Bari Weiss and the last line of defense
We have let far too much go unchallenged. Too many lies have spread in the face of inaction as a result of fear or politesse. No more. Do not bite your tongue. Do not tremble. Do not go along with little lies. Speak up. Break the wall of lies. Let nothing go unchallenged.
This was the message Bari Weiss delivered recently as the Keynote speaker at the Federalist Society’s annual conference. Bari is not the typical Federalist Society keynoter. She is a journalist who has written for the New York Times of all things. She is left leaning in her politics. She is also, however, passionate about traditional American values like free speech, the rule of law, the value of hard work and advancement by merit. She opposes Wokism and the identity politics, DEI bureaucracies and cancel culture associated with it. This unites her with the lawyers she was addressing.
A few years ago, Bari started The Free Press, which she calls “a new media company built on the ideals that once were the bedrock of great journalism: honesty, doggedness and fierce independence.” Her company has a “focus on stories that are ignored or misconstrued in the service of an ideological narrative.” The “ideological narrative” she is referring to is the Wokism pushed by the mainstream media. The Free Press has been successful with this model, though not successful enough. Bari is an American Jew. When Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7 this year, and protestors filled the streets around the world in support of the terrorists, Bari’s mission became more urgent. That is why she agreed to speak to the Federalist Society. Her aim was to convince those lawyers that they are the last line of defense in a fight for western civilization. Judging by their reaction, I think she convinced them. I want to introduce you to Bari’s argument because I want her to convince you, too.
Bari began by recalling her experience as a college student twenty years ago. She said that back then she noticed “deconstruction” was prominent in college pedagogy. Things like postmodernism in literature classes and postcolonialism in history classes and critical theory in the law. She became concerned at the time, she said, because prevailing thought was focused only on deconstructing, or tearing down. There was no thought given to what would happen after the deconstruction, to what would fill the void. It was as if nihilistic destruction was the point. Bari explains that she was reassured by others not to worry, that college students can be a little dramatic, but such thinking would not survive in the real world.
That reassurance was wrong, though. Over time, these critical theories have coalesced into an ideology bent on razing the foundations of the western world. As Bari notes of Wokism:
It seeks to upend the very ideas of right and wrong. It replaces basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.
It has also leached from the universities. Wokism has infiltrated K-12 education, corporate board rooms and government agencies, including our justice system. What should we do about it? Bari suggests four things.
First, she says, we should look. “We must recover our ability to look and to discern accordingly. We must look past the sloganeering and the propaganda and take a hard look at what’s in front of our eyes,” she noted.
As an example of what she means by looking, Bari points out that in the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel, the woke left tried to justify and minimize culpability. They would say that one must understand the context. That there is a long history of aggression on both sides. There is often a kernel of truth in woke arguments like this. The kernel is not the problem, though. It is the suppositions wokists build from that kernel, and then the rationalizations for the resulting actions or policies. Yes, it’s true that there is a long history of war between Israel and Palestine, but justifying terrorism? As Bari stated, “I do not need ‘context’ to know that tying children to their parents and burning them alive is pure evil.”
So much of woke ideology feels askew in this way. It is out of sync with reality, human nature and time-tested traditions. That’s why we must look at what is actually happening. We must “discern” as Bari says. I would add that in our discernment, we must trust our core values.
Next, Bari asked the FedSoc lawyers to enforce the law. The same woke ideology that drives protestors to the streets in support of Hamas terrorists has driven lenient criminal law policies across the nation. As Bari noted in her speech, “the wave of elected so-called ‘progressive prosecutors’ has proven to be an immensely terrible thing for law and order in cities across America. It turns out that choosing not to enforce the law doesn’t reduce crime. It promotes it.”
I have written extensively here at Judex about the criminal justice reform movement. The leniency produced in this movement has made our communities less safe. It has also led to the erosion of the separation of powers and had a delegitimizing effect on our judiciary. These things are occurring in the name of social justice. Policymakers, prosecutors, judges and others are choosing to relax standards or apply the law unequally in the name of “equity.” When Bari encourages us to enforce the law, she means for police, prosecutors and judges to do their jobs. She means for the law to be applied as it is written, and to be applied equally to all. Only this will restore safety to our streets and confidence in our system.
Third, Bari called for an end to the double standard on speech. She pointed out the many instances where conservative speakers, including conservative U.S. Federal Judges, have been shouted down on college campuses. She noted that some college presidents quickly decry microaggressions but are silent in the face of antisemitism.
As I have written about before, this free speech double standard has crept out of the universities and into our corporations and government agencies. It has recently been uncovered that the Biden Administration colluded with social media companies to suppress conservative speech. That action is now the subject of a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. One Federal Judge called it the most important free speech case in the nation’s history.
There is clearly a double standard when it comes to speech. Conservative speech is being suppressed, sometimes even by government actors. Suppressing conservative speech deprives the body politic of a counterweight to Wokism. It empowers the worst elements of woke ideology by making them appear more mainstream. This has now led to mass protests in American streets in favor of barbaric terrorists.
Finally, Bari told the lawyers in the room to “accept that you are the last line of defense and fight, fight, fight. She said, “the right ideas don’t win on their own. They need a voice. They need prosecutors. Time to defend our values—the values that have made this country the freest, most tolerant society in the history of the world—without hesitation or apology.”
When Bari’s speech concluded, she received what some have described as perhaps the longest and loudest standing ovation ever given to a Federalist Society speaker. That is because she is right, and her message is urgent.
Bari’s message is exactly why I started Judex. There is plenty of information in the legal world coming from the left. There is very little coming from the right. I want you to know that your ideas are not only valid, but they are also worth fighting for. You, my friends, are the last line of defense.
You can read the text of her speech here. Better yet, you can listen to her remarks here.