At Yale Law School, speech gets silenced

Free speech is a bedrock of our nation’s health.

Unfortunately, this truth appears to have been forgotten at Yale Law School. On March 10, Kristen Waggoner, an attorney at Alliance Defending Freedom, and Monica Miller, of the American Humanist Association, attended a bipartisan panel on civil liberties. The event was hosted by the Yale Federalist Society.

As Kate Stith, a First Amendment law professor at Yale, attempted to introduce Waggoner, video shows students yelling and shouting at her. Stith remains calm and reminds the students of Yale’s free speech policies, which the students blatantly ignore. 

Over 100 students continued to shout down Waggoner as she attempted to speak, calling out her support of women in athletics and smearing her reputation. Alliance Defending Freedom represents several female track athletes in a lawsuit that hopes to protect women’s sports from unfair competition. Waggoner has argued in front of the Supreme Court twice, no small feat. These students should admire Waggoner’s accomplishments. Instead, they fear her views and restrict her ability to speak.

Eventually, the panel concluded. Police officers escorted Waggoner and Miller out of the building. Yale Law School released a statement claiming that Yale police officers were not necessary for security but for aiding in noise reduction. It is clear that it sought to downplay the severity of the event. 

Laurence Silberman, a circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, reportedly sent an email to all Article III judges in the United States recommending that all federal judges “committed to free speech” “carefully consider” whether the Yale law students who participated in the protest should be “disqualified for potential clerkships.”

Waggoner told me that “law schools used to be places where students were taught that critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, and civility were the hallmarks of an exceptional lawyer. … Unfortunately, that was not my experience at Yale this week where insults, bullying, and physical intimidation replaced civil discourse, logic, and persuasion. [A] mob created such a volatile situation that campus security had to escort us from the building. Rather than condemn this behavior, Yale now seems to be misrepresenting what happened.”

This debacle reflects a growing trend at higher institutions. Regardless, it’s unsettling to see our next generation of would-be attorneys so fragile and afraid of divergent viewpoints that they pursue disruption over dialogue.

Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a Fort Worth Star-Telegram opinion writer and previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.