By Scott V. Sandford
Legal Correspondent
It's been a tough week in Silicon Valley. First, tech's Masters of the Universe lost hundreds of millions of dollars in unguaranteed deposits of Silicon Valley Bank. Then, these galaxy brains couldn't flee to Tahoe because the weather in the Sierra has been awful.
Worst of all, Stanford Law students heckled a federal judge. Thus ended free speech in America, according to the usual whiners.
 |
| Judge Kyle didn't get the reception he wanted |
What happened in Palo Alto? Was this poor judge tarred and feathered and drummed off campus? Shot in his bed like Breonna Taylor? Denied the right to choose their fundamental identity?
Trigger warning: the following contains harrowing scenes of a white man being criticized and should only be read while lying on a chaise and drinking a Chivas.
The judge in question, a gratuitously cruel hard-right Trump appointee to the bent Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals named Kyle Duncan, was invited by the hard-right Federalist Society to blather on about the successful efforts of him and his fellow hard-right Republicans to further bigotry and disease while imposing their own policy preferences on the elected political branches [Surely, it was a talk entitled “The Fifth Circuit in Conversation with the Supreme Court: Covid, Guns, and Twitter?” – Ed.]
The first outrage was that in lieu of the fawning that federal judges expect from law schools and anyone else seeking favors from them, Duncan was confronted by a Stanford Law dean who had the temerity to express, wait for it, an opposing view:
U.S. Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, a member of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an interview said he was "offended" and "disturbed" by the "deeply uncivil behavior" of the students who derailed a speech he was set to deliver, as well as that of a law school administrator who he says "attacked" him in her introductory remarks.
So his right to free speech was crushed like a cigarette butt because someone else exercised their right to free speech?
As our Torts professor used to say, “Too bad. So sad.”
The administrator's critique was directed at what the untutored might think was the subject of the meeting: the judge's decisions, which of course chapped Judge Snowflake's tender pink butt:
He also criticized a Stanford official, Tirien Steinbach, the law school's associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, who...addressed him and the crowd before the judge spoke.
 |
| This is how you deal with hecklers! |
"For many people at the 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,” she told Duncan in the video clip.
That sounds like free expression to us, but it was too much to be borne for a judge used to fawning acquiescence from everyone he comes into contact with.
But it only got worse for this titan of white jurisprudence:
Duncan said he did not get far into his planned remarks, saying he was heckled by some of the estimated 100 protesters who he said shouted at him and were carrying "vulgar" signs in some cases critical of him.
They held up signs! Oh, the cruelty. By the way, if you think free speech gives you the right to edit someone else's protest sign, maybe you should clerk on the Fifth Circuit.
And they also dared to express their views, just like Judge Snowflake. Imagine! Apparently the judge did not understand the difference between his courtroom, where he can silence anyone for any reason at any time, and a public forum, where he can't:
"I told [students] this is not going to work in a courtroom, this way of disagreement," he said. "Maybe that’s where we are going as a society, but that doesn’t work in my courtroom."
Did he not know where he was? More likely, he thought that he was entitled to the same brown-nosed deference that he gets in court, and he was sad that he didn't get it. This may be regrettable, but it is not in fact an issue of suppression of free speech.
In case you were concerned that the protesters were uncivil, you will be pleased to know that Judge Kyle gave as good as he got, at least if you think crude insults are the quintessence of reason:
Law student Tessa Silverman, who attended the protest, told Reuters that Duncan himself appeared angry and called some students "idiots," something Duncan acknowledged and repeated during Reuters' interview.
"They are idiots," he said. "They are hypocrites and they are bullies."
Doesn't sound like a hypocritical third-rate judge trying to bully students who dared to express their disagreement with him, now does it?
By the way, is there a pervasive climate at Stanford shutting down free speech when it spews out of the mouths or right-wing bullies and hatemongers?
 |
| Heckle him? Not for long! |
Right-wing political commentator Matt Walsh spoke at an event co-organized by the Stanford College Republicans (SCR) and Young America’s Foundation (YAF) at Dinkelspiel Auditorium on Wednesday night, urging the audience to reject “insane and poisonous gender ideology.”
The event came the day after Walsh joined Mississippi governor Tate Reeves on Tuesday in signing a bill that restricts youth transition-related health care. Currently, Walsh is promoting his controversial 2022 documentary titled “What Is A Woman?” The film has been criticized for its transphobic content and opposition to LGBTQ+ education in schools.
No protests materialized during the event. Instead, Walsh’s speech was countered by Community Care events hosted by several student groups on campus, including Queer Student Resources (QSR), the Women’s Community Center (WCC) and Students for the Liberation of All Peoples (SLAP).
Speaking to a crowd of around 600 people, including individuals who are not Stanford students or affiliates, Walsh said, “I’m not concerned about your feelings, I’m concerned about the truth. You are either a man or a woman. You don’t get to choose which category you belong to.”
Just pure anti-trans bigotry. And yet despite his hopes, this creep wasn't able to make a scene. And by the way, what about the rights of kids and their parents to obtain gender-affirming treatment if they believe that's right for them? That seems like a fundamental freedom to us, at least as fundamental as the right of a whacko judge to be kowtowed to every time he deigns to open his yip.
Cue the usual outrage about poor Judge Kyle and how his rights were cruelly abused by a no doubt very intimidating mob of Stanford law students and administrators. We're not going to give them any air here, but look forward to another 435 pieces on the New York Times Opinion Page, The Atlantic, Bari's Big Beautiful Blog [Louise, please confirm name – Ed.], and a thousand other points of darkness.
What you won't hear from these stooges is what the students were upset about, and whether Judge Kyle is really a sterling defender of human rights.
How about the rights of trans individuals to choose their identity and request government to respect it, which seems fairly fundamental to any conception of rights based in dignity and respect?
Stuart Kyle Duncan, a judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, issued an advisory opinion Wednesday that dismissed a transgender defendant's chosen pronouns and the broader concept of gender identity, just less than two years after LGBTQ advocates warned that Duncan would not rule fairly if confirmed to the bench....
In his majority opinion, Duncan vacated the lower court ruling that denied Jett's appeal, saying the court lacked jurisdiction, but then he proceeded to mock Jett's court motion that she be referred to using female pronouns and her new name.
That sounds deeply uncivil to us, but of course it's different if you're not a white man (anymore).
How about the right to an abortion, which was still federally protected in 2020. When extremist Greg Abbott tried to use the COVID pandemic as an excuse to force Texas women to birth unwanted children, guess where Judge Kyle landed?
In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a lower court order halting the restrictions, saying the previous ruling had not adequately considered the temporary burden on abortion access in light of the measure’s medical benefits.
“Given the extraordinary nature of these errors, the escalating spread of COVID-19, and the state’s critical interest in protecting the public health, we find the requirements for issuing the writ satisfied,” the majority said.
Judges Stuart Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee, and Jennifer Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee, sided with Texas. Judge James Dennis, a Clinton appointee, dissented.
What medical benefits? Why a mob of judges running roughshod over individual rights is OK when it happens in a Fifth Circuit courtroom, but not when it's Classroom E at Stanford Law School, is clear to Judge Kyle and his fellow defenders of free speech, but less so to us.
 |
| Stanford doesn't seem that scary to us. |
Of course, he blocked the Biden Administration from protecting workers from COVID infection by requiring vaccines despite OSHA's power to protect workers from workplace hazards. That Kyle was upheld by an equally bent Republican Supreme Court doesn't affect the essentially ideological and lawless nature of Kyle's life-threatening actions:
Acting outside of its competence and
without legal basis, the Court displaces the judgments of
the Government officials given the responsibility to respond
to workplace health emergencies.
NFIB v. OSHA (21A244, Jan. 13, 2022) , dissenting op. at 2.
The point of the performative outrage over the mean things that were said to Judge Kyle in Palo Alto is twofold. In part it furthers the narrative of reactionary white men as victims, a story that has been promulgated by white supremacists since Reconstruction.
Even more important, the endless whining helps to focus attention on the supposed white victims of intolerance and not on the real story: the attack of bent Republican judges (like Kyle) and Justices on the rule of law, the fundamental rights of minorities, and the abilities of the political branches to protect life and liberty under applicable statutes.
We're rather more worried about whether extremist hatemongers like Florida Gov. CPeeODeSantis or Mississippi mudman Gov. Tate Reeves are free to torment trans kids and their parents than about whether grandiose Republican mediocrities get the silence and deference they don't deserve.
So were the Stanford Law students. Good for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment