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Cardinal Sin at Stanford Law School
They say you can’t shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater. But, of course, you should do exactly that if you believe the theater is on fire. In doing so, however, you are not exercising your right to free speech; you are sounding an alarm as surely as if you broke the glass and pulled the handle. Shouting “Fire!” in a theater, whether or not with good reason, is an act not an utterance. No concept of freedom of speech applies to it. From a legal standpoint, the only question is whether sounding an alarm was proper.
Lawyers learn such distinctions at law school. That’s why it’s disturbing when law students appear not to know the difference between speech and action. When a bunch of Stanford law students disrupted a speech by conservative judge Kyle Duncan, who was invited by the Federalist Society, a recognized student organization, to speak on campus, those law students were not exercising free speech. They weren’t even sounding an alarm. They were dousing a fire. From a legal standpoint, the only question is whether dousing that fire was proper.
The Stanford kerfuffle made news not because a bunch of babies shouted down a grown-up. That happens all the time on campus. The Stanford thing made news because, when the judge asked for someone from the school administration to restore order, he…