Let’s pick up where we left off five weeks ago.

Political bias on college and university campuses is antithetical to diversity of thought.

Such bias is antithetical even to academic freedom when, for example, the bias in effect results – as it often does – in the establishment of what amounts to thought police.

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The thought police were out in force this semester at Stanford Law School, in Palo Alto, Calif.

What was unusual about this incident was not that the thought police were out in force in an educational or cultural institution.

Nor was it unusual that the educational institution was a college or university campus.

Nor was it unusual that the thought police were out in force in a law school.

What was unusual here was that the event made the press.

It all started, you see, when a student group at the law school had the temerity to invite to speak, in the law school, a federal appellate judge of whom some Stanford Law administrators, faculty, and students didn’t approve.

Why should diversity of thought be a problem? Well, it shouldn’t be.

First, one might think such administrators, faculty, and students would take advantage of an opportunity to listen to a perspective different from theirs and learn from it.

Second, one might think such administrators, faculty, and students would be eager to compare the guest’s thoughts to their own.

Third, one might think such administrators, faculty, and students would be willing to examine their own thoughts in light of what they learned.

Fourth, one might think such administrators, faculty, and students, if they had no intention of doing any of these, might at least mind their manners.

Fifth, one might think such administrators, faculty, and students, if they found themselves unable to mind their manners, would have enough respect for themselves – not to mention other administrators, faculty, and students, plus the guest – to stay away from the event and not interfere, much less disrupt it.

You, faithful reader of this column, already know where this is going, don’t you?

Some dissenting Stanford Law administrators, faculty, and students didn’t exactly follow all five of these principles. Instead, they heckled the guest and disrupted his presentation.

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Shortly thereafter, another student group – this one at Columbia Law School in New York City – had the temerity to travel to Washington to meet with a Supreme Court justice of whom some at Columbia Law didn’t approve.

The law school thereafter posted, on a social-media account that the law school maintains, a photo of the justice and the students.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the social-media post included “a brief note that the law students had a chance to ‘engage in conversation’ and hear about ‘the Court’s deliberation process and how to be an effective advocate.'”

One might think – here we go again – that other Columbia Law students and alumni would have been pleased that this student group had this opportunity.

Some, the Wall Street Journal reported, responded with vitriol.

In other words, they responded like the thought police they are.

One Columbia Law student told the newspaper of not daring to speak out against what the dissenters had done: “‘I’m a Democrat and a liberal person and so are my friends but none of us can say anything,’ said the student, who asked not to be identified. ‘If I feel this way, I can’t imagine how conservative students feel.'”

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After graduating from law school, such dissenting – and that’s a polite word for them – law students at Stanford, Columbia, and elsewhere might consider applying for jobs where they trump up charges against their political opponents and prosecute (read: persecute) them.

That, however, would require moving to some totalitarian state or banana republic where prosecutors try to pull off, and often “succeed” – so to speak – in pulling off such legal atrocities, which make a mockery of the rule of law.

After all, such dissenters wouldn’t be able to do that in the United States, would they?

Dr. Randy Elf joins those who support freedom of speech in educational and cultural institutions.

COPYRIGHT ç 2023 BY RANDY ELF