Yale Law Dean: Hysterical Leftist's Disruption of Panel Didn't Violate School's Free Speech Policy

Alana MastrangeloMarch 31, 2022

Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken says the recent disruption of a bipartisan panel about civil liberties by hysterical woke leftists — where one student screeched “I will literally fight you, bitch” — did not violate the school’s free speech policy.

Earlier this month, nearly 120 woke Yale Law School students disrupted a bipartisan panel by trying to shout down and intimidate the speakers who later had to be escorted out of the building by police. One of America’s best and brightest future Ivy League graduates screeched at the conservative panelist: “I will literally fight you, bitch!”

Yale (Getty Images/Win McNamee)

Dean Gerken said that while she found the student outburst “unacceptable,” and a violation of “the norms of this Law School,” it was nonetheless not a violation of the school’s free speech policy.

“Under the University’s free expression policy, student groups have every right to invite speakers to campus, and others have every right to voice opposition,” Gerken said in a campus-wide email.

“Our commitment to free speech is clear and unwavering,” the dean added. “Because unfettered debate is essential to our mission, we allow people to speak even when their speech is flatly inconsistent with our core values.”

Gerken went on to say that “had the protesters shut down the event, our course of action would have been straightforward — the offending students without question would have been subject to discipline.”

The dean also acknowledged that “several students engaged in rude and insulting behavior as the event began,” and that “a number made excessive noise in our hallways that interfered with several events taking place,” adding that “some refused to listen to our staff.”

“YLS is a professional school, and this is not how lawyers interact,” Gerken affirmed. “We are also a community that respects our faculty and staff who have devoted their lives to helping students.”

“Professor Kate Stith, Dean Mike Thompson, and other members of the staff should not have been treated as they were,” the dean continued. “I expect far more from our students, and I want to state unequivocally that this cannot happen again.”

“The deeper issues embedded in this event are not unique to Yale Law School — they plague our democracy and institutions across the country,” Gerken added.

Yale Law School hosted the bipartisan panel on March 10 in hopes to show students that a liberal atheist and a conservative Christian can find common ground on free speech issues. The panel featured Kristen Waggoner from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and Monica Miller with the progressive American Humanist Association.

But nearly 120 law students showed up to protest the event, shouting down speakers, and pounding on the walls, with at least one student issuing a threat. The outburst prompted law professor Kate Stith to tell the student to “grow up,” which elicited a response of simultaneous jeering from the student protesters.

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In reaction to the disruption, a D.C. circuit judge urged his colleagues to “carefully consider” whether the Yale Law School students who were seen hysterically shouting down a bipartisan panel discussion on free speech last week “should be disqualified from potential clerkships.”

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