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June 29, 2023

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Following up on my earlier posts on the Stanford free speech controversy (hyperlinks under): Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon), Stanford Regulation College Promised Free Speech Coaching. It Delivered a Campus Joke.:

After a whole lot of scholars at Stanford Regulation College shouted down a sitting federal decide in March, faculty directors went into damage-control mode. Among the many measures they promised to advertise a extra open educational local weather was a compulsory half-day coaching session on “freedom of speech and the norms of the authorized occupation.”

Many hailed the transfer as an indication that Stanford was turning over a brand new leaf and lavished reward on Jenny Martinez, the legislation faculty’s dean, for her perceived defiance of the campus mob.

However the promised coaching wasn’t a lot of a crash course in free speech. As an alternative, it was an internet program that required barely a minute’s effort, based on 5 individuals who accomplished the coaching in addition to screenshots and recordings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. College students got six weeks to observe 5 prerecorded movies, most about an hour lengthy, then requested to signal a type testifying that that they had carried out so.

The movies may very well be performed on mute, and the shape—which may very well be accessed with out opening the coaching—didn’t ask any questions on their content material, letting college students tune out the modules or skip them totally.

“I watched not one of the movies,” one pupil stated. “I by no means even opened the hyperlinks. On the day the coaching was due, I went to the attestation hyperlink offered by the college, checked a field confirming I watched the movies, and that was the tip of the matter. Complete course of took 10 seconds.”

The free speech program was a lot much less demanding than the legislation faculty’s modules on Title IX and alcohol points, which require college students to reply questions demonstrating an understanding of college coverage, based on individuals who’d accomplished each trainings. The distinction has shaken college students’ religion in Stanford’s vaunted recommitment to freedom of speech, which, one stated, seems to have been “nothing greater than hole advantage signaling.” …

“Anybody might begin the coaching and simply f*** off and never pay attention,” one pupil stated. “It was only a waste of everybody’s time,” one other added. …

Stanford Regulation College didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Nationwide Evaluation, Stanford Regulation and the Significance of Freedom of Speech

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