Columbia Law School Dean Gillian Lester supported the school’s graduates on Tuesday after a group of conservative judges said they would not hire them following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
Lester said in a statement that Columbia Law graduates are “consistently sought after by top public and private sector employers, including the judiciary.” Reuters report.
Her statement follows a letter signed by right-wing federal judges that was sent to her and Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, stating that they would refuse to hire graduates after the school experienced weeks-long pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
“As judges who hire legal assistants every year to serve in the federal judiciary, we have lost confidence in Colombia as an institution of higher education,” the 13 judges wrote.
The justices said they would halt hiring at the school starting in 2024 and that the boycott was intended to “restore” academic freedom at Columbia.
Students on the Columbia campus began a national movement of students protesting the Israel-Hamas war and demanding that their universities divest from Israeli companies or companies that supply weapons to Israel.
The demonstrations came to a head last week after hundreds of New York Police Department officers dressed in riot gear dispersed protesters and evacuated those who overtook the campus building.
The justices wrote that it was clear that Columbia “applies double standards when it comes to free speech and student misconduct” because the university would have had a “profoundly different” response if the protesting students were an “uprising of religious conservatives.”
According to Reuters, Columbia Law School is not a big feeder of federal jobs, and most of its graduates go on to associate jobs at law firms. Only 21 of the 427 juries graduated in 2023 entered federal positions, according to data from the American Bar Association.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
