Ed Whelan Profile picture
Mar 10, 2023 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
With the acquiescence of @StanfordLaw administrators, Stanford law students yesterday shouted down Fifth Circuit judge Stuart Kyle Duncan at a scheduled event on topic of “The Fifth Circuit in Conversation with the Supreme Court: Covid, Guns, and Twitter." 1/
@StanfordLaw In email before event, Stanford DEI dean Tirien Steinbach stated support of right of students to protest event, "in keeping with University policies ... against disrupting speakers."

All good. Except she and 4 other administrators at event allowed gross disruption. 2/
@StanfordLaw Steinbach in fact fanned the flames, both in her email and at the event. Her email quoted with evident approval an absurd summary of Duncan's record. And in remarks at event, she said Duncan "literally denies the humanity of people" and told him "your work has caused harm." 3/ Image
@StanfordLaw After drowning out made it impossible for Judge Duncan to proceed, Steinbach delivered prepared remarks that berated Duncan and sided with protestors: "your advocacy, your opinions from the bench, land as absolute disenfranchisement of their rights." 4/
@StanfordLaw Steinbach stated Stanford's policy on free speech even as she repeatedly called it into question. So Stanford has DEI administrator who won't support Stanford's policies on free speech and who made only token effort to stop gross disruption. 5/
@StanfordLaw From what I hear, Stanford law culture is as bad as Yale's, perhaps even worse. Lefty students are viciously abusive of Federalist Society student leaders. A few years ago, a federal judge was spat on. 6/
@StanfordLaw Stanford, I'm told, filmed the entire event. So let's see if it makes the video public soon, and let's see if there are any consequences, especially for DEI dean Steinbach, for violation of university policies. 7/
Here's video of Stanford DEI dean Steinbach's remarks slamming Judge Duncan and setting forth university policy on free speech while calling its soundness into question and stating that it might need to be reconsidered. /8

vimeo.com/806801455/16c7…
Not that it matters under free-speech principles or Stanford's stated policy, but protestors had no objection to Judge Duncan's topic. With support of DEI dean, these emotionally pampered crybullies instead claimed that his presence on campus made them feel unsafe. 9/
Given how ACLU has abandoned its commitment to free speech, it's perhaps not surprising that DEI dean Steinbach's previous position was chief program officer at ACLU of Northern California. 10/

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More from @EdWhelanEPPC

Mar 21
New in Confirmation Tales: "The Umpire Strikes Back: John Roberts's apt baseball simile."

“Judges are like umpires.” Among the hundreds of thousands of words spoken by senators, witnesses, and John Roberts himself across the four days of his confirmation hearing in September 2005, those four words uttered by Roberts in his opening statement stood out. 1/

confirmationtales.com/p/the-umpire-s…
In his statement explaining why he would vote against Roberts’s confirmation, then-senator Barack Obama provided his contrary account of what judging consists of, an empathy standard embedded in a remarkably clumsy marathon metaphor. 2/ confirmationtales.com/p/the-umpire-s…
The triumph of Roberts’s umpire simile over Obama’s empathy standard is no better shown than in the testimony of Obama’s own Supreme Court nominees. 3/ confirmationtales.com/p/the-umpire-s…
Read 4 tweets
Mar 6
New from Confirmation Tales: "Fishing for John Roberts's Executive-Branch Records: A justice delayed could become a justice denied" 1/ confirmationtales.com/p/fishing-for-…
If you’re working to defeat a Supreme Court nomination, you will try to dig up all the negative stuff you can find about the nominee, and you will seek as much time as possible for your digging. For Senate Democrats in 2005, John Roberts’s years as a lawyer in the executive branch provided an obvious opportunity. “We’re not looking to go on a fishing expedition,” declared Senator Teddy Kennedy, as he packed his tackle box. 2/ confirmationtales.com/p/fishing-for-…
In document demand on Roberts, the competing legal arguments—e.g., the executive branch’s interest in preserving the confidentiality of deliberations and legal advice on sensitive matters versus the Senate’s interest in having as much information as possible about a Supreme Court nominee—were beside the point. As is generally the case in fights over judicial nominations, what mattered were intensely political considerations. 3/ confirmationtales.com/p/fishing-for-…
Read 8 tweets
Mar 4
Apologies for wrong first report. Unanimous ruling in favor of Trump. Liberal justices concur in judgment. supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf…
Per curiam majority (5 justices): Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.

ACB, concurring in part, concurring in judgment: No need to address whether federal legislation is exclusive vehicle.

3 liberal justices concurring in judgment: Similar to ACB.
Four justices who concur in judgment object that majority "shuts the door on other potential means of enforcement" of section 3, "forecloses judicial enforcement of that provision" (e.g., criminal defendant challenging prosecutor), and rules out "enforcement under general federal statutes requiring the government to comply with the law."
Read 4 tweets
Mar 2
My new Confirmation Tales post: "John Roberts's Gay-Rights Surprise: A revelation that would have prevented his nomination doesn't disrupt it." 1/ confirmationtales.com/p/john-roberts…
The same piece of information about a candidate/nominee can have dramatically different impact depending on when it surfaces. 2/ confirmationtales.com/p/john-roberts…
2 weeks into Roberts's nomination in 2005, newspapers reported that Roberts had done pro bono work a decade earlier in support of gay-rights activists in Romer v. Evans. Lawyer who argued the case called his strategic advice "absolutely crucial." 3/ confirmationtales.com/p/john-roberts…
Read 8 tweets
Feb 22
New from Confirmation Tales: Controversy in 2005 over whether Supreme Court nominee John Roberts had ever been a member of Federalist Society. 1/ confirmationtales.com/p/roberts-fede…
In effort to make path to confirmation as smooth as possible, White House raced to correct widespread reports that John Roberts had been a member of Federalist Society. His involvement, it said, consisted of “speaking at Federalist Society forums (as have lawyers and legal scholars of various political stripes.” But never a dues-paying member. 2/ confirmationtales.com/p/roberts-fede…
But WaPo then discovered that Roberts was listed in Fed Soc’s leadership directory one year, as a member of steering committee of D.C. chapter. I suddenly found myself part of the story, as I was also listed as a member. 3/ confirmationtales.com/p/roberts-fede…
Read 7 tweets
Feb 8
Will run long thread here of today's oral argument. Here's my guide to what to listen for.

Oral argument is set to start at 10, but with opinion(s) being announced probably won't start until 10:05 or 10:10. 80 minutes are allotted, but Court has been *very* generous with time, so expect argument to go double that. My guess is that it will end some time between 12:30 and 1:00.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/a-…
First up will be counsel for Trump, Jonathan Mitchell. Then two counsel on the other side, one for private plaintiffs, one for the Colorado secretary of state. Then a rebuttal round for Mitchell. So four separate turns at the podium.
I'm going to try to summarize exchanges that I find interesting or significant, but that's tough to do on the fly, so apologies in advance for any errors.
Read 54 tweets

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