(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Thirteen federal judges said on May 6, 2024, that they would no longer hire law clerks from Columbia College and Columbia Law School, citing the “explosion of student disruptions” and the “virulent spread of anti-Semitism” at Columbia, which has now canceled its main graduation ceremony because of the violent protest.
In a letter to Columbia President Minouche Shafik, the judges wrote they would no longer hire “anyone who joins the Columbia University community—whether as undergraduates or as law students—beginning with the entering class of 2024,” the Washington Free Beacon reported.
“Freedom of speech protects protest, not trespass, and certainly not acts or threats of violence or terrorism. It has become clear that Columbia applies double standards when it comes to free speech and student misconduct,” they wrote.
The judges then continued highlighting the hypocrisy of the university by stating that if conservatives were to have a violent protest, the response would not be the same.
“Recent events demonstrate that ideological homogeneity throughout the entire institution of Columbia has destroyed its ability to train future leaders of a pluralistic and intellectually diverse country. If Columbia had been faced with a campus uprising of religious conservatives upset because they view abortion as a tragic genocide, we have no doubt that the university’s response would have been profoundly different,” they wrote.
In addition to Columbia law students, undergraduates would be affected as well.
“As judges who hire law clerks every year to serve in the federal judiciary, we have lost confidence in Columbia as an institution of higher education. Columbia has instead become an incubator of bigotry,” they wrote.
The news source also reported that the boycott could lead to a significant change in the American legal system. Since clerkships are a coveted commodity among law students, one of the selling points of elite law schools is that they help their students get jobs. Considering that there are far more conservative judges than there are conservative law students, law schools disproportionately rely on conservatives to boost their clerkship placements and prestige.
