By Nate Raymond and Karen Sloan
(Reuters) – A group of 13 conservative U.S. federal judges said on Monday they would not hire Columbia University law students or graduate students in response to its handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The judges, all appointed by former President Donald Trumpcalled the Manhattan campus an “incubator of intolerance” in a Monday letter to Columbia President Minouche Shafik and Law Dean Gillian Lester.
“Both faculty and administrators are on the front lines of disruptions on campus, encouraging the virulent spread of anti-Semitism and bigotry,” the letter said.
Spokespeople for Columbia University and Columbia Law School did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Columbia on Monday canceled its main commencement ceremony due to ongoing protests.
Federal judges hire law graduates annually for year-long internships that can lead to prestigious, high-paying legal jobs. The boycott will apply to students entering Columbia this fall, the judges wrote.
The letter called for “serious consequences” for students and faculty who participated in campus disruptions and for the enforcement of free speech rules.
Protests against the war in Gaza have spread to dozens of US universities. Protesters held a camp on Columbia’s main campus for weeks before some temporarily occupied a campus building last week. New York police evacuated the building and arrested more than 100 people.
The judges who signed Monday’s letter were all appointed by Trump, who praised the New York Police Department’s response to the protesters, calling them “raging lunatics and Hamas sympathizers.”
Two-thirds of the signatories are based in Texas, including Matthew Kacsmaryk, who gained national attention last year by halting approval of the abortion pill mifepristone in a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Two of the main signatories, U.S. Circuit Judges James Ho of the 5th Circuit and Elizabeth Branch of the 11th Circuit, had previously announced employee boycotts at Yale and Stanford, citing interruptions from conservative speakers on campus.
The 13 judges boycotting Colombia represent a small fraction of the country’s nearly 900 federal judges.
(Reporting by Karen Sloan; Editing by David Bario and Deepa Babington)
