Angry at being mocked, the Stanford University chapter of the Federalist Society is blocking the graduation of a law school student who posted a satirical flyer for a fictional event supporting the January 6th Capitol insurrection, Slate reports.
The flyer, posted on the university’s student listserv, promoted a fake seminar titled “The Originalist Case for Inciting Insurrection,” which was supposed to be sponsored by the Stanford Federalist Society and was to feature as speakers Missouri Republican Senator Joshua Hawley and Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, people who voiced support for the effort to undermine the Electoral College and the slates of electors certified by the various states.
“Violent insurrection, also known as doing a coup, is a classical system of installing a government,” the flyer read, adding that insurrection “can be an effective approach to upholding the principle of limited government.” The flyer was distributed January 25th, more than two weeks after the event was dated on the flyer. (A copy of the flier can be found here.)
Third-year Stanford Law student Nicholas Wallace electronically distributed the flyer January 25th, after President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The flyer went viral, with mainstream media outlets checking with Stanford Federal Society to ensure the flyer was satire and to request comment.
On May 22nd, Stanford’s Office of Community Standards received a complaint from an officer of the Stanford Federalist Society, who by university policy is not named in public releases of the complaint. The complainant said the flyer damaged the reputation of the Society and the various people connected to it.
The university notified Wallace on May 27th that his graduation, scheduled for June 12th, may be delayed pending an investigation. Wallace was scheduled to take the Michigan bar exam later in the summer, something for which he must submit his diploma in order to take.
Various students’ right and civil rights groups have spoken out against Stanford delaying Wallace’s graduation. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education urged the university to “immediately abandon its investigation and commit to procedural reforms to protect the expressive rights Stanford promises to its students.”
“No reasonable person familiar with the email’s context would understand it to be sincere,” the group wrote.
For his part, Wallace says he feels the Federalist Society’s actions are malicious and retaliatory, adding stress to an already stressful finals week with questions from the university ethics board.
“It has been a pretty awful way to close out my career at Stanford,” Wallace told me. “Instead of studying for finals, I’m trying to figure this out. I just sent an email to my family trying to reassure them that I haven’t blown it in my last few days at Stanford.”