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A Law Student Mocked the Federalist Society. It Jeopardized His
Graduation.
The Stanford student sent a satirical flier that drew a complaint from
the conservative group. The university then placed a hold on his diploma.
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Stanford University said it had lifted the hold on a law student’s
graduation after administrators consulted with the university’s legal
counsel, who concluded the matter involved issues of protected speech.
Stanford University said it had lifted the hold on a law student’s
graduation after administrators consulted with the university’s legal
counsel, who concluded the matter involved issues of protected
speech.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Neil Vigdor <https://www.nytimes.com/by/neil-vigdor>
ByNeil Vigdor <https://www.nytimes.com/by/neil-vigdor>
NYT, June 3, 2021,5:30 a.m. ET
It was the final day of classes at Stanford Law School, May 27, when
Nicholas Wallace said he was blindsided by a message from one of the
deans informing him that his graduation was in jeopardy for potential
misconduct.
His offense: sending an email flier to fellow law students in January
that he pretended was from the Federalist Society, a prominent
conservative and libertarian group with achapter
<https://law.stanford.edu/federalist-society/>at the law school.
Thesatirical flier
<https://www.thefire.org/fire-letter-stanford-university-june-1-2021/>promoted
a discussion about the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol,
featuring Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, and the Texas
attorney general, Ken Paxton. The title of the mock event: “The
Originalist Case for Inciting Insurrection.”
The chapter’s leaders were not amused. They filed a complaint on March
27 with the university, which said in a message to Mr. Wallace that it
wasn’t until May 22 that the complainants had asked the administration
to pursue the matter.
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“I was astounded,” Mr. Wallace, 32, said in an interview on Wednesday.
“I couldn’t believe that without any more than this letter of concern
they placed my graduation and everything I’ve worked for for the last
three years, they’ve placed that under threat.”
Mr. Wallace’s predicament drew national attention from both free speech
groups and conservatives. It served as another example of the intense
debate over political speech on college campuses in America.
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In response to questions on Wednesday, a spokesman for Stanford
University said in an email that Mr. Wallace would be allowed to
graduate after all after administrators consulted with the university’s
legal counsel, who concluded the matter involved issues of protected speech.
“In cases where the complaint is filed in proximity to graduation, our
normal procedure includes placing a graduation diploma hold on the
respondent,” said the spokesman, E.J. Miranda. “The complaint was
resolved as expeditiously as possible, and the respondent and
complainant have been informed that case law supports that the email is
protected speech.”
Mr. Miranda said that the university would also review its procedures
for placing holds on student diplomas in judicial cases close to graduation.
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The president of the campus chapter of the Federalist Society did not
respond to a request for comment on Wednesday night.
Mr. Hawley, whoreceived his undergraduate degree from Stanford
University <https://www.hawley.senate.gov/biography>, waswidely
criticized
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/us/politics/josh-hawley-vilified-for-exhorting-jan-6-protesters-is-not-backing-down.html>for
objecting to the certification of the presidential election results. Mr.
Paxton has drawnscrutiny
<https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-ken-paxton-elections-presidential-elections-2b9b7f12e2c4ba77d407c533dd315f95>for
his appearance at a rally in support of Donald J. Trump in Washington on
the day of the siege.
Representatives for Mr. Hawley and Mr. Paxton did not immediately
respond to requests for comment on Wednesday night.
Grabbing attention itself was Mr. Wallace’s satirical flier, which he
said he had emailed to a Listserv forum for law school students on Jan.
25, nearly three weeks after the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The flier said that the event was being presented by the Federalist
Society on Jan. 6.
“Riot information will be emailed the morning of the event,” the flier
said, offering Grubhub coupons to the first 30 students who R.S.V.P.’d
for the fictitious program. “Although widely believed to conflict in
every way with the rule of law, violent insurrection can be an effective
approach to upholding the principle of limited government.”
Two days after the satirical flier was sent by Mr. Wallace, it was the
focus of a fact check article byUSA Today
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/27/fact-check-flyer-calling-capitol-riot-stanford-event-satire/4267449001/>,
which reported that the email was a form of satire.
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In a complaint to the university, unidentified officers of the
Federalist Society chapter said that Mr. Wallace’s email had caused
significant harm and had led other organizations to cancel their events
with the group.
“Wallace defamed the student group, its officers, Senator Josh Hawley,
and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton,” the complaint said. “Wallace,
impersonating the Stanford Federalist Society, wrote on the flyer that
‘Riot information will be emailed the morning of the event,’ insinuating
that the student group was encouraging and hosting a riot. He also wrote
that Attorney General Paxton advocates for ‘overturn[ing] the results of
a free and fair election’ by ‘calling on a violent mob to storm the
Capitol.’ And he wrote that Senator Hawley believes that violent
insurrections are justified.”
The names of the complainants were redacted from the complaint, which
was posted online on Monday by the Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education, a group working to defend free speech on college campuses.
Mr. Wallace had sought the group’s help.
“By instituting an investigation and placing a hold on Wallace’s degree
days before his graduation, Stanford betrays its legal and moral
commitments to respect its students’ expressive rights,” the group said
in a letter on Tuesday to one of the law school’s deans.
The flap drew the notice ofSlate magazine
<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/federalist-society-stanford.html>.
The writer of that article, Mark Joseph Stern, was the featured speaker
in a conversation about the Federalist Society that Mr. Wallace said he
had organized about a month after he sent the satirical email.
Mr. Wallace’s cause was also taken up by Laurence H. Tribe, a
constitutional law professor emeritus at Harvard University.
“Mocking an ideologically-based group can’t be made a basis for denying
academic privileges in any open society worthy of respect,” Mr. Tribe
wrote on Twitter. “If accurate, this report shows Stanford Law School to
be unworthy of treatment as an academic institution.”
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George T. Conway III, one of the founders of the anti-Trump group the
Lincoln Project, also rallied behind Mr. Wallace.
“As someone who been involved with the Federalist Society for over 35
years, I agree that this is totally ridiculous,” Mr. Conway said on
Twitter, responding to Mr. Tribe.
Mr. Wallace, who is from Ann Arbor, Mich., and received his
undergraduate degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, said
that he is supposed to take the bar exam this summer in his home state
and then start a job with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in
Washington, D.C.
He said that he would not have been able to take the bar exam without
his law school diploma, which he will receive on June 12.
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