Trump Judge Kyle Duncan got exactly what he wanted out of Stanford: Fame

[Nevilledog]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/federal-judge-stanford-trump-kyle-duncan-17839426.php

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In 2018, President Donald Trump appointed Stuart Kyle Duncan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the most conservative federal appeals court in the country. Duncan was a natural fit: Before taking the bench, he was best known for representing the conservative owners of Hobby Lobby craft stores chafing under the burden of having to provide their employees with health care that includes contraceptive access.

In 2016, Duncan referred to Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, as an “abject failure” that “imperils civic peace.”

As a judge, Duncan has done more of the same. Last spring, he joined an unsigned opinion ordering President Biden to deploy unvaccinated Navy SEALs, the strenuous objections of military leaders notwithstanding. Two years before that, he used a transgender woman’s request that the court use her preferred pronouns as an excuse to uncork a bizarre, Fox News-esque screed bemoaning the vagaries of gender identity politics.

All this time playing in the culture war sandbox made Duncan an attractive guest speaker candidate for Stanford Law School’s chapter of the Federalist Society, a well-heeled organization of conservative lawyers more or less responsible for Trump’s judicial nominations agenda. On Thursday, Duncan arrived on campus for an event billed as a discussion of “COVID, guns and Twitter” over complimentary lunch. Students who find some or all of Duncan’s jurisprudence objectionable planned a protest.

Things unraveled quickly. Duncan, who was expecting a hostile audience, kicked things off by filming protesters on his phone; one witness characterized him as “looking for a fight,” and “more like a YouTuber storming the Capitol, than a federal judge coming to speak.” Shortly after the event began, Duncan appealed to the school’s administration for help with his hecklers. Associate Dean Tirien Steinbach, who had also prepared for fireworks, stood and acknowledged the legitimacy of the students’ anger toward Duncan before reiterating his right to speak. The judge, visibly flustered, decided to open the floor for questions.

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