In the wake of a rowdy protest which disrupted the events of a student Federalist Society event being hosted at Sanford University, one of the deans for the school ordered students that were “traumatized” by the ordeal to seek “safety and mental health” support from the dean that took part in the protests.
Recently, Kyle Duncan, a Fifth Circuit appellate judge, was slated to speak. When he called on a school administration to deal with the extremely rowdy crowd of protesters, he ended up getting Tirien Steinbach, the Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — and she promptly joined the crowd of protesters in verbally assaulting the speaker.
As explained in a recent report that was published this past Sunday in the Washington Free Beacon, Stanford Law School Associate Dean Jeanne Merino issued an email to the leadership of the campus Federalist Society just a scant few hours after the event took place. In the letter, Merino unveiled that a few of the members of the Federalist Society had raised some fairly hefty concerns for their safety, and she suggested a number of resources that they could make use of while trying to process the events from the day.
“Dr. Alejandro Martinez, a clinical psychologist with 30+ years at Stanford, is available to counsel students who are not feeling safe,” stated Merino in the letter. “He can read social media interactions and direct communications to assess whether the implied or actual threats are likely to become a reality.”
Merino continued on to suggest that any students who “would like support or would like to process last week’s events” should fully reach out to her directly or to a number of other staffers — which includes DEI Associate Dean Steinbach.
Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University Law Professor, reacted to the breaking news by stating that it was particularly “tone deaf.”
“In what may be the most tone deaf response to an academic scandal in history, Stanford is advising students upset by the canceling of a conservative event that they can ‘reach out’ to DEI Dean Tirien Steinbach who condemned the event …” explained Turley in a tweet.
…It is akin to the Oscars telling Chris Rock that Will Smith is available as an emotional support coach. You know what is emotionally therapeutic for those denied free speech? Free speech.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 13, 2023
“It is akin to the Oscars telling Chris Rock that Will Smith is available as an emotional support coach. You know what is emotionally therapeutic for those denied free speech? Free speech,” he went on to add.
Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez stepped up to issue an apology for the incident to Judge Duncan, stating, “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.”
