By Chris Satullo
Those of us of a certain age recall a famous trope from the Peanuts comic strip. The little rotter Lucy would cajole Charlie Brown to try one more time to kick the football, promising that this time she wouldn’t pull the ball away just as he flailed at it.
Of course, she always pulled it away. Flat on his back, muttering, Charlie always looked like an idiot. And Lucy always looked like a jerk.
Which brings me, of course, to the recent flap at Stanford University’s law school.
In case you missed it, the Stanford chapter of the conservative Federalist Society invited Stuart Kyle Duncan, a judge on the U.S. Appeals Court of the Fifth Circuit, to speak on campus on March 9. Judge Duncan has written or endorsed any number of court opinions on hot-button issues that a number of left-leaning Stanford Law students find appalling.
So, those students protested Duncan’s appearance on campus, holding signs outside the venue and chanting insults at those who dared to go in. Later, some of the protestors went in themselves, to heckle Duncan and disrupt the event.
Duncan seemed to be spoiling for the fight and, frankly, acted like a jerk for most of the episode. At one point, he called out for an administrator to step up and bring order.
In what came across as a planned maneuver (she’s seen on video pulling prepared remarks out of a folder), a Stanford dean for “diversity, equity and inclusion” stepped forward to give what had to have been the most tepid endorsement of free speech in American university history. Asking whether “the juice was worth the squeeze,” she affirmed Duncan had a nominal right to speak, but said the real question was whether anything he might have to say could outweigh the “pain” and “harm” and “damage to their sense of belonging” that his mere presence, let alone his troglodyte words, would inflict on students.
Her disingenuous performance gave new weight to the old joke that Ph.D. really stands for Piled Higher and Deeper.
This sad episode has many other twists, including an intimidating masked protest by students against another dean who had the temerity to write Duncan a letter of apology. I can’t replay the whole saga in this space. You can see more detail here, here, here or here.
Some points I’d like to make:
* I make no brief for the Federalist Society. I find its views on the proper interpretation of our Constitution to be flawed, ahistorical and often damaging to our country. At the same time, I recognize that many hold those views sincerely and in good faith. I don’t want to shout down or muzzle such people. I want to question and counter them in a civil forum that will persuade the fair-minded that I have the sounder viewpoint. No matter what I think, I must recognize a plain truth: A majority of the Supreme Court and a significant chunk of the federal judiciary agree with the society’s views. As such, they are significant and can’t be dismissed as fringe or out of bounds for discussion on the campus of a major American university.
There’s a vogue now on campuses to pretend that inviting a controversial viewpoint, or even allowing it to be voiced, constitutes an institutional “endorsement” of the view. That’s arrant nonsense. Defending the free speech rights of a Federalist Society judge is simply acknowledging that his views are held by a significant portion of the country and thus have a place in any serious discussion of the issues.
Also, the university didn’t invite him; a student organization did. If you create a standard whereby speakers can be barred from campus any time a large and rowdy group dislikes what they might say, I promise you will absolutely hate what happens when the other team has its chance to be in charge. (You don’t have to imagine that outcome; just watch Ron DeSantis doing his thing in Florida.)
* The diversity-equity-inclusion dean’s prattle relied on a vocabulary and mindset that are as widespread on campuses as they are ridiculous and damaging. She opined that merely hearing someone express views with which students disagree will cause them pain, harm, trauma and other untreatable, unspecified psychic wounds.
Hmmm. Isn’t being introduced to new thoughts and ideas the very definition of a college education? If you can’t handle it, save your parents $400k, don’t attend and find work as a barista.
The DEI dean’s riff was an anti-intellectual, infantilizing way to treat even freshmen, let alone law students who someday may have to argue a case in front of a judge who never misses a Federalist Society dinner.
Hearing views that you’ve never heard before, or that you disagree with, doesn’t harm you. It invites you to listen well, to learn both the strengths and weaknesses of an opposing view, then to respond with better, sharper arguments to win the day. That’s what effective lawyers do, not chant insults and wear masks while stopping up their ears. (To be fair to the Stanford students, some of them did eventually pose some tough, fair questions to the judge about his votes on cases – and his responses were wanting, to say the least.) Which leads me to the next point:
*This did smell like a set-up engineered by the conservatives – like Lucy cajoling Charlie Brown to give the kickoff one more try. Judge Duncan clearly was ready to rumble from the outset. Some students had their phones out to capture video of whatever went down, suitable for embedding on conservative blogs and for replaying on Fox News’ nighttime lineup.
One of the wisest rules to take shape during the Internet era is: Don’t feed the trolls. Provoking dubious, hyperemotional responses from the other side so that you can claim that you “owned the libs” has become the raison d’etre of a shocking number of conservative activists, publications and politicians. Why do progressives, particularly younger ones, insist on falling for this gambit, a la Charlie Brown, time and time again?
Being rude or losing your cool is never a good look if you’re trying to persuade the undecided that you’re on the side of the angels. Sad to say, though, very few college students are being given the message that persuading the masses, rather than performing for your Twitter mob, is the most meaningful goal of activism.
* Some bloggers on the left have defended the Stanford students – and other similarly disruptive protestors – by citing a free speech right to protest and arguing that the other side’s views are such an obscene affront that it’s unreasonable to expect protests to stay civil.
First off, let’s affirm that, of course, the right to protest sits at the heart of the First Amendment. But to affirm that a right exists, and should be upheld stoutly, is far from agreeing that every way that people choose to exercise it is wise or productive (cf. 1978, when Nazis sought to march in Skokie, Illinois).
Protest signs outside, even pungently worded ones, are fine. Seeking to intimidate or humiliate people who are trying to attend a speech inches close to, or just over, the line. (Do you really want to emulate the moves of pro-lifers outside abortion clinics?)
Exercising the “hecklers’ veto,” seeking to disrupt a speech so that no one can hear it, is way over the line. Defend that practice as justified and you will soon be appalled by all the painful ways pugnacious conservative activists find to exploit the opening you’ve created.
Few in this Stanford fiasco behaved well, save the law school dean, whose wise apology to the judge – who may not have deserved it personally, but whose office surely did – earned her an appalling show of disrespect from her self-righteous young charges.
What can we learn from these follies? How about: Don’t feed the trolls. Be smarter than Charlie Brown. And uphold free speech, even when it hurts – because opposing the people you’re pleased to call “fascists” by adopting genuinely fascist tactics is not a strategy that will end well.
—
Chris Satullo, a civic engagement consultant, is a former editorial page editor/columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a former vice president/news at WHYY public media in Philadelphia