Stanford case study: What happened to open inquiry in liberalism?
In the wake of Stanford University’s free speech colloquies (following aggressive responses to a conservative guest speaker), Daniel McCarthy of the NY Post digs into Leftism’s dangers. Whereas classical liberalists openly debate their positions, contemporary Leftists feel attacked by “simply not-left-wing speech”—so they belligerently silence any detection of difference, at any cost.
The only surprise at Stanford is that the president was embarrassed enough to apologize.
He’s promised it won’t happen again.
But it will — maybe not at Stanford right away, but somewhere.
Perhaps the next time a conservative gets canceled on campus will be when Michael Knowles debates Deirdre McCloskey on transgenderism and womanhood at the University of Pittsburgh next month.
When Knowles told an audience at CPAC this month that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely,” freelance censors of the activist student left set out to cancel any speaking engagements he might have coming up.
As it happens, the educational organization I work for, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, already had him booked for the debate at Pitt with McCloskey.
Deirdre was once Donald, but Prof. McCloskey, a prominent economist, is also a committed liberal of the classical variety and hasn’t backed out of what now promises to be an even more incendiary debate.
But that’s the thing about debate: It can be hot without being harmful.
Liberals of the older variety were, and are, even open to debating liberalism itself.
Duncan received a letter of apology from Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne and law school dean Jenny Martinez.
This is shocking to younger liberals — who, unlike their parents or grandparents, have never actually encountered fascism or Jim Crow or illiberalism of any concretely harmful kind.
Somehow the more pervasive left-wing attitudes become, the more young people of the left feel threatened.
Even as they feel their safety is endangered by right-wing or simply not-left-wing speech, they discount the real violence unleashed in cities across America by liberals’ tolerance of crime and intolerance of police.
This article originally appeared in the New York Post. Read the whole thing here.
This article is part of an Opp Now series on the Stanford Law free speech scandal—and its aftermath:
Fifth Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan was shouted down last week at a Stanford Law School event, and the disruption was supported by Associate Dean of DEI Tirien Steinbach. David Lat's exceptional Original Jurisdiction has the whole story here.
Tim Rosenberger, Jr., president of Stanford Law’s Federalist Society chapter, breaks down Stanford’s dangerously “comfort”-driven student/faculty culture.
Campus Reform reports that a group of Stanford students are urging the university to dismiss DEI Dean Steinbach.
Opp Now analyzes Stanford Law’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Spoiler alert: They, and heckler-sympathizer Dean Steinbach, may not be doing all that much.
TXEER Politics and Religion Board user pvbmtnr considers the binary thinking separating free speech and DEI—as especially located in Dean Steinbach’s WSJ defense piece.
Tim Rosenberger, Jr. assesses why a few prominent judges have announced they will stop hiring Stanford Law grads.
John Banzhaf is brandishing the potentially career-killing threat of bar complaints against Stanford Law students who heckled federal judge Kyle Duncan.
Reason's Josh Blackman unravels how DEI has stuck its nose into all issues possibly correlated with discrimination (big surprise: it's most of them).
Campus Reform breaks down DEI Dean Steinbach's rampant—and easily accessible—history of opposing law enforcement, criminal justice systems, and, yes, the “patriarchy.”
Stanford's Federalist Society student org president Tim Rosenberger, Jr. discusses how labeling all nonconformists as “far-right” is divisive.
Althouse explains why these university scandals continue happening: As the extremists get louder, the moderates get quieter.
After Stanford's free speech disaster, many are questioning if DEI jobs belong in education, including past USD board runner Zoila Herrera Rollins.
The Free Press’s Bari Weiss unpacks why we should pay attention to universities’ free speech incidents: Young people are powerfully shaping our institutions—and our collective future.
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