But the promised training wasn’t much of a crash course in free speech. Instead, it was an online program that required barely a minute’s effort, according to five people who completed the training as well as screenshots and recordings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Students were given six weeks to watch five prerecorded videos, most about an hour long, then asked to sign a form attesting that they had done so.
The videos could be played on mute, and the form—which could be accessed without opening the training—did not ask any questions about their content, letting students tune out the modules or skip them entirely.
“I watched none of the videos,” one student said. “I never even opened the links. On the day the training was due, I went to the attestation link provided by the university, checked a box confirming I watched the videos, and that was the end of the matter. Whole process took 10 seconds.”
The free speech program was much less demanding than the law school’s modules on Title IX and alcohol issues, which require students to answer questions demonstrating an understanding of school policy, according to people who’d completed both trainings. The contrast has shaken students’ faith in Stanford’s vaunted recommitment to freedom of speech, which, one said, appears to have been “nothing more than hollow virtue signaling.”
Stanford Law School did not respond to a request for comment.