Progress is being made on free speech for conservative Yale Law School students a year after leftist activists brought shame on the university by shutting down a speech by an accomplished litigator.

The law school’s Federalist Society hosted Alliance Defending Freedom President Kristen Waggoner at the beginning of this semester, nearly a full year after a disruption by YLS students caused a shutdown of the event. As a matter of disclosure, I have worked alongside ADF in my previous jobs.

The university took precautions this year to ensure free speech was protected, including limiting attendance and using photo ID to control who entered the event. "Time will tell if the school admin is committed to this change, but today offered hope for a new era where tolerance for ideological diversity can succeed on campus," ADF tweeted.

That is a stark contrast from March 2022, when protesters heckled Waggoner , a conservative Christian attorney who successfully defended baker Jack Phillips in front of the Supreme Court. Students shut down the event while ironically complaining that the presence of police officers put students in harm’s way.

"Even with all of the privilege afforded to us at YLS, the decision to allow police officers in as a response to the protest put YLS’ queer student body at risk of harm," some students complained.

The letter also stated that a "large swath" of law students at Yale "felt that" the Fed Soc chapter "len[t] legitimacy to this hate group by inviting its general counsel." This decision, the future lawyers of America wrote, "profoundly undermined our community’s values of equity and inclusivity at a time when LGBTQ youth are actively under attack in Texas, Florida, and other states."

The resulting controversy, along with the school’s targeting of a conservative Native American student in September 2021 for making a joke about a "trap house" party, led to outside pressure on Yale to reform its ways. Federal Judge James Ho , along with some of his peers, announced they would not hire any law clerks that started at the university as of 2022, apparently with the goal of getting the school to change its ways and to convince right-leaning students to attend elsewhere. As a result, the dean of the law school, Heather Gerken, invited Ho to campus and also reached out to him to discuss the situation.

Yale Law School still has plenty of work to do to make amends for its past stifling of free speech.

University officials should want to restore faith and trust that the school is welcoming to right-of-center viewpoints, and its support for ensuring the Waggoner event went off without a hitch the second time is promising news. Law school should be about presenting ideas, respectfully considering other arguments, and learning from people with whom you disagree. Yale law students today will likely be federal judges or attorneys at major corporations or within the government.

It would be troubling if they graduated law school with a dim view of open debate and dialogue, not just because of what it would say about higher education but what it would mean for how they would make impactful decisions in the future. Conservatives were right to push back in support of open debate and should continue to demand it for their own good and the benefit of all Yale law students.

Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.