Stanford University threatened to withhold the degree of a law student who mocked politicians backing the January attack on the US Capitol, a move criticised as a “chilling effect” on free speech created by conservative pressure.

Stanford relented after a flurry of complaints over the case of Nicholas Wallace, who emailed to a student mailing list announcing purported speeches by key conservative figures arguing the constitutional basis for staging an anti-government coup.

The flyer was presented as coming from the campus chapter of the right-wing Federalist Society and announced the event for 6 January – the day of the Capitol attack – although sent weeks after it actually occurred.

In response to a complaint from the Federalist Society chapter, Stanford told Mr Wallace late last month that it had placed a hold on his degree. Among other complications, the potential delay threatened Mr Wallace’s plans to take the bar exam this summer in his home state of Michigan.

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Those chastising Stanford for its action against Mr Wallace included representatives of the American Association of University Professors and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (Fire), which aims to point out campus free-speech violations regardless of ideology.

In a , Adam Steinbaugh, director of the Individual Rights Defense Programme at Fire, explained that merely the announcement of an investigation of a case so obviously lacking in merit is a violation of its students’ free speech rights.

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“Even if an investigation concludes in the speaker’s favor and no formal discipline is meted out,” Mr Steinbaugh said, “its very initiation will have an immediate chilling effect on student speech and long-term consequences for the speaker.”

At the AAUP, Hank Reichman, chair of the association’s committee on academic freedom and tenure, drew a comparison to Stanford’s recent inaction when asked to investigate the behaviour of the campus College Republicans regarding Palestinian rights.

In that case, more than 500 Stanford students, faculty, staff and alumni to support Emily Wilder, a Stanford graduate fired by the Associated Press over her pro-Palestinian social media posts, and to investigate the College Republicans for their repeated attacks against Ms Wilder.

A Stanford spokesman, E. J. Miranda, saying the university followed its “normal procedures” in investigating the complaint against Mr Wallace and resolved it “as expeditiously as possible”.

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Mr Miranda, however, noted that Stanford is facing an increase in the number and complexity of free speech complaints, and said that the university continues to review its practices.

In particular, he promised a study of cases involving “holds on student accounts in judicial cases in close proximity to graduation”.

The flyer by Mr Wallace targeted the Texas state attorney general, Ken Paxton, and US Senator Joshua Hawley, a Republican of Missouri and graduate of Stanford, for their encouragement of the pro-Trump crowd on 6 January.

Mr Wallace's flyer, announcing the faux event by the Federalist Society, which claims fidelity to the US Constitution, said: “Violent insurrection, also known as doing a coup, is a classical system of installing a government.”

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paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com