David Leonhardt of the New York Times greeted me first thing today with these words:  Good morning.  A federal judge spoke at Stanford Law School.  Chaos ensued.

Not being much in touch with the news (always too horrifying and depressing for my aged sensibilities), I was definitely compelled to read further.  It was, after all, my alma mater that Mr. Leonhardt was talking about.  Stanford, so subdued and reasonable during my student days in the ’50s — but then wasn’t everyone?  And later, so  namby-pamby during the days of rival Cal Berkeley’s student protests in the’60s.  About this latest news, I was sore amazed!

 Stuart Kyle Duncan

The speaker was Stuart Kyle Duncan, a federal court appeals judge appointed by Trump.   It seems that the students at the lecture did some serious heckling and Judge Duncan asked the school administrators to calm the crowd.  Instead, the associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion (seriously? they have an associate dean for that??) walked to the lectern and began her remarks by criticizing him.  She has been placed on leave.

The judge described his experience in a Wall Street Journal essay, the Stanford president and the law school dean have apologized to him, and all law students are to attend a mandatory half-day session on freedom of speech.

Commentary is coming in from all sides — from other Universities both in support of the students and otherwise and, of course,  of Stanford’s position on the matter.  News pundits and talking heads who thrive on controversy are weighing in ad nauseum but, so far, not much from the students, themselves.

I did look in the Stanford Daily but found that the big news was “Stanford canceled all remaining final exams on Tuesday due to ongoing weather-related power outages, which are affecting buildings across campus.”  I was glad to see that the Daily still has a clear vision regarding their mission.

Yep!  Let’s keep our priorities straight!