Stanford's search committee for new law dean rouses concern among conservatives: 'A slap in the face'

Stanford Law School's decision to reportedly tap the organizer behind an infamous shout-down protest against Trump-appointed federal judge Kyle Duncan earlier this year for a search committee to find a new dean garnered controversy among conservatives who say the committee lacks ideological diversity.

"That really feels like a slap in the face to all the people who rallied around our former dean and now provost after she came out as a big advocate for free speech," Stanford law student Tim Rosenberger told FOX News on Sunday.

Rosenberger said the protest organizer, Matthew Coffin, is the only student on the committee and will help search for a replacement for the former dean and current provost Jenny Martinez, alongside several faculty members.

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A report from the Washington Free Beacon published last Tuesday stated the selection process for the committee remains unclear, but members were announced in an Oct. 4 email to the school.

The report also stated that professor Pamela Karlan, who served as a witness during Democrats' efforts to impeach former President Trump, is also on the search committee.

The development is raising eyebrows for students like Rosenberger, who argued an erosion of free speech on college campuses stems from the push for diversity without diversity of thought.

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"We believe in a lot of perspectives. We want to have our voices come to the table, but there are no conservative voices on this panel, and it's sort of shocking. No students, no faculty, no alumni who are right of center or members of the Federalist Society."

"We've embraced this sort of Star Wars Space Cantina view of diversity, where we get a bunch of people who have different identities and look a little different and sleep with different people, but all have the same beliefs and all the same thoughts and all the same sort of views of the world and the same sort of view of what the university should be, and that's a big problem," he later continued.

"We're not getting the diversity we need, which is the diversity of thought, a diversity of belief, a diversity of priorities, and a real discussion of what the values should be of the university, of our education and really how we use our law degrees to better the world."

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Rosenberger stated previously in the segment that embracing the "new religion" of DEI – or diversity, equity and inclusion – leads to the erosion of free speech and due process, setting a dangerous precedent for the future of legal education and the justice system as a whole.

"It's something we've really got to work on, and we have more work to do," he said.

FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, reported the former law school dean cited the university's Statement on Academic Freedom after the shout-down protest, stating, "Expression of the widest range of viewpoints should be encouraged, free from institutional orthodoxy and from internal or external coercion."

The former dean also stated the law school would take steps to protect free speech, including by holding a mandatory "half-day session" for students on "the topic of freedom of speech and the norms of the legal profession." 

FOX News reached out to Stanford for comment, but did not receive a response in time for the segment.

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