Stanford University is seeing its share of controversy this month, with another high-level administrator announcing their resignation last week.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the president of the university — neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne — announced he would resign in August after a review of his published research apparently found multiple papers with significant errors and evidence of “manipulation of research data by others.”
Now, Stanford Law School’s associate dean for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) — Tirien Steinbach — is also on her way out, following calls for her resignation over an incident that happened four months ago.
Steinbach went viral in March after video surfaced of her seemingly failing to enforce the university’s free speech policy by joining in with students chastising a guest speaker — Judge Kyle Duncan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, per Inside Higher Ed.
Stanford Law School Dean Jenny S. Martinez mentioned the incident in her announcement of Steinbach’s departure.
“As I previously noted, tempers flared along multiple dimensions. Although Associate Dean Steinbach intended to de-escalate the tense situation when she spoke at the March 9 event, she recognizes that the impact of her statements was not as she hoped or intended,” Martinez said in a statement, according to Fox News.
The executive director of Speech First, a First Amendment advocacy organization focused on students’ right to free speech on college campuses, celebrated Steinbach’s announced departure.
“We are thrilled to see Dean Tirien Steinbach is being held accountable for her actions. She made it clear she does not believe in such principles as open discourse and free speech,” said Cherise Trump (of no relation to the former president), per the New York Post.
“These key principles are vital to a college education as well as to our legal system. The day Steinbach violated campus free speech policies and led an angry mob to shout down a sitting judge simply because she did not like his views, was the day she told the country that Stanford Law School has a much lower hiring standard than we knew,” Trump said.