Whoopi Goldberg hit “all the snowflakes in the world” on Monday during a conversation on “The View” about Stanford law students who yelled at a conservative judge.
Goldberg was referring to Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, who was invited to speak at the University of California on March 9 about ‘COVID, Guns and Twitter’ at the Federalist Society.
Duncan, 51, was interrupted by liberal students who yelled obscenities at him, including: “We hope your daughters are raped.”
The TV presenter criticized the hostility Duncan received as a “disagreement” of views people need to learn to live with.
“I think about the State of the Union and this is what we are teaching people to do, we are teaching people to be inappropriate. Shouting at the president of the United States. Calling him a liar,’ Goldberg said.
‘Doing all these things that our students now say, well, if it’s okay for you to do it, and you’re supposed to be a legislator, I feel the same way because it’s my right. So maybe all the snowflakes in the world need to get over the fact that people are going to disagree with them, see?’
Whoopi Goldberg called out ‘all the snowflakes in the world’ in a discussion about Stanford law students who interrupted a conservative judge
Goldberg was referring to Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, who was invited to speak at the University of California on March 9 about ‘COVID, Guns and Twitter’ at the Federalist Society.
Goldberg continued: ‘It’s not just one side or the other. Everyone has to understand that this is how we live. Not all of us agree.
“We don’t agree, and it’s your right to stand up and say, ‘Hey, I don’t agree,’ and … you either walk away or let someone else tell you what the problem is, but we don’t show that to our children”. We show you the nasty part now.
The hearing’s co-host, Sunny Hostin, chimed in, adding that Stanford was the perfect place for a debate.
‘The university and the law school are a wonderful place to have this exchange of ideas. Sometimes it gets hot,” Hostin said.
That’s the part I like. I like questions and answers. I mean, come to me. Let’s have those discussions because that’s what the free exchange of ideas is all about.’
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin added that “free speech is a two-way street” and recognized the right of students to assemble and protest.
‘It’s the free exchange of ideas, everyone learns from it. The academy is the place to be challenged by ideas and not shut down,” Griffin said.
Duncan, 51, was heckled by liberal students as he arrived on campus who yelled obscenities at him, including: “We hope they rape your daughters.”
During his seminar, the judge was rudely interrupted by a crowd of students and Tirien Steinbach, Associate Dean for Diversity, Inclusion and Equity.
Prior to Duncan’s arrival on campus on March 9, he was warned prior to his arrival that there might be protesters and that the school had to allow it, but he assured him that they were “in the know.”
They told him that if there was any disruption, the school would take care of it, but Duncan said that didn’t happen.
Students stormed the classroom with signs reading ‘FED SUCK’ and ‘Trans Lives Matter’ to interrupt him about his US v Varner court decision, where a ‘federal prisoner serving time for attempted receipt of pornography infantile… requested our court order that he be called by feminine pronouns.’
As my opinion explained, federal courts cannot control what pronouns people use. The Stanford protesters saw it differently: my opinion had “denied the existence of a trans woman.”
Despite the abuse, the president of the Federalist Society still tried to introduce Duncan so he could give his speech, but the students interrupted ‘every three words’.
‘”The Federalist Society (You Suck!) is pleased to welcome Judge Kyle Duncan (You’re not welcome here, we hate you!). He was appointed by President Trump to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Embarrassing!) “And so on,” he wrote over the introduction.
He tried to persevere, but finally stopped and asked the students to stop swearing. But they went ahead, so he finally asked for an administrator to step in.
He eventually asked for an administrator when the booing didn’t stop and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach walked in. She asked to speak before the group, which she confused Duncan, who said “something felt off.”
Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach chimed in, but instead of calming down the students, she “insisted that she wanted to talk to all of us,” Duncan said.
“Something felt off,” he wrote. ‘The students started yelling and I reluctantly gave in. So Ms. Steinbach opened a sheet of paper, pulled out a sheaf of printouts, and delivered a six-minute speech addressing the question, “Is the juice worth squeezing?”
Video footage from the event shows the altercation between the associate dean and the judge.
Stanford apologized to the judge on Steinbach’s behalf but she remains in her position
‘Can I tell you something, okay?’ Steinbach asked the students before turning to Duncan. ‘Alright?’
Duncan reiterated that he was being “interrupted” and asked for an administrator, prompting students to yell that it was her. Steinbach’s head can be seen nodding aggressively, but the screams of the students made it so that she couldn’t hear what she was saying.
“I’d like to help,” he told Duncan.
‘Which way?’ she replied. As the students yelled that her ‘racism was being shown’ and to ‘respect black women’, the judge finally conceded and said, ‘I guess I have to let her.’
She then picked up the lectern and said, “I had to write something because I feel so uncomfortable up here,” before launching her six-minute speech.
In his speech, Duncan claimed he called his work “abhorrent” and said it had “caused harm” because it “literally denies the humanity of people.” She also claimed that her presence on her campus put her in a difficult situation because it was her job “to create a space of belonging for all people.”
“She assured me that I was ‘absolutely welcome in this space’ because ‘I and a lot of people in this administration absolutely believe in free speech,'” he claimed to have told her.
‘I didn’t feel welcome, who would?’
After reopening the flat, one student asked the others to tone it down so he could ask questions. Duncan resumed with the prepared material of him, but the students began “hurling insults, including vile sexual innuendos.”
Two US Marshals then escorted Duncan off campus.
The students demanded an apology from Dean Jenny Martinez after she apologized to Duncan for the students’ behavior.
In a Facebook post, the group labeled students “fascists” who “dressed in black and formed a mob to ambush Dean Martinez to heckle and shame her.”
Law school dean Jenny Martinez and Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavinge have since “formally apologized and confirmed that the protesters and administrators had violated Stanford policy” days later.
Jenny Martinez, dean of Stanford Law School, discovered her classroom had been vandalized on Monday.
‘I am grateful and I accepted. However, the matter has not subsided,” she wrote.
Duncan was criticized in the media for calling protesters “terrible idiots” and “thugs”, but states in his op-ed that “sometimes anger is the appropriate response to vicious behaviour”.
He also criticized the elite law school for failing to teach future lawyers the “basics of legal discourse: that one must meet reason with reason, not power.” That the law protects the speaker from the crowd, not the crowd from the speaker.
“Worst of all, Ms. Steinbach’s comments made it clear that she is proud that Stanford students are being taught what the law should look like.”
Martinez and Tessier-Lavinge conceded that the staff “should have enforced the university’s policies” and “failed” to do so. They said Steinbach “intervened in an inappropriate manner that is not aligned with the university’s commitment to free speech.”
