We're still sorting through the fallout of Judge Kyle Duncan's recent speech at Stanford Law School, where the federal judge repeatedly dueled with a group of student protestors, leading Duncan to walk out of the event early, Stanford to issue a public apology, and the rest of us to try and jigsaw Twitter videos together to figure out exactly what happened.
A lot of the open questions revolve around, "How should Stanford respond?" Should they fire Tirien Steinbach, the Law School's Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion who controversially joined the students in their berating of Duncan rather than completely deescalating the situation? Should they do more to prevent these sort of protests from igniting at future events? Should they punish any of the student groups involved?
And I have come to my conclusion on what I think Stanford should do: nothing. Sure, things got a bit messy, but college is allowed to be messy. It's supposed to be a hot bed of ideas that occasionally clash in eruptive ways, and when that happens, everyone learns a little bit. In fact, if there's anything I think Stanford should do to respond, I think they should invite more controversial speakers to campus. A lot of people recognize that when colleges invite guest speakers, they're giving those speakers a platform to voice possibly hurtful views, but it's just as much an opportunity for the students to practice how they’ll respond to those hurtful views. And if this was a practice, the students failed. Yes, I've seen the videos that prove some students were genuinely trying to spur some productive discourse with Duncan, and that's really great. And yes, I think Duncan showed up to the room ready to pick a fight, and he's clearly just a bit of a dick. But if you're at Stanford Law, your goal is to graduate as a remarkably composed, articulate, and rationale thinker who can always stay in-control of a room and an argument, and that's a string of words I'm not sure I'd use about those involved in this incident. There's room to improve, and the only way to improve is to get more practice.
Same time next week?
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