If you’ve been hoping for a solution to the spreading antisemitic protests on college campuses, help may be on the way. This is what’s known as hitting them where it hurts. More than a dozen federal judges sent a notification to Columbia University Law School yesterday informing them that they will not be accepting applications from any of their graduates to be law clerks starting with the class of 2024. The judges were led by jurists from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The letter was addressed directly to Columbia President Minouche Shafik. They are not limiting the boycott to only the students taking part in the riots, but the entire graduating class. (Free Beacon)
Thirteen federal judges said Monday that they would no longer hire law clerks from Columbia College or Columbia Law School after the university allowed an encampment on its lawn to spiral into a destructive occupation of a campus building. The judges cited the “explosion of student disruptions” and the “virulent spread of antisemitism” at Columbia, which has now canceled its main graduation ceremony because of the unrest.
Led by Fifth Circuit appellate judges James Ho and Elizabeth Branch, who spearheaded a clerkship boycott of Yale Law School in 2022 and Stanford Law School in 2023, as well as by Matthew Solomson on the U.S Court of Federal Claims, the judges wrote in a letter to Columbia president Minouche Shafik that 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.”
Few law school graduates go directly into private practice or prominent positions at major firms immediately after finishing school. Many take positions as clerks with established judges where they can gain real-world experience and begin building a network of contacts that will help them later in their careers. This boycott doesn’t involve every judge in the nation, but it takes a significant bite out of the potential job pool. Other judges may follow suit if the protests continue.
This may be what it takes to motivate the administrations of these schools to take action. Who is going to pay that much money for a law degree if there is a significant risk that they will wind up with a job flipping burgers as they struggle to pay off hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans? Applying the boycott to the entire school elevates the threat so it doesn’t just apply to the protesters. Columbia will have to reconsider its position if it wants to keep attracting the best applicants.
We’ve already seen employers in other professions aside from law firms cutting off donations to their schools and suggesting that any new applicants who graduated from a university where these riots are taking place would have their job applications moved to the circular file. The rioters keep taking to the streets because they have faced no repercussions for their actions. They are part of the “give us everything for free” generation. But now it appears that the Gaza chickens are coming home to roost.
If the protesters wish to keep up with this hateful nonsense, that’s entirely up to them. They shouldn’t have to worry too much. I’m sure they should be able to land fine jobs as attorneys in Gaza working for Hamas. Of course, with the tunnels all being flooded, office space may be tough to come by. Just be sure to show up with some facial jewelry and an LGBTQ flag shirt. There aren’t nearly as many tall buildings left standing for them to throw you off of.