Weekly Report: March 19, 2023
Observations
On March 9, Stanford Law students heckled and shouted down a 5th Circuit Judge who was giving a talk hosted by the school’s student chapter of the Federalist Society. Among the grievances of the heavily progressive student body was that the judge had refused to use, in a 2020 opinion, the preferred pronouns of a transgender person who had been convicted of several offenses related to child pornography. (“In conjunction with his appeal, Varner also moves that he be addressed with female pronouns. We will deny that motion.”)
The judge was reportedly unable to complete his prepared remarks, and during question time was subjected to invective, such as the question, “I fuck men, I can find the prostate. Why can’t you find the clit?”
Apparently, when one of the school’s diversity deans arrived to “restore order,” she ended up criticizing the judge, while other administrators failed to tell protesting students to allow the judge to speak without being interrupted.
Student members of the Federalist Society were further subjected to a name and shame campaign, and allegedly “encircled” and abused at the event after federal marshals escorted the judge away.
The judge later remarked, “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m a life-tenured federal judge. What outrages me is that these kids are being treated like dog shit by fellow students and administrators.”
On March 11, the Dean of the law school, Jenny Martinez, and the University President, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, sent a written apology to the judge:
We are very clear with our students that, given our commitment to free expression, if there are speakers they disagree with, they are welcome to exercise their right to protest but not to disrupt the proceedings. Our disruption policy states that students are not allowed to “prevent the effective carrying out” of a “public event” whether by heckling or other forms of interruption.
In addition, staff members who should have enforced university policies failed to do so, and instead intervened in inappropriate ways that are not aligned with the university’s commitment to free speech.
Dean Martinez followed that up with an email to alumni clarifying the law school’s stance on free speech.
In response to the apology, “hundreds of student protestors wearing masks and all-black clothing lined the hallways outside Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez’s classroom” where she was teaching a con law class. She “arrived to find her whiteboard covered in fliers ridiculing Duncan and defending those who disrupted his speech. The fliers echoed the opinion of student activists and some administrators who claimed hecklers derailing Duncan’s talk was a form of free speech.”
“They gave us weird looks if we didn’t wear black” and join the crowd, first-year law student Luke Schumacher said. “It didn’t feel like the inclusive, belonging atmosphere that the DEI office claims to be creating.”
As a law school alumnus, I found this behavior incredibly embarrassing.
You only have to flip the roles to highlight how ridiculous it is. What if it were a left-leaning circuit judge being yelled at and insulted by a motivated group of right-leaning students? Would the same progressive students who yelled down Judge Duncan support the right’s right to do so then? I doubt it.
I am not familiar with the judge’s jurisprudence, but to be clear, with respect to the viewpoints of his that were reported by the media, I do not agree with them. But that should not matter here.
I can’t think of any other country which has a more expansive right to free speech than the U.S., and it is a fundamental enough right that it is enshrined in the constitution. However, if you seek to wield that right, you wield a double-edged sword. The same right that allows anyone to speak out on political topics without fear of government prosecution, allows other people to picket (at a distance) the funerals of gay murder victims with hate speech. But that is kind of the point. As a result, censorship is something that runs contrary to free speech values, and not letting someone talk by shouting over them en masse is a form of censorship. And, at some point, that kind of disruption can cross the line into unlawful speech—harassment, threats, slander, and the like.
Stanford is a private university and is not legally required to uphold free speech values. However, these values share much in common with the notion of academic freedom, and so it is unsurprising when Dean Martinez writes, “Freedom of speech is a bedrock principle for our community at SLS, the university, and our democratic society. … The way the event with Judge Duncan unfolded was not aligned with our institutional commitment to freedom of speech.”
It’s not clear in the reporting whether the protesters were law school students, or students from other parts of the university (events like these are normally open to all to attend). If they are law school students, what are they going to do when they become lawyers and get in front of a judge they disagree vehemently with, but still need to present a case to?
(Sidenote: Interestingly, unlike the U.S., a few countries like England and Australia, practice the “cab-rank rule” which obliges barristers to accept work from any client as long as they are competent enough to handle it, and regardless of any personal distaste the barrister may have for their client’s reputation, character, etc. “Without the cab-rank rule, an unpopular person might not get legal representation; barristers who acted for them might be criticized for doing so.” So in these countries, you not only need to have the ability to present a case respectfully in front of a judge you may personally hate, but you may also need to do it on behalf of a client you find repugnant. Not easy but, in my opinion, an important part of the justice system.)
Further Observations
- Last week’s newsletter about SVB produced the highest number of views out of all my past newsletters. The drama continued this week, with regional banks under pressure. One of the most notable among these banks is First Republic, a San Francisco-based bank that serves a lot of high net worth individuals. First Republic has been experiencing an outflow of deposits which has led to efforts to shore up its balance sheet. In addition to obtaining a $70 billion credit line, a consortium of large banks deposited $30 billion on Thursday. First Republic was reportedly also looking for an acquiror. However, those efforts failed to calm the markets, and the stock closed down for the week, reflecting skepticism that First Republic will be able to weather the storm without going into receivership.
- On the other side of the Atlantic, UBS has agreed to buy Credit Suisse for about $3.2 billion in an all stock deal which is expected to close by the end of this year. That’s 0.50 Swiss francs per share, which is about a quarter of CS’ stock price at market close on Friday.
- Everything Everywhere All at Once won seven Oscars last Sunday. Unusually, EEAAO took out most of the top shelf awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and three acting awards, despite being a sci-fi flick. Also unusual was that two Asians from the movie landed two of the acting awards: Michelle Yeoh won Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Ke Huy Quan won Best Actor in a Supporting Role. (Jamie Lee Curtis landed the award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.) Yeoh is the first Asian winner of her award in Oscars history. Harrison Ford presented the awards, which was a nice touch seeing that Ke Huy Quan last appeared on screen with him in Temple of Doom as Short Round. EEAAO is an absurdist film that I found difficult to follow at times, but it’s quite a spectacle with some memorable scenes, including one featuring butt plugs which people are doing their best to sit on.
- Strong winds caused another power outage at our home on Tuesday. It lasted 12 hours for us, but 48 hours for our kids’ preschool. Due to the recent rains saturating the ground, a lot of large trees were uprooted, leading to widespread blackouts throughout the Bay Area. We had to spend a night at a hotel again.
- In other news, Tesla has finally started selling its Powerwall on a standalone basis again. Due to supply constraints over the last couple of years, Tesla would only sell Powerwalls bundled with solar panels. The recent blackouts have pushed us towards buying a pair.
Articles
- The End of Silicon Valley (Bank) (Stratechery)
- Pornhub owner MindGeek sold to Canada’s Ethical Capital (Reuters)
Books
- Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss)
A very interesting book written by a former hostage negotiator for the FBI. It highlights the shortcomings of a more traditional “principled” approach to negotiation, where rationality rules the day, and focuses more on the emotional and human aspects of negotiation. Voss asserts that compromising (”splitting the difference”) is a cheap way out that often leads to sub-optimal results for both parties. Sometimes there’s a way to get all of what you want, even when it appears you have little or no leverage, and without blowing up the relationship.
Hotels
- Residence Inn by Marriott San Mateo – San Francisco Airport (San Mateo)
Unfortunately, the nearer (and nicer) Residence Inn we stayed at during the last power outage was all booked out. This hotel is older, but still pretty well equipped and pretty good to work from. We got upgraded to a two bedroom, two bathroom suite split over two levels.
9:00pm 
