That poor excuse for a Stanford Law School Dean has disappeared from campus after she joined a National Lawyer’s Guild-planned melee to silence a sitting judge who was at the campus to lecture students on the law. Tirien Steinbach was called on to quell the nonsensical screech-fest meant to silence an invited guest, but instead joined the organized shout-down and berated the lecturer so students would be spared his non-Leftist judicial thoughts.
These “law” students obviously missed the lectures about the First Amendment or the heckler’s veto. In fact, students are so ignorant of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that the head of the law school ordered their mandatory re-education.
The students will not be punished for their dumb display, but Steinbach, the harridan who is paid to be a “Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Dean,” was given an early spring break in the form of official “leave” from campus for helping to shout down U.S. Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan. Duncan was on the law school campus to speak at a sanctioned Federalist Society event.
The letter, a legal treatise, announced that Steinbach was temporarily out and students would be undergoing free speech training.
First, Associate Dean Tirien Steinbach is currently on leave. Generally speaking, the university does not comment publicly on pending personnel matters, and so I will not do so at this time. I do want to express concern over the hateful and threatening messages she has received as a result of viral online and media attention and reiterate that actionable threats that come to our attention will be investigated and addressed as the law permits…
Second, with respect to the students involved in the protest, several factors lead me to conclude that what is appropriate here is mandatory educational programming for our student body rather than referring specific students for disciplinary sanction (which at Stanford is administered by the central university’s Office of Community Standards and involves a deliberate process including fact-finding and hearings).
Accordingly, as one first step the law school will be holding a mandatory half-day session in spring quarter for all students on the topic of freedom of speech and the norms of the legal profession. A faculty committee will plan the session and invite speakers representing a range of viewpoints. Needless to say, faculty and students are free to disagree with the material presented in these sessions or with the arguments I have presented in this memorandum – there will be no orthodoxy on this topic either. [Emphasis added]
Steinbach was there to somehow soothe the hurt feelings of the adult law students. The individual videos of students shrieking at Judge Duncan largely have been scrubbed from Twitter. Lowlights in news stories remain. Instead of lowering the temperature of the shouting students, Steinbach made it worse by justifying the students’ behavior.
At one point during the verbal assault on Duncan by people who want to be officers of the court when they grow up, he asked if this was meant to be a “struggle session” the likes of which is practiced by communist apparatchiks in China.
He explained in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that Steinbach’s prepared remarks made things worse, not better. He didn’t know who she was when she demanded the podium. Students screamed until he stepped to the side.
Whereupon Ms. Steinbach opened a folio, took out a printed sheaf of papers, and delivered a six-minute speech addressing the question: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
What could that mean? While the students rhythmically snapped, Ms. Steinbach attempted to explain. My “work,” she said, “has caused harm.” It “feels abhorrent” and “literally denies the humanity of people.” My presence put Ms. Steinbach in a tough spot, she said, because her job “is to create a space of belonging for all people” at Stanford. She assured me I was “absolutely welcome in this space” because “me and many people in this administration do absolutely believe in free speech.” I didn’t feel welcome—who would?
One legal watcher and author, Carrie Severino, said if Stanford means what it says in a detailed letter sent to the “SLS Community,” it would fire her.
Accuracy in Media called for firing the dean.
1/ Here’s a photo of a mobile billboard urging the firing of Tirien Steinbach, DEI dean at @StanfordLaw, if she doesn’t apologize for her actions at the Judge Kyle Duncan protest on March 9 (pic sent to me by a SLS source): pic.twitter.com/5WhDoMhrTn
— David Lat (@DavidLat) March 17, 2023
College Republicans named and shamed (if that’s possible) the “blackshirt” “fascists” who conducted the shout fest.
— Stanford College Republicans (@Stanford_GOP) March 15, 2023
— Stanford College Republicans (@Stanford_GOP) March 15, 2023
Elon Musk called the outrageous display a “Soviet level of indoctrination.” He’s right. Law firms and judges considering hiring these “law” students – if they graduate – need to have their heads examined.
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