Law Firms Sound Off Against Antisemites
How can America's elite universities tolerate bigotry?
Getting more than 100 law firms to agree on anything would be a massive task. But the antisemitism now rippling through law schools and universities across the country – especially in elite ones – has spawned an extraordinary unanimity. Those firms will not recruit or accept antisemites such as those that have surfaced at NYU.
“Over the last several weeks, we have been alarmed at reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assaults on college campuses, including rallies calling for the death of Jews and the elimination of the State of Israel,” a letter sent to law school deans and signed by over 100 firms says. “Such anti-Semitic activities would not be tolerated at any of our firms. We also would not tolerate outside groups engaging in acts of harassment and threats of violence, as has also been occurring on many of your campuses.”
The firms, including such prestigious global outfits as Baker & Hostetler, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, sent the letter to deans at the nation’s top 14 law schools, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. These included such schools at the Ivies, as well as those at major institutions including UC Berkeley, the University of Chicago, the University of Virginia, Stanford and Duke.
The signatories made it clear that free discussion is appropriate in the academy, but that the uglier forms it has taken in recent weeks go beyond the pale. And while the letter stressed the unacceptability of attacks on Jews and Israel, it broadened its approach to assail bigotry more widely, striking an even-handed tone.
“As educators at institutions of higher learning, it is imperative that you provide your students with the tools and guidance to engage in the free exchange of ideas, even on emotionally charged issues, in a manner that affirms the values we all hold dear and rejects unreservedly that which is antithetical to those values,” the letter said. “There is no room for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism or any other form of violence, hatred or bigotry on your campuses, in our workplaces or our communities.”
The signatories made clear that they will not hire antisemites and other bigots.
“As employers who recruit from each of your law schools, we look to you to ensure your students who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace communities that have zero tolerance policies for any form of discrimination or harassment, much less the kind that has been taking place on some law school campuses,” the letter said. “We trust you will take the same unequivocal stance against such activities as we do, and we look forward to a respectful dialogue with you to understand how you are addressing with urgency this serious situation at your law schools.”
As The Wall Street Journal reported, Joe Shenker, senior chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, came up with the idea for the letter. Shenker had been in Israel on Oct. 7 and American Lawyer wrote about his experience there. Law students then began to contact him with stories about harassment on campus, including verbal threats and anti-Jewish slurs, such as cries to “gas the Jews.”
The harassment is all too real at some of the nation’s top schools. As journalist Alison Leigh Cowan recounted in Commentary, Jewish students at Cooper Union had to barricade themselves inside the library when anti-Israel protesters banged on the doors and denounced them. At Stanford, Jewish students were told to stand in a corner, singled out by a professor who wanted to use them in his classroom to illustrate what colonizers looked like. At Tulane, students were assaulted because they stepped in when protestors lit an Israeli flag on fire and then beat counter-protestors.
Meanwhile, at Drexel, a Jewish student’s dorm room door was torched, as pro-Hamas demonstrators celebrated the massacres in Israel. At Columbia, Jews were discouraged from attending a movie night, run by campus lesbians and open to 450 guests, because “Zionists aren’t invited.” At Cornell, students had to walk by swastikas, as antisemites sent out calls to shoot up a kosher dining hall. At Harvard, pro-Hamas student groups blamed Israel for butchering 1,400 civilians in Israel and taking hostage more than 200 people, including young children, saying the victimized country was “entirely responsible” for the savagery.
And the ignorance and astonishing insensitivity of some in the pro-Palestine ranks could not be more clearly demonstrated than by NYU law student Ryna Workman. Workman, who appeared on ABC defending Palestine and criticizing Israel, was caught on camera covering up posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas with pro-Palestine signs. Appallingly, Workman repeatedly ducked questions about whether she – or “they” as Workman prefers – had any empathy for Israeli victims. Subsequently, Winston & Strawn withdrew a job offer for Workman.
The outpouring of anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment (which really amount to the same thing, as is evident from the anti-Jewish actions on and off campuses) is not surprising to some folks. During the Trump years, antisemitism thrived, encouraged by the former president’s embrace of the far right. But such sentiments date back much longer.
As Lorenzo Vidino, director of George Washington University’s program on extremism, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, three decades of plotting by Hamas and fellow travelers put Israel into the crosshairs in elite institutions and polite Western society. He reports on how trends ranging from the identification of Israel with “white privilege” to old-fashioned anti-Semitism were involved, as were the terror group’s networks in the U.S. and Europe.
“Now run largely by Western-born activists, these networks understand how politics and media narratives work in the West,” Vidino wrote. “They frame the conflict in religious terms to local Muslim communities, labeling Israelis as ‘infidels’ and evoking hadiths about the killing of Jews. On college campuses those same networks use the language of postcolonial theory to tar the Israelis as ‘European settlers.’”
Elite institutions have grown lousy with terrorist sympathizers. Personally, I was burned by the phenomenon when the Columbia University Press dropped plans to publish a book I wrote about ISIS recruits and would-be recruits in Minnesota. The editorial staff enthusiastically backed the book, but someone on the faculty board overseeing the press objected to it, taking umbrage at the press’s publications about terrorism in general. Happily, Michigan State University Press in 2020 published the book, titled “Divided Loyalties.”
One tends to think that the highest levels of the academy would be populated by more enlightened folks. For the most part, I believe that’s true. My experience at Columbia as a grad student in 1980-81 was a wonderful one. However, the dim bulbs, political ignoramuses and racists there and in too many other universities lately have become more than merely troublesome. They have become dangerous.
I applaud the law firms' action and resolve, but just once I'd like to see an institution call out anti-Semitism without having to tack on "Islamophobia" and a host of other "isms". Anti-Semitism is happening on a large scale and in institutions where such prejudices and hatred should be anathema. Where are Islamophobes taking to the streets, beating counter-protestors, or running educational institutions? For once, someone should focus on the racism that is happening, and not the racism they imagine.