Stanford Law Responds to Threats – Too Little Too Late; DEI Dean Gone, Indoctrination Scheduled, But No Student Discipline
Stanford Law School Reponds
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 22, 2023) – Faced with a growing chorus of objections and complaints – and several threats – about Stanford Law School‘s lack of response to the admitted gross violation of its free speech policies when a federal judge invited to address the students was shouted down, the Dean has now responded, but her actions may be too little and too late.
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In a 10-page letter which comes only after 13 days of inaction and great pressure from many quarters, Dean Martinez has finally decided not to discipline the students whom she admits violated the school's written free speech policy and the First Amendment (to the extent it applies to Stanford under a statute).
Instead, the entire student body will be receive a "mandatory half-day" indoctrination ["session"] on what the school will assert are "freedom of speech and the norms of the legal profession."
Public interest law professor John Banzhaf, who has advised Stanford of his intent to file complaints - as several commentators had suggested and some schools have in fact done - against the students responsible for the disruption with bar admission authorities.
Notes that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has asked the Texas bar board should "take particular care" for students graduating from Stanford Law School during the next three years, and to require them to state in writing - presumably subject to penalties for lying - if they participated in the disruption.
In addition, U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho, and U.S. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch announced that students who engage in such behavior should be subject to future professional consequences for their “intolerance.”
They wrote that schools should “at a minimum […] identify the disrupters so that future employers know who they are hiring” and “inform employers if they’re injecting potentially disruptive forces into their organizations.”
Banzhaf reports that California bar authorities have indicated that they will thoroughly investigate any incident which might reflect on the applicant's "respect for the rights of others and for the judicial process."
He has filed many successful complaints including those leading to the ban on cigarette commercials, the current criminal investigation of Trump in Georgia, the House’s reprimand of Barney Frank, the discontinuance of wrongful police prosecutions in Baltimore, a $12 million settlement by McDonald’s, the $300 million settlement which established FAMRI, and more.
