Recently, the Stanford Law Federalist Society invited Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan to speak at Stanford. I know nothing of Judge Duncan’s jurisprudence but, as a lawyer, his treatment by a faction of aggrieved Stanford students and administrators not only shocks me but scares me. It reminds me of Mao’s Cultural Revolution or Pol Pot’s Killing Fields with its pretensions to a moral sanctity that condemns the past based on a purported superior vision of the future. What scares me the most is the protestors’ rejection of reasoned advocacy within our judicial system and their opting instead for the bullying heckler’s veto. Because it’s a rejection of your fundamental commitment as a lawyer - your agreement to advocate your cause within the boundaries of our legal system, and not engage in external threats to it, whether explicit or implicit.
Stanford has pretensions to being an elite law school but based on its treatment of Judge Duncan it’s not training lawyers it’s training brats. First, if you’re going to freak out as a lawyer every time a court rules in a way you don’t like you’re going to spend your life as a freak. News flash: courts rule against your pet cause all the time. Should we destroy them, and the judges we don’t like, because of it? If we do that, what’s your replacement system for resolving our disputes? Your inner wisdom? No thanks, you may think you’re Jesus but I think you're a fascist, and a spoiled brat to boot.
The rejection of violence and mob rule is why lawyers and courts evolved. Our legal system represents a rejection of the blood feud and irrational decision-making. It’s not perfect, but it’s a far better dispute resolution system (assuming you reject violence) than angry mobs clashing. And when I look at the Stanford Law students disrespectfully protesting Judge Duncan I see a blood feud. Our legal system requires respect for all the players, even if that respect is artificial. It breaks down when we verbally harangue judges like what happened at Stanford.
What happened at Stanford Law represents a rejection of the legal process and rule of law. A weak, lazy one at that, because it substitutes tantrums for argument and the much harder work of changing the law for the betterment of society. Imagine if Thurgood Marshall, and the NAACP, had spent all their energy crying rather than litigating: Brown v. Board of Education would never have happened. Marshall didn’t whine, he and his colleagues got to work. The hard work of lawyers in the face of injustice. Marshall was a great lawyer and judge. Maybe one day one of those protesting Stanford Law brats will match him, but not until they grow up.
"I know nothing of Judge Duncan’s jurisprudence but" -- I understand that your critique is structural, so the substance of Judge Duncan's jurisprudence doesn't matter to it.
However, you go on to state that "Because it’s a rejection of your fundamental commitment as a lawyer - your agreement to advocate your cause within the boundaries of our legal system, and not engage in external threats to it, whether explicit or implicit."
Given this, what do you make of Judge Duncan's media tour after the fact? It seems he used his access to a larger, non-judicial megaphone to make his case in the court of public opinion. Is this more or less acceptably within the bounds you describe above?
Furthermore, to the substance of the event itself, what do you make of Judge Duncan's apparent unwillingness to answer questions when asked (yes, I've listened to the full audio, and this is my assessment, although there are plenty of opinion pieces on both sides of that argument)? Was his duty to engage meaningfully discharged when decorum was breached? It's not obvious Judge Duncan was prepared to engage in good faith with opposing view points at any point in this process -- is he entitled to a platform free of challenge or question when invited to speak?