What’s News
Months after her lengthy missive defending free speech made national headlines, Jenny S. Martinez has been named provost of Stanford University.
As dean of Stanford’s law school, Martinez saw the campus through controversy after a student protest of a federal judge in March turned into a cultural flashpoint.
“As dean, she has been a champion of inclusion, and a clear and reasoned voice for academic freedom,” Richard Saller, Stanford’s interim president, wrote in his announcement of Martinez’s promotion. She will take office on October 1.
The Details
Last winter Stanford Law School’s chapter of the Federalist Society, a conservative and libertarian club, invited as a guest speaker Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, who had been appointed to the federal bench by President Donald Trump.
But during his talk, Duncan was interrupted by student protesters, who called his judicial record anti-LGBTQ and who condemned his support for banning same-sex marriage and for preventing transgender people from using their preferred bathrooms.
When Duncan asked Stanford administrators to intervene, Tirien A. Steinbach, the law school’s diversity dean, affirmed Duncan’s right to speak but questioned whether it was worth letting him do so. After a backlash from conservative advocates and others in Stanford’s administration, Martinez and Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Stanford‘s departing president, apologized to Duncan in a joint letter; Steinbach went on leave and then resigned.
In a 5,000-word letter to the Stanford community, Martinez doubled down on the apology to Duncan, criticizing the behavior of the students as well as Steinbach.
“When a disruption occurs and the speaker asks for an administrator to help restore order, the administrator who responds should not insert themselves into debate with their own criticism of the speaker’s views and the suggestion that the speaker reconsider whether what they plan to say is worth saying,” Martinez wrote.
The Backdrop
As leaders across higher ed question how to respond to free-speech flaps, Martinez has served as an example.
National commentaries hailed her memo as a watershed moment, signaling that college leaders were becoming more open to issuing forceful defenses of academic freedom and free speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, for instance, called Martinez’s letter a “tour de force.”
That stance often clashes with students, who increasingly say that colleges shouldn’t invite speakers to campuses if their views might be offensive to students of color and LGBTQ students, among other groups.
The Stakes
By elevating Martinez to its top academic post, Stanford is making a statement in the continuing free-speech debate. Leaders across the country will look to Martinez to uphold that stance, particularly as she assumes jurisdiction over not only the law school but also Stanford’s entire student body.
She’ll also be second in command to Saller, an interim president who will take the job after Tessier-Lavigne resigned. An investigation found that while Tessier-Lavigne hadn’t personally engaged in research misconduct, he had “failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record.” His resignation is effective September 1.
