Student Activists Target Stanford Law School Dean in Revolt Over Her Apology

On Monday, hundreds of Stanford student activists protested Jenny Martinez, the dean of the law school, for her apology to Kyle Duncan, the Fifth Circuit appellate judge, which the activists had criticized. Screamed down Last week. 

According to multiple eyewitness accounts and photos, the whiteboard was covered in flyers attacking Duncan. Fliers repeated the argument made by student activists that the heckler’s right to veto was a form free speech.

“We, the students in your constitutional law class, are sorry for exercising our 1st Amendment rights,” Some fliers are read. Stanford is a private school of law and is not bound to the First Amendment.

After Marc Tessier Lavigne, Stanford University president, had issued an open letter condemning Martinez, the protest was sparked by a torrent of student activists who spent the weekend writing angry letters to Martinez. formal apology Duncan condemned the students who interrupted his talk, and those administrators who stood silently and watched as they did so. 

Tirien Steinbach, associate dean for diversity, equity, inclusion and inclusion at the law school, was also mentioned in the apology. He interrupted Duncan to lecture on the topic. “harm” he’d caused.

Martinez’s class was adjourned Monday by the protesters who were dressed in black with face masks and wearing black clothing. “counter-speech is free speech,” Martinez stared at her silently as she left her first-year constitutional legal law class at 11:00 am, according to five students. The incident was witnessed by many. The students said that the student protesters formed a human walkway from Martinez’s class to the building’s entrance. Washington Free Beacon. 

The majority of Martinez’s class—approximately 50 students out of the 60 enrolled—participated in the protest themselves, two students in the class said. The few students who did not join the protesters got the same staredown as their professors as they raced through the maze of shame.

“They gave us weird looks if we didn’t wear black” Luke Schumacher said, “Join the crowd!” a first-year law student Martinez’s class declined to take part in the protest. “It didn’t feel like the inclusive, belonging atmosphere that the DEI office claims to be creating.”

Another student in the class, who declined to protest, also said that the spectacle was surreal. “It was eerie,” The student requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “The protesters were silent, staring from behind their masks at everyone who chose not to protest, including the dean.” 

Ironically, however, the student added “this form of protest would have been completely fine” Duncan’s talk on Thursday 

Martinez didn’t respond to our request for comment.

This protest was larger than that which disrupted Duncan’s talk and it came on the heels At least three student groups have offered statements of repentance to Martinez’s apology. 

Stanford National Lawyers Guild Martinez had thrown Saturday “capable and compassionate administrators” under the bus. Stanford’s apology to Duncan was also made by the Immigration & Human Rights Law Association of law school. “has only made this situation worse.” Stanford Law School’s Chapter of the American Constitution Society Expressions of outrage Martinez and Tessier Lavigne had framed Duncan “as a victim, when in fact he himself had made civil dialogue impossible.” 

Both groups argued that the students who disrupted Duncan in violation Stanford’s free speech policies were simply exercising their rights to free speech. Denni Arnold (second-year law student) coordinated the disruption. Video Instructing protesters “tone down the heckling slightly so we can get to our questions.” 

Arnold didn’t respond to our request for comment.

The idea that the protesters were exercising their free speech—rather than shutting down someone else’s—appears to be shared by Steinbach, the diversity dean who harangued Duncan. 

Two people who saw the conversation said Steinbach claimed that the hecklers didn’t have violated any school policies in a conversation with students following the event. She also alleged that Duncan hadn’t prepared a speech—a claim contradicted by video of the judge holding pages of pre-written remarks—and that he was a serial provocateur, belittling law students everywhere he’s spoken in order to rile them up for the cameras. 

Steinbach did not respond to our request for comment. However, witnesses said that he laid all the blame on Duncan for the chaos.

Martinez admitted that she had received many emails complaining about Duncan’s apology, but said that students would not be litigating the matter in her class on Monday. 

Schumacher explained that Martinez had left the building after which the protestors began to cheer, cry and hug each other. “We are creating a hostile environment at this law school,” Schumacher said—”hostile for anyone who thinks an Article III judge should be able to speak without heckling.”