NEW: The backlash to Stanford is growing and crosses partisan lines.🧵
1. John Banzhaf, a famous lawyer who helped end Nixon's presidency and got Trump investigated in Georgia, is planning to file bar complaints against the students who disrupted Duncan.freebeacon.com
1. John Banzhaf, a famous lawyer who helped end Nixon's presidency and got Trump investigated in Georgia, is planning to file bar complaints against the students who disrupted Duncan.freebeacon.com
2. House Republicans are asking the American Bar Association to investigate Stanford over the disruption, arguing that the law school is "out of compliance" with accreditation standards that require it to promote free speech. freebeacon.com
Banzhaf's intervention is especially noteworthy: now an 82-year-old law professor at GW, the famed public interest lawyer been called the "Osama Bin Laden of Torts" and a "legal terrorist." That's because he is very good at using legal action—or the threat of it—to get his way.
His first legal jihad, waged in the 1960s against Big Tobacco, resulted in strict advertising restrictions on cigarettes as well as a ban on smoking in airplanes.
It was also Banzhaf who proposed and popularized the idea of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate former…
It was also Banzhaf who proposed and popularized the idea of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate former…
A half century later, he filed a complaint with Georgia election officials over former president Donald Trump’s 2021 call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger—in which the former president pressured Raffensperger to overturn the state’s election results—leading to a…
Now, though, this self-proclaimed legal terrorist has set his sights on the students who shouted down Duncan. He told Stanford earlier this month that he will file a character and fitness complaint against the students with the California state bar.
"It appears that you have not taken any steps to discipline or otherwise sanction the student violators," Banzhaf said in a letter to Jenny Martinez, the law school’s dean, who has since ruled out punishing the hecklers. As such, the complaint "will have links to video recordings…
The California bar requires applicants to demonstrate "respect for the rights of others and for the judicial process." That means the students who disrupted Duncan—in part by telling him "we hope your daughters get raped"—could be in for a rude awakening if Banzhaf makes good on…
This incident "seriously calls into question whether these students have proper temperament to practice law," Banzhaf told the Washington Free Beacon. "It is completely unacceptable to shout down any speaker—much less a federal judge—and then face no consequences."
Such statements have made Banzhaf the strange bedfellow of Senator Ted Cruz, who this month urged the Texas bar to "take particular care" with graduates of Stanford Law School. The horseshoe suggests that outrage about Duncan’s treatment crosses partisan divides—and offers a…
Anyone can file a bar complaint, including across state lines. And, Banzhaf says, the complaints needn’t derail anyone’s career in order to be effective: Even the threat of an investigation—or a delayed and stressful bar application—could deter would-be disruptors, sending the…
Martinez said last week that it would be unfair to punish the students because they received "conflicting signals" from Tirien Steinbach, the law school diversity official who confronted Duncan and praised the protesters. Banzhaf isn’t convinced: Stanford’s rules against…
Martinez’s argument for amnesty, Banzhaf added, "would have earned a low grade if submitted by a law student."
Again, this is a guy who took on Trump, tobacco, and Nixon. Not exactly a rightwinger.
Again, this is a guy who took on Trump, tobacco, and Nixon. Not exactly a rightwinger.
The stakes are personal for Banzhaf, who says that the attitude evinced by the Stanford students—"you can’t reason with people who disagree with you"—is antithetical to the legal system that’s enabled his victories. To fight the tobacco lobby in the court, he told the Free…
He also had to engage with lawyers who, from his perspective, "were paid lots of money to lie and literally kill people." It’s a skill Banzhaf says is in short supply among today’s law students, in part, he argues, because they lack a sense of proportionality.
"Today, you have kids all upset about pronouns or the suggestion that there shouldn’t be treatment for an 8 year old who thinks she’s transgender," he said. Smoking, on the other hand, kills nearly 500,000 people each year, but Banzhaf would still split a cab with tobacco…
The drama roiling Palo Alto, Calif., reflects a wider trend at the nation’s top law schools—including Yale, where hundreds of students disrupted a bipartisan panel on free speech last year. Those protesters, like the Stanford hecklers, were not punished for their role in the…
The permissiveness prompted a heated debate about how best to discipline law schools that won’t discipline their own students, and led 14 federal judges, including James Ho and Elizabeth Branch, to announce that they would no longer hire clerks from Yale Law.
While some conservatives praised the boycott, others decried it as a form of collective punishment, denying opportunity for all students over the misdeeds of a few. Bar complaints avoid that objection, Banzhaf noted, by targeting only those students who broke the rules.
They also create an incentive for administrators to lay down the law on their own, since bar passage rates are a key indicator in law school rankings—and character and fitness checks are a prerequisite for passing the bar.
In addition, Banzhaf said, filing legal complaints of any kind is a sure way to generate publicity, something most universities like to avoid. And complaints can create cover to act in the face of political headwinds—an excuse for bureaucrats, be they Georgia election officials…
"Once you file a document, law and custom requires some kind of response," Banzhaf said. "Bar officials don’t always investigate complaints, but they at least have to look and go through the motions."
Though the California state bar is among the most progressive in the nation, its committee of bar examiners, who handle character and fitness issues, is older and relatively more conservative, Banzhaf said. It also includes at least one judge, with most members appointed by the…
"Judges in particular should be outraged that a fellow judge received this kind of treatment," Banzhaf said. "My guess is that the California bar will take this seriously."
Let's say the California bar doesn't take it seriously, though. What then?
Accreditation could be another lever. The American Bar Association, which accredits Stanford and most other law schools, requires each one to have a policy promoting academic freedom.
Accreditation could be another lever. The American Bar Association, which accredits Stanford and most other law schools, requires each one to have a policy promoting academic freedom.
Stanford violated that requirement, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce said in a Friday letter to the bar association, by allowing and even encouraging students to shout down Duncan last month. freebeacon.com
The committee emphasized the remarks of Tirien Steinbach, the law school diversity dean who took the podium from the judge and harangued him for causing "harm."
Law schools must remain accredited by the American Bar Association to receive federal funds. A review of Stanford's accreditation would directly threaten its finances, upping pressure on the school to sanction the disruptors.
Stanford’s academic freedom policy, outlined in its faculty handbook, states that "the widest range of viewpoints" should be free from "coercion"—a condition the letter says no longer obtains at the law school.
"In no sense can it be said that Stanford Law School adhered to its announced encouragement of the 'widest range of viewpoints,'" the letter reads. "And in no sense were Judge Duncan's viewpoints 'free from … internal or external coercion.'"
Having a policy, the letter adds,…
Having a policy, the letter adds,…
So, in addition to clerkship boycotts, here are at least two other tools for ensuring accountability at law schools: bar complaints against individual students (which also exert pressure on schools) and accreditation reviews.
It is worth noting that the American Bar Association derives its power from the federal government. The reason schools need ABA accreditation to receive federal funds is because the ABA is the only law school accrediting body recognized by the Department of Education.
So if the ABA refuses to enforce its own accreditation standards, Republicans could threaten to revoke federal recognition of the ABA.
That would be a big blow to the organization's power and most likely to its finances: If ABA accreditation no longer meant federal funding, schools would lose their economic incentive to remain accredited by the ABA. And the ABA makes money off its accrediting services.
All of which is to say: There's a lot that lawyers and policymakers could do to improve the climate at law schools. Bar complaints. Accreditation pressure. Congressional debate about who should be recognized as an accreditor.
Legal and legitimate stuff that doesn't require a…
Legal and legitimate stuff that doesn't require a…
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