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Lawyers Who Eat Their Own
The supposedly spontaneous student protest at Stanford Law School was more insidious than it first appeared. It was disturbing enough that students shouted down federal judge Kyle Duncan, preventing him from speaking at all. But the protest was part of a nationwide effort by the National Lawyers Guild, an organization that has a long history of Marxist and anti-American activity.
And their work is not finished. This article provides a background on the NLG, but I’ve selected a few paragraphs that explain how dangerous they are. Please note that the NLG was organized as an alternative to the American Bar Association in the 1930s:
In 1948, the Guild ‘supported the establishment of the State Israel’ because that was the position of the Soviet Union. In 1967, the Soviet Union began to turn against Israel and increased support for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), so did the Guild. Since that time, the Guild has been a strong supporter of Palestinian terrorism and other efforts to destroy Israel.The Guild has never abandoned its Marxist-Leninist provenance. It supports Antifa, which also employs violence to disrupt speakers.Jenny Martinez, Dean of Stanford Law School
The National Lawyers Guild is not a liberal organization. It does not support civil liberties, due process or freedom of speech. It is the epitome of ‘free speech for me but not for thee.’ It will not be swayed by the argument that hateful, dangerous speech should be tolerated at any cost, and defines such speech broadly to include judicial decisions by Judge Duncan.
The NLG made the following statement in 2020:
‘The United States government is based on and dedicated to preserving white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy and imperialism… US uses its various government agencies to implement its policies and crush political resistance.’
The organization tries to disguise its intentions:
It disguises its most extreme positions when presenting itself to the public, but advertises them to its members. It also hides from the public the fact that despite its name, the membership Guild consists primarily of non-lawyers. When it was truly a lawyers’ organization, it was slightly more centrist. And then in the 1970s, the Guild opened its membership to ‘jailhouse lawyers’ (who are not lawyers), legal workers (who are not lawyers), law students (who are not yet lawyers) and anyone else who works with or for lawyers or law firms.
The Guild has more than 100 chapters in American law schools. It has already been behind disruptions at Yale, Georgetown, and now Stanford.
Here is one statement from their website, nlg.org:
The stage has been set for open and potentially violent conflicts between supporters of the far right’s creeping fascism and those who oppose their hateful agendas. But while most media coverage has painted both the alt-right and antifa as ‘fringe groups’ comprised of political extremists looking for a fight, their differences should be given serious consideration. The alt-right advocates a white nationalist ethno-state that would violently exclude most Americans. In contrast, antifa and the broader left are fighting to defend all those who would be targeted under a fascist regime. Indeed, support for anti-fascist actions extends far beyond the masked antifa who are most visible. Many immigrants, people of color, and others in vulnerable legal positions cannot participate in these confrontations for their own safety, but benefit from the risks taken by those with more privilege.
Meanwhile, criticisms of the NLG are coming from all sides, directly and indirectly. When members of the Stanford NLG board protested their photographs being published, a reporter from the Washington Free Beacon set them straight:
‘As we explain in our editorial: ‘California is a two-party consent state for the recording of oral communications, not photographs, and even that only pertains to situations in which there is a presumption of privacy,’’ he wrote. ‘There is no presumption of privacy in a law school classroom where student activists are snapping photographs and posting them to Instagram, especially in the wake of a nationally televised protest at your law school.’’
And then there is the notorious assistant dean of DEI, who was clearly aligned with the NLG. She has tried to defend her words and actions, and wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. Here, in part, is what she wrote:
By the time Judge Duncan asked for an administrator to intervene, tempers in the room were heated on both sides.
I stepped up to the podium to deploy the de-escalation techniques in which I have been trained, which include getting the parties to look past conflict and see each other as people. My intention wasn’t to confront Judge Duncan or the protesters but to give voice to the students so that they could stop shouting and engage in respectful dialogue.
This statement is so disingenuous on its face that I will refrain from writing my comments. Let me just say that her speech was prepared in advance, so she knew there would be a disruption. The good news is that she has been suspended by the law school dean, Jenny Martinez.
In trying to allow time for tempers to cool, Dean Martinez didn’t respond immediately, but since the response to the event remained heated, I’ll give you an idea of her email response to Judge Duncan, Asst. Dean Steinbach, to professors and university students. She writes extensively on the reasons that the protest was a violation, not a following of, the First Amendment.
First, she wrote an apology to Judge Duncan that was powerful and precise. She also stated that university staff failed to step in and enforce the university’s disruption policies. Then she wrote this statement:
At the same time, I want to set expectations clearly going forward: our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is not going to take the form of having the school administration announce institutional positions on a wide range of current social and political issues, make frequent institutional statements about current news events, or exclude or condemn speakers who hold views on social and political issues with whom some or even many in our community disagree. I believe that focus on these types of actions as the hallmark of an ‘inclusive’ environment can lead to creating and enforcing an institutional orthodoxy that is not only at odds with our core commitment to academic freedom, but also that would create an echo chamber that ill prepares students to go out into and act as effective advocates in a society that disagrees about many important issues.
She also included a half-day mandatory training “on the topic of freedom of speech and the norms of the legal profession.” Unlike many of these training sessions, I believe the Dean is stressing that the next time this type of disruption occurs, people will have been expected to know the rules, and steps will be taken to hold them accountable.
* * * *
In some ways, the protest at Stanford, in all its absurdity and ugliness, was prescient. It has given everyone all over the country a warning that at least one elite law school is going to defend the First Amendment as it was intended to be followed. Whether law practices and justices take these violations into account when hiring clerks and new attorneys will be interesting to see. Time will tell whether Stanford continues to stand up for the First Amendment, and whether other schools stop the National Lawyers Guild from doing more damage to it.
Published in Law
Everyone of those law students who shouted down the judge (and is some cases threatened him should have been expelled from the school. In addition, that DIE Dean who chastised the judge should have been fired. Sans that these sort of “demonstrations” will continue at these elite institutions.
It’s just my guess, but credentialing fascists for all roles in our legal system may not turn out well. Note I said “credentialing” not educating.
I suspect that it being a law school, the dean may have given a warning and the mandatory training as a first step. Let’s see students protest again and try to say they didn’t know the rules. And the Assistant Dean–it may not be over yet.
I would love to see the Federalist Society invite a conservative guest to speak again. I wonder if Judge Duncan would give it another try, just to see what would happen . . .
I wouldn’t if I were him, but I sure would like to test out the impact of Dean Martinez’s statements; then again, she might want the “mandatory training” to take place first.
I’d like to see Judge Duncan not only invited back to speak, but also to be the keynote speaker in their half-day “training” on free speech.
[dual comment]
Ooohhhh, cool! Works for me!
Back in 2016, Ohio State Vice President Jay Kasey informed a bunch of hammerheads who were occupying buildings at OSU that if they didn’t disperse, they’d be arrested and expelled.
They dispersed. But they whined about it.
The impression I got from the Dean is that it wasn’t completely clear who was violating the First Amendment and breaking their rules and who wasn’t. I think this time she’s erring on the side of caution rather than inviting a bunch more protests. I suspect they will be better prepared next time: maybe more cameras, mikes, etc. Not saying I agree–I would have loved to see them thrown in jail. But we’ll see . . .
I am not convinced that Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and the other “law schools” have learned anything good. The statements made are cheap, and I doubt the speakers believe them. I know people I respect believe that the upcoming Stanford seminar demonstrates a commitment to free speech and other foundational American principles. But I see the rot has having burrowed so deep in those places that I’m not sure the rot can be excised.
It was not a small number of students that assaulted Judge Duncan. It was a large percentage of the student body, which tells me that the law school (and its feeder universities) is seriously maleducating students. Such serious maleducation is possible only if the institution is rotten to the core. Disruptions at Yale were slightly smaller in scale, but still big enough to illustrate that the rot is widespread. Georgetown’s administration openly prohibits basic American legal principles. The prospect is not good.
DEI (Division, Exclusion, and Intolerance) is fundamentally opposed to American legal principles. That law schools have embraced such opposition to the rule of law and to individual liberty is going to make rebuilding America difficult until those law schools are destroyed and new ones built.
[When I was in law school in the late 1970s we had a chapter of the National Lawyers Guild at my small law school. The local chapter had a half dozen or so student members, all well-known in the school for their nutty views unconnected with reality.]
Biden’s recent nominees for judgeships have proven that point about education often is not part of the process.
One of the federal circuit judges (not Duncan) had a good idea after the Yale Law School fiasco. Don’t interview Yale law grads for prestigious law clerk positions. A number of other judges signed on. Put Stanford and Georgetown on the list and it might calm things down.
I can understand your cynicism, FST. They’ve earned it.
I am sure that Stanford has an admissions waiting list a mile long. Perhaps the students should be reminded of that. And that their slots and tuition payments can be replaced easily by students who do not disrupt and bring negative PR to the law school.
But if Stanford isn’t producing exactly the type of student/graduate they want to produce, why are they getting them?
You are right, Susan, to stress the importance of the Stanford Dean’s response. So many times in the past, an administrator has stood up for free speech values only to back down days later in a cringe-worthy “apology” when pressure was brought to bear. “Mea Culpa! I have added to the hurt and the pain!”
Not Jenny Martinez! She faced down black-clothed and black-masked protesters in her own Constitutional Law classroom and refused to back down. Her email brilliantly demonstrates that although it is not the First Amendment itself that is at stake–Stanford is not the government–the adjacent culture of academic freedom and free speech are easily enough to destroy the looney argument that shouting down a speaker is just another form of free speech.
And she skillfully borrows from actual First Amendment law to blow up the equally looney–but oh so prevalent in certain circles–argument that “harmful” speech is just discriminatory “action” that isn’t protected speech anyway.
But the most lasting message of her email comes near the end, and doesn’t depend on free speech values at all. She notes that the single most important thing we teach in American law schools is how to meet disagreeable or “wrong” ideas with better and more correct ideas. Our clients don’t hire us to shout down our opponents, in or out of court; they hire us to think things through, give dispassionate advice, and make sound arguments on their behalf.
If you don’t learn that in law school, you have missed the point of even being a lawyer.
Eventually, the fever will break. When it does, no one will be able to point to a single or even a handful of turning point events. But if someone is making a longer list, Dean Martinez’s courageous stand will surely be on it.
Excellent comment, flp! I especially appreciate hearing from a lawyer who understands the implications of all of this. Thanks!
How about as Commencement speaker?
Love it!
“I hope you realize that a lot of places won’t be interested in hiring you because of all this. Goodbye.”
If your primary way of countering an argument is to throw a hissy fit to drown out that argument, maybe being a lawyer is not a goal that you should be pursuing.
I was impressed with that. The DEI Dean wrote an apology, if I recall, that had no substance to it and the initial reaction to the whole mess was slow.
This measured response is probably too little a response for some. That’s understandable, but Stanford Law seems to be setting this up the right way and the statement about the school not taking “institutional positions” is strong. It’s not harsh, but the Guild crowd will whine and protest that it is. That is useful for bleeding their support.
I agree on your every point, Chris. They’ll whine, but let’s see if they try it again . . .
Wish
isit was possible to retroactively flunk them all on Constitutional Law.But Constitutional Law professor Obama told them that’s what the Constitution SAYS! And they passed the tests!
I’m surprised John Yoo has survived there for so long. There must be some sane students in law school.