My Truth Redux

As “My Truth Is Not Your Truth” (March 17, 2022) tried to make plain, the assault on freedom of speech and expression has accelerated in America. We decided against a litany of example of the infringement on those rights on the assumption that our readers are all too familiar. But our comments had barely been posted when news of another outrage came to our attention. We felt it demanded explication here.

One of the most prestigious law schools in America is Yale Law School. I leave it to you to ponder why that is, particularly in light of the event reported below.

The Yale Federalist Society asked two attorneys to talk about a case where the issue of free speech was involved. One attorney was associated with a conservative organization; the other with a liberal. But both attorneys agreed that freedom of speech was paramount and deserved protection. The whole point of the panel was to show that a liberal atheist and a conservative Christian could find common ground on the issue of free speech. However, more than 120 protestors decided to shout down the event, creating a scene so heated that campus police eventually had to escort the speakers from the building. Think about that for a moment. Students at Yale Law School, allegedly one of the finest law schools in America, which expects annually to place its students in courts, corporations, and major law firms where they will immediately begin to influence the culture of those institutions. And there they are, acting like the spoiled, arrogant, and entitled children they are, refusing to hear any argument or contention that does not line up exactly with their own preconceptions.

When the moderator, a Yale professor, tried to control the situation, the crowd turned on her. One child threatened physical violence against the professor; others screamed profanities and raised their middle fingers. As rude and childish as that behavior is, one might almost argue that the Yale professors have earned it by failing to train their students to respect other people’s views and to allow them to speak. Uncivilized brats! Their parents must be proud of them.

Believe it or not, there actually is a somewhat bright light in this otherwise dismal story. Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals thought the incident was so alarming that he emailed every single Article III judge Thursday, urging that they be disqualified from clerkships, one of the highest honors a graduating law student can receive. He wrote:

"The latest events at Yale Law School, in which students attempted to shout down speakers participating in a panel discussion on free speech, prompt me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted. All federal judges -- and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speech -- should carefully consider whether any student so identified should be disqualified from potential clerkships."

It remains to be seen whether this punishment will be meted out. That decision rests with the judges themselves who have it within their power either to punish or reward the conduct of the Yale philistines. We can only hope.

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