The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Media Watchdog Group Holds Stanford Law School Accountable for Disrespecting Conservative Judge

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Judge Kyle Duncan, a conservative on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arrived on the Stanford Law School campus on March 9. He was there to deliver remarks to students at an event hosted by the campus Federalist Society group, but Duncan never had the opportunity to deliver his talk.  Upon entering the lecture call, students began heckling Duncan, preventing him from speaking. Finally Tirien Steinbach, associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Stanford Law, stood up and took the podium. For about six minutes, she spoke to the students and to Duncan.  “For many people in this law school … your advocacy, your opinions from the bench land as absolute disenfranchisement of their rights,” Steinbach said.  When Duncan tried to respond, Steinbach told the judge, “Please let me finish.” Multiple students began shouting, “Let her finish” as they pounded their desks.  Duncan stood by and allowed Steinbach to complete her lecture. Now, the media watchdog group Accuracy in Media is calling on Stanford Law to dismiss Steinbach.  “These crybullies throw metaphorical punches all day long and they never have to take one in return, and that's where we step in," Adam Guillette, president of Accuracy in Media, says.  Accuracy in Media has a mobile billboard on the Stanford campus naming the students who heckled Duncan and calling for Steinbach’s termination.   The law school did issue an apology and has placed Steinbach on paid leave, but has stopped short of terminating her.  “These people, who think they know it all and seek to lecture federal judges, don't even apply the basic level of common sensewhich makes sense because they don't apply the basic level of civility,” Guillette says.  Guillette joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" today to explain how Accuracy in Media is advocating that Steinbach be fired. He also explains how his organization has gone undercover in public schools to expose how classrooms teach diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This Black Friday, you've got a whole month to catch all the exclusive offers waiting for you. See your local Nissan dealer or nissan.ca for details. Conditions apply. This is the Daily Sentinel podcast for Monday, April 10th. I'm Virginia Allen. We hope that you all had a wonderful Easter. Hope it was restful and full of joy as we are jumping back into the news today. We're going to be bringing you up to speed on a situation that transpired not long ago on a very progressive college campus.

Conservative Judge Kyle Duncan of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was invited to speak to students at Stanford University Law School in March. But when he arrived for the lecture, he discovered the situation was quite different than what he thought it was going to be. He was met by heckling from students. And Stanford Law Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Tyrion Steinbeck then proceeded to lecture Duncan on the harms that he has caused. Now, the Media Watchdog Group, accuracy in media, is calling for the termination of the Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Stanford Law. President of accuracy in media, Adam Gillette, joins us today to explain how they are pushing Stanford to terminate the dean. Adam also explains how accuracy in media has gone undercover into public schools across the country to expose classrooms that are teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion to students. Stay tuned for my conversation with Adam after this.

Conservative women, conservative feminists. It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen. And every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories that are a particular interest to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to politics and policy. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcasts. And we are also problematic on social. social media. So be sure to follow us on Instagram. We are joined today by the president of the

media watchdog group Accuracy in Media. Adam, thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. So in March, we're taking a little time today to talk about what is happening on college campuses, what is happening in our public schools related to really this far left push, this woke push and in many ways indoctrination. So let's rewind. Let's go back to March. Conservative Judge Kyle Duncan of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was invited to speak to students at Stanford University. But when he arrived at the lecture hall to deliver his remarks, the situation was far from what he expected. Can you tell us what happened? Sure. Well, he was jeered, booed, interrupted by obnoxious fascist students. One of them even shouted at him, quote, I hope your daughter.

daughters get raped. And then finally, the adult in the room, the Dean of Diversity Equity and Inclusion took the stage. And rather than calming down the fascist bullies and restoring order and bringing back civility, she joined in and doubled down on the obnoxious things that those students had to say. It's outrageous. And it speaks horribly of academia in America in 2023. Well, I watched that interaction and conversation when, like you said, that Dean, Tyrion Steinbeck, the Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Stanford stood up, and she almost in a way lectured the judge for about six minutes. Let's take a listen to a portion of what she said. And again, I still ask, is the juice worth the squeeze?

What is that? I mean, is it worth the pain that these causes and the division that is causes? You have something so incredible, important to say about Twitter and guns and COVID, that that is worth this impact on the division of these people who have sat next to each other for years, who are going through what is the battle of law school together, so that they can go out into the world and be advocates. And this is the division that's cause. When I say, is the juice worth the squeeze? That's what I'm asking. Is this worth it? So, like I said, that went on for about six minutes of Steinbeck lecturing Judge Duncan at the event

that he was supposed to be speaking at. Did Judge Duncan ever even get to deliver the remarks that he came to deliver? He actually didn't. And I'll tell you what, I'd like to do a lecture right now. If you're going to be involved in public policy and behave like a fascist, buy the domain name associated with your name. Because we bought Tyrionsteinbach.com, and right now it redirects to an action alert where you could send a message to all of the board of trustees calling for them to hold her accountable.

So these people who think they know it all and seek to lecture federal judges don't even apply the basic level of common sense, which makes sense because they don't apply the basic level of civility. Well, I think everyone expects, of course, that there is some level of civility, especially at a university. So how has the university responded to this situation? The university put a statement out saying that they believe in free speech. Then at the same time, they put out an internal statement telling the group, the Federalist Society, that brought the judge to campus that they should quiet down and not post anything on social media and basically not saying anything for the next few days.

Nothing gets more Orwellian than simultaneously saying you believe in free speech while telling people to shut the heck up. It's outrageous. They did apologize to the judge. However, they haven't held Tyrion accountable beyond paying her to not work, which is what they did. And that's probably normally the case for a dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And they have done nothing to hold those students accountable.

And that's where we stepped in. Okay. So she is not actively working at the school right now. but she has not been fired. She's still being paid by the university, correct? That's right. She's on paid leave. We see this sort of thing all the time.

She's hoping it'll blow over, and then they'll bring her back. This is merely just a paid vacation for her. Okay, so accuracy in media and even some students on campus are calling on Stanford to fire Steinbeck. Has the school responded to these calls at all? Well, the school has responded only internally, as I said, by telling the students to quiet down, not say anything. You know, the Federalist Society students are the ones they told to quiet down. They didn't tell any of the bullying fascist students to quiet down or to apologize for their actions. And yes, we've amplified what the College Republican Group at Stanford Law said.

They were calling for the firing of the dean, and we thought that message should be heard high and low. In addition, the leaders of that fascist organization that shouted down the federal judge did their best to docks the members of the Federalist Society and make sure everybody knew who these terrible people were that brought the judge to campus. But then at the same time, they did their best to hide their own names so that no future employers, no family or friends could find out who it was that shouted down a federal judge and said things like, we hope your daughters get raped. Once again, the hypocrisy is outstanding. But once again, we stepped in for accountability. We literally, as we speak, have a billboard on their campus, a mobile billboard with the names and the faces of the students that shouted down the judge. And we also bought the URLs Association.

with their names. So if you go to their first and last name.com, you can see a profile page for their horrible fascist actions. And I think it'll be a good thing for their family, friends, future employers to know. You know, unfortunately, this is not the first time that a conservative has been shouted down on a college campus. What happened to free speech and celebrating and championing free speech on college campuses? Well, I think it speaks to the differences between liberalism and progressivism. Liberals believed, you know, I'll defend, I might disagree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. Progressives believe speech is violence. Liberals believed in questioning authority. Progressives believe in, don't you dare question authority.

Liberalism has been supplanted by radical progressivism, both in higher education and increasingly in corporate America and every facet of our culture. And the problem is, so frequently conservatives and libertarians, when they want to hold higher education accountable, they engage in acts that aren't necessarily really going to do anything. We're never going to get bad professors. We're never going to get bad administrators and college campuses fired. Heck, when these people do stuff like this, they probably get a pat on the back in the corner office. So I think instead, we need to target these law students, these future George Soros funded prosecutors and DAs, and expose who they are to the world because they don't want people knowing what they did. They're the target we should be.

focusing on. So like I said, it's for that reason that we've bought, you know, UnaKahill.com, and Nathan Togger.com and David Kremens.org so that when people Google these young radicals and want to see what's doing with their friends or a potential employee, they can see exactly what they're dealing with. These are the targets. These cry bullies throw metaphorical punches all day long, and they never have to take one in return, and that's where we step in. You know, some might say that that goes too far to put the identities of these law students out there and their names online in such a public sense is in some ways an invasion of these individuals' privacy. And while that might be appropriate for Tyrion Steinbeck, who is the dean and his very vocal, that's one thing. But it's a different thing to do so for the students themselves.

What's your response? Well, we're not calling the mean names beyond fascist bullies, which they are. We're not calling for terrible things to happen to them. And whenever we engage in an action alert like we are with the board of trustees, we encourage everyone to be polite and civil. What we're doing with these young people is simply amplifying their own words, their own message. We're simply making it so that all of the people who weren't there that day

and couldn't see who the bad people were, now get to know who the bad people were. And these aren't children. These aren't an 18-year-old college freshman. These aren't high school students. These are 23, 24-year-old future lawyers. If we can't hold fascist bullies accountable for their own direct actions, if we can't share the world and let the world know who these people were, what can we do?

And why should we be protecting these horrible obnoxious bullies? Why should we be on their side and do the best we can to coddle them? I think that's the very problem that got us in this mess in the first place. So with this, what is your end goal? What is your hope that the result is from this? Well, first off, I want to deter bad behavior on other campuses. This isn't the first time. We've gone after bad law students.

Last fall and increasingly this spring, we've gone after students at Berkeley Law, where nine different organizations signed a proclamation banning anyone from speaking if they support the state of Israel, regardless of the topic they're speaking about at their meetings. We did the same thing there. I want to set a precedent so that if you're on a college campus and if you're going to engage in fascism or anti-Semitism or terrible behavior, you will know that you're going to be exposed and held accountable for their actions. Now, are we going to get the horrible perpetrators to suddenly change their minds and become decent people? Probably not. But the more moderate kids in the group might say, you know what?

I don't want a mobile billboard showing up my parents' home on the different coast, on the East Coast, like we did to these Stanford kids. kids, letting my neighbors know what I've been up to on campus since I, you know, left high school in our hometown. I don't want that to happen to me. Maybe I won't engage in such horrible, horrible behavior. Adam, can you share just a little more broadly about the work that you all do at accuracy in media? Because I know that you're not only involved in what's going on in college campuses, but also in public schools across America, whether it be high schools, to elementary schools. Great question. So we use a combination of hidden camera investigative journalism and what I call cultural activism to hold bad public policy actors accountable.

And cultural activism for us means using traditional political tactics like robocalls, billboards, emails, action alerts, using those towards cultural targets. For example, when a number of celebrities took to Twitter and bragged about donating six-figure gifts to pay the bail money of rioters in the summer of 2020, we made thousands of phone calls and emails to the managers, agents, and publicists of those bad celebrities. And similarly, in these instances,

if you're a future attorney on a campus engaging in atheemitism, we're going to use political tactics against you. Instead of just fighting on Capitol Hillwards and endless gridlock anyway, we want to fight the left wherever the battle goes, wherever the theater is, and use tactics to wage war in every facet of our culture that they politicize.

And then separately, as I said, we use hidden camera investigative journalism to change politics and change the culture. I've been in over 200 public school districts in the past year and a half, which is a lot considering I don't have any kids, investigating critical race theory and Marxism and K-12 education. And I got to tell you, unfortunately, public education is far worse than you can even imagine. It's probably, as we know, it, irredeemable. And who are you meeting with when you walk into those schools?

We meet with administrators, superintendents, curriculum directors, and very commonly, equity officers, which are increasingly common, six-figure salaried, non-classroom positions focused exclusively on getting every facet of the principles of critical race theory like social justice, the notion that America is systemically racist, the notion that capitalism is inherently racist. These equity officers have, a full-time job to get those ideas in every facet of your child's education. Those are the people we meet with. And what questions are you asking them when you're sitting down? And it varies by state. When we go into states like Texas, Iowa, Idaho, Tennessee, where they've

made it illegal to teach the principles of critical race theory, we ask them if they're adhering to the law. And we ask them if they're still able to teach those things, if the law has affected them at all. And nine times out of ten, they tell us, oh, the law hasn't done it. anything. These were politicians trying to placate voters, or, you know, we do what we want, they can't tell us what to do. Then in states where it's not yet illegal, we inquire to see, are they deceiving parents? Are they deceiving politicians about what they're teaching in these schools? And what we find there, like in Columbus, Ohio, would be an equity officer there who told us as just one example, you could pass a law saying you can't teach it in classroom,

we'll do it this way. You pass the law banning it that way, we'll do it another way. He even went on to brag about how he basically tries to find out whatever objections specifically the parents have so that he can trick him. For example, one parent called and said, you've got this Ibrahim X-Kendi anti-racist book on the district website. And he told me, he asked him, is that the only issue? The picture of the book on the website? And the parent said, yes. And the equity officer said, no problem. We'll take that picture off the website today. And then he laughingly told me, I did take that picture off the website. That book's still probably on our life. library, though. These are the people we're dealing with in K-12 education. These are the people who need

to be exposed. And what schools have you all found are the most extreme in their politically leftist views? All of them. You know, I was in rural Tennessee, a three-to-one Democrat to Republican County, and they bragged to me about how progressive their curriculum was from an equity point of view. We don't investigate blue states. You know, I've been in schools in Texas, Indiana, Ohio. Ohio, Iowa, Idaho, Tennessee, we really only go to hardcore Republican rural states. And that's where we find these things. That's why I say public education, as we know it, is irredeemable. Just as another example, Fort Worth, Texas has probably about 35 to 40 different school districts

just in that Fort Worth metropolitan area. The Fort Worth ISD, a smaller one, has a half dozen people in their equity team. Again, non-classroom positions focused on advancing the principles of critical race theory in Fort Worth, Texas, in a state where it's illegal. If that's what's happening in Tennessee, in Iowa, and Idaho, and Utah, where we found terrible things, what do you think's happening in Manhattan or Berkeley or Boulder? It really is terrifying. So then what would you say to parents who are thinking, oh, goodness, you know, I maybe live in South Carolina or Georgia or Texas? and I thought that the public schools would be fine, but now I'm questioning that. What's your advice to them?

Get your kid the heck out of traditional public education. In many ways, it's like how people view Congress. Everyone agrees as a whole Congress is terrible. The approval rating for Congress is slightly below COVID. You know, nobody likes Congress. But like 95, 98% of congressmen get reelected because people want to assume that they're the good one. My congressman's the good one. And I voted for them and I'm not an idiot.

It's the same thing with public education because everyone realizes there are problems as a whole with public education, but they want to believe that their school's the good one. You spoke with the superintendent, you spoke with the teacher, you spoke with the administrator and the principal and maybe the equity officer, and they seem okay. Well, I spoke to them, and I did it with a hidden camera, and they brag to me about how they lie to you. Get your kid the heck out of traditional public education. Adam, how can we watch the videos that you all produce and follow the work of accuracy and media? Sure. Our website is aim.org. That's aIM.m.org. We're also incredibly active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even TikTok. We're on all of those platforms and we're going to be releasing more videos.

We have a couple more videos coming from Texas, more from Indiana, more from other states as well. And I just can't emphasize enough. You meet with these people and they seem so nice. and then behind your back, these administrators brag about how they trick you. It breaks my heart. And I'll tell you when I meet with these administrators, they're not evil people. They're not like one-dimensional bond villains twirling a mustache and laughing. They mean well by your child. It's almost a religious devotion.

But what they view as in the best interest of your children is probably dramatically different from what you view as in the best interest of your children. And this isn't even about history class. They bragged to me about how they push this stuff in math class, in every facet of public education. Adam, Gellette of accuracy in media. Adam, thank you for your time today. We truly appreciate it. Thank you so very much for having me.

Thank you for what you do. And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. If you haven't had a chance, be sure to check out our evening show in this podcast feed. Quick note, though, we will not have an evening show today. day. Our usual 5 p.m. show will pick back up tomorrow on Tuesday. So we will see you then. But in the meantime, take a moment to subscribe and share the Daily Signal podcast. Wherever you like to listen, we love seeing those ratings and reviews come in. We hope you all have a great rest of your day.

The Daily Signal podcast is brought to by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.