reputations of such speech,” Martinez wrote.
The March 9 incident created a wave of criticism against the law school, with many noting the protesters represented the next generation of legal minds who would one day have to argue on behalf of clients in front of judges like Duncan. In the aftermath of the disruption of the judge’s speech, Martinez and Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne publicly apologized to Duncan as calls grew for the school to discipline Steinbach and the disrupting students.
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But the apology angered members of the Stanford student body who demanded Martinez retract the apology and staged a protest in her classroom. In her Wednesday letter, Martinez acknowledged that her decision not to discipline the students while placing Steinbach on leave would be displeasing to people on both sides of the debate.
“I recognize that the course I have chosen will not please everyone, not least of which those who have demanded that I retract my apology to Judge Duncan and those who have demanded that students be immediately expelled,” she said. “But this is the course I believe best furthers our obligations as legal educators, charged with training future lawyers and preparing them to participate in a profession that undergirds the very fabric of our democracy and the rule of law.”
