In the wake of the shout down of a guest speaker from a federal appeals court, Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez and University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne apologized and pledged to honor Stanford’s policies against hecklers suppressing speech. Martinez said it was ill-advised to set precedents for suppressing speech as that power could be redirected to suppress the views of “marginalized groups.” (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, March 22, 2023, by Talia Barnes and Jessica Wills)
Conservative commentator David French in The New York Times, March 23, 2023, said the disruption at Stanford was mob censorship rather than free speech. French said the problem is partly that the elite law schools are progressive, and “ideological dominance of any kind can breed groupthink and intolerance.” This can lead to a disdain of the views of others and missed opportunities to better counter the ideas they oppose.
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