John did a very nice write-up about the kerfuffle at Stanford Law School. He covered the events and did an update with the apology issued by the Law School. There is no need for me to cover the same ground–if you need the specifics I commend his piece to you.

My concern here is not what happened, but rather what didn’t. And what didn’t happen was the use of Stanford’s authority to enforce the standards, principles, and basic rules of civility that must be maintained at any institution that purports to prepare students to participate in the legal system.

Students violated all the standards that are the bedrock for the functioning of either an educational institution or our legal system. Mob justice was administered by the students and some Stanford officials, and Stanford reluctantly apologized without punishing the wrongdoers.

Here is Stanford’s weak apology:

Stanford is the second-ranked law school after Yale. Its graduates go on to become law clerks, judges, and high-priced lawyers across the nation. As with Harvard and Yale, Stanford students are supposed to be the best of the best.

They behaved like spoiled 4-year-olds, not future judges. The Stanford Law School officials who were in the room and even participated in the shameful affair are embarrassments to the profession.

A @StanfordLaw student made this outrageous statement to a federal appellate judge invited to speak.

And 4 Stanford Law administrators, including 2 deans, sat and watched this happen.

They should all get fired.

These students must get expelled.

Stanford Law is a woke joke. https://t.co/cU8PiiwBuB pic.twitter.com/KV0OJ6jOMD

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) March 11, 2023

Stanford Law School students aren’t children. They are one step away from becoming integral members of the legal system in the United States. What became clear is that Stanford is teaching is not adherence to the rule of law or to justice, but rather to mob rule.

Legal systems exist to prevent mob rule, not enforce it. A functioning legal system is one of the pillars of civilization because the alternative is the rule of the strongest or, in the worst case, the war of all against all.

Legal systems cannot ensure that justice is achieved; what they can do at their best is assure everybody that the system that strives to achieve justice is fair and fairly administered. Screaming, shouting down, insulting, and eventually driving out a U.S. federal judge from giving a lecture at a law school assures anybody who watched it that the next generation of elite lawyers, some of whom may become judges, are tyrannical.

Stanford is teaching them to be that. Law school Deans and administrators either watched silently or even participated in the farce, and not one of them has yet been punished. The “apology” from the school is weak and totally ineffectual. If the law school were genuinely sorry instead of doing damage control, the institution would enforce its rules.

Firing law school employees and expelling the offending students would be neither arbitrary nor excessive. Stanford has rules that supposedly prohibit behavior far less egregious than we saw. Punishing people for breaking rules is standard practice and absolutely in line with the mission of a school that supposedly teaches people how to enforce the law properly.

The president of Stanford wrote in his apology of Stanford’s commitment to the principle of free speech. “Commitment” is not a word to be thrown around lightly; it must be backed up by deeds, or it isn’t a commitment. It is empty. Worthless. Meaningless syllables are as evanescent as the puff of air being displaced by a butterfly’s beating wing. Gone before it’s even noticeable.

If I had my druthers Stanford’s accreditation would hinge on enforcing its policies on speech and decorum. It is, after all, a law school and not a theater program. If laws and rules mean nothing to the students and administrators they have no business being within a thousand miles of a court.

The principles involved are not intrinsically Left or Right. Until recently liberals were absolutely committed to free speech, to a greater extent than conservatives at the time.

But the fundamental idea that motivates moderns leftists is that the ends justify the means, and the end is nothing short of owning all the power in society.

They are remarkably close to attaining that goal.

Let’s be real. If a group of conservative Stanford law students shouted down a federal judge w/ obscenities & mocked their sex life while a Dean watched & praised them, there’d be front page stories on fascism, the Dean would be fired, & they’d be expelled & banished from big law https://t.co/7P5MC9oIVh pic.twitter.com/VwSM3RcRYX

— David Decosimo (@DavidDecosimo) March 11, 2023