Four years ago, Josh Blackman was invited to speak at CUNY law school by its Federalist Society chapter on the topic of free speech on campus. It did not go well. The National Lawyers Guild chapter decided that whatever Josh had to say, it should not be heard. Its express reasoning was “fuck the law,” their words.

It seemed that Free Speech had become a “dog whistle” of the far right, which therefore justified disrupting any attempt to discuss or debate it. Was this a low point for law schools, a reaction to the extremes arising from fear and loathing of Trump, where thought, argument, debate and tolerance of a constitutional right in the hands of an “adversary” could no longer be tolerated?

Ilya Shapiro was invited to a debate at UC Hastings by its chapter of the Federalist Society. It didn’t go well either.

Earlier this week, UC Hastings hosted what was supposed to be a discussion between two professors on the opportunities afforded by Associate Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s recent vacancy. The college’s chapter of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, organized the event, which featured Rory Little, a UC Hastings law professor representing the liberal viewpoint, and Ilya Shapiro, executive director of Georgetown University’s Constitution Center, representing the libertarian right.

The discussion did not take place. Several dozen student protesters affiliated with the campus’s Black Law Students Association (BLSA) drowned out Shapiro whenever he tried to speak, interrupting the event for its entire planned hour. Administrators’ repeated pleas to let the discussion proceed were ignored by the activists, who chanted “Black Lives Matter” over and over again until Shapiro eventually gave up.

As Robby Soave phrases it, Ilya was deemed an “illegitimate speaker” because of a twit in which he characterized the pool of black women nominees to the Supreme Court as a lesser choice to Judge Sri Srinivasan, who would not be considered based on race and gender. Ilya’s twit has already been the subject of substantial discussion. Nonetheless, the debate was on, with Shapiro against Rory Little. But the BLSA decided that there could be no debate if it entailed Shapiro being heard. What was their argument?

The students of UC Hastings don’t have to like Ilya Shapiro, particularly after his controversial twit. They don’t have to listen to him. They don’t have accept him as a legitimate speaker worthy of tolerance, no less civility. And, at least arguably, they have their own right to be heard, to speak, although the silencing of an invited speaker by a protest designed solely to heckle, disrupt and prevent those who want to listen from doing so raises a difficult free speech dilemma.

But there remains another concern arising from this ugly and childish reaction by law students at UC Hastings, reminiscent of what happened with Josh Blackman at CUNY and why Melissa Chen avoided using “free speech” as the subject of her panel at Harvard. While the question of whether these students had a right to engage in this disruption may be a fair subject for debate, that fails to address whether this is the sort of tactic law students should employ, and whether a law school, of all places, should see this as a failure on its part of adequately preparing students to eventually join the legal profession.

At one point, Morris Ratner—UC Hastings’ dean of academics—attempted to quiet the students. He commended their passion and said they were welcome to protest with signs, but asked them to allow the event to actually proceed, per the college’s free speech policies.

“Free speech, including the right to do the form of expression I see on these signs, is a key right that we are required to uphold,” said Ratner. “I applaud those of you who want to express your views. There is a way to do that consistent with our institutional codes and norms.” The students then interrupted and loudly booed him.

Of course he commended their “passion,” as that’s what law school has become, a place where adults appease the unduly passionate lest they be the next victim of their outrage. His tummy rub wasn’t vigorous enough to either persuade students to stop being  like infants or to avoid becoming their target as well. Appeasement may not be as tactically wise as Ranter hoped.

UC Hastings put out a statement reaffirming its commitment to free speech and noting that the protesters had violated the student code.

“Disrupting an event to prevent a speaker from being heard is a violation of our policies and norms, including the Code of Student Conduct and Discipline, Section 107 (‘Harmful Acts and Disturbances’), which the College will—indeed, must—enforce,” said Ratner in a statement.

When asked what he intended to do about it, Ratner demurred. Was this stern statement that what they did was bad, BAD, enough? Would the protesters be subject to adverse action for violating the student code? It’s possible. So is a space alien invasion.

But what happened at UC Hastings comes almost four years after the CUNY debacle, meaning that these students weren’t in law school when the NLG shut down Josh Blackman. Yet another full class has come and gone, and law students are still of the view that the tactic of silencing people they hate and ideas they despise is not merely appropriate, but a better tactic than prevailing on reasoned argument, the primary tool of lawyers.

A perpetual concern, particularly in criminal defense, is that the next generation of lawyers will lack the skills needed to do their job, to zealously represent their clients. They struggle to tolerate the language we encounter in the ordinary course of our work. They are blinded by hatred of their prosecutorial adversaries, the law enforcement witnesses, the judge who denies their pleas for “justice.” Can they mount effective arguments against their clients if they can’t tolerate hearing arguments with which they disagree? If they can’t present a cogent view in contrast to Ilya Shapiro’s, can they do so against the summation of a prosecutor?

The reaction to these students was split, with many woke law students and baby lawyers applauding their action while more experienced lawyers were appalled at what they viewed as a failure of a law school, of law students, to demonstrate the minimal capacity to engage in the manner that will be expected of them as lawyers. If tactics like this are what law students deem acceptable, will they ever be capable of being lawyers?