Author: Nate Raymond and Karen Sloan
– Columbia Law School’s dean expressed support for its graduates on Tuesday, saying they are “constantly sought after” as the school responded to an announcement by 13 conservative federal judges that it would not hire students from Ivy League universities.
The judge announced the boycott on Monday over the university’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests, calling the Manhattan campus “a An incubator of paranoia.”
Columbia Law School graduates “are consistently favored by leading employers in the private and public sectors, including the judiciary,” Lester said in a statement Tuesday.
The primary signatories to Monday’s letter, all appointees of former Republican President Donald Trump, include U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Elizabeth Branch, who had previously urged judges to similarly resist hiring clerks from the United States. Events at Yale University and Stanford Law School were disrupted by conservative speakers.
But data shows the boycott has had limited real-world impact.
Columbia Law School is not a major source of federal clerkships; the vast majority of its graduates go on to associate positions at large law firms. According to the latest employment data from the American Bar Association, by 2023, only 21 of Manhattan Law School’s 427 J.D. graduates will enter federal civil service positions, or about 5%.
By comparison, the University of Chicago Law School, Yale Law School and Stanford Law School each sent 20% or more of their Class of 2023 into federal clerkships. Columbia University ranks 39th among 195 law schools in the United States for the proportion of graduates entering federal clerkships.
A law school spokesman did not comment Tuesday on whether the 13 boycotting judges had hired Columbia Law School graduates as federal clerks.
Federal judges hire two to three law graduates each year as one-year clerkships, which can lead to prestigious, high-paying legal jobs. ABA data shows that less than 4% of law graduates nationwide find these jobs.
“There is no reason to punish them”
On Tuesday, there were few signs that the boycott was heating up.
U.S. Circuit Court Judge Jerry Smith, Ho’s colleague on the 5th Circuit and appointed by Republican former President Ronald Reagan, noted that of the approximately 170 federal appeals court judges currently serving, only Two judges announced plans to join the boycott.
“I have a lot of great legal staff from Columbia,” Smith said. “I will not boycott any law school or its students.”
Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane of the Southern District of Texas said he would not hire students involved in “anti-Semitic or pro-Hamas protests,” but he also would not support a blanket boycott of schools.
“Some of these law students may be Jewish and have been threatened and harassed,” said Klain, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush. “I see no reason to punish them.”
However, U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky of Little Rock, Arkansas, a Trump appointee who recently traveled to Israel with a group of U.S. judges, said in an email on Tuesday that he was considering joining the boycott Columbia University ranks.
Rudowski said judges need to “step up as leaders of the bar and help stop the spread of virulent Jewish hatred that is being normalized on college campuses and elsewhere across the country.”
Retired federal judge Jeremy Fogel, director of the Berkeley Judiciary Institute at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said Tuesday that federal judges have “broad latitude” in hiring staff and that the judges’ boycott letters do not violate their conduct. guidelines.
“That said, reasonable people may differ as to whether statements of this nature are consistent with the dignity of the office of the judge and the judge’s obligation to be impartial,” Fogel said.
This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.