Citing Concern for Free Speech, 12 Federal Judges Say They Won't Take Clerks from Yale Law School

[zinn]

A dozen federal judges say they are no longer hiring clerks from Yale Law
School, citing a slew of scandals that they say have undermined free
speech and intellectual diversity.

In addition to Fifth Circuit judge James Ho, who announced on Thursday
that he would no longer hire law clerks from the nation’s top-ranked law
school, 12 federal judges—both circuit and district court jurists—told the
Washington Free Beacon they are joining the boycott.

"Students should be mindful that they will face diminished opportunities
if they go to Yale," said a prominent circuit court judge, whose clerks
have gone on to nab Supreme Court clerkships. "I have no confidence that
they’re being taught anything."

With one exception, the judges made clear this is a policy they are
imposing on future—not current—Yale Law School students.

A spokeswoman for the law school did not respond to a request for comment.

If the boycott catches on among other right-leaning judges, it could deal
a serious blow to Yale Law School, which has maintained the top spot in
the U.S. News and World Report rankings since the publication began
ranking law schools in the 1980s. Clerkships, particularly on the federal
bench, are coveted jobs in the legal profession, and many students choose
Yale over other elite law schools because its graduates have historically
had the best shot of clerking for prominent judges. A boycott could change
that calculus, forcing Yale administrators to rein in activist students
and colleagues if they want to keep attracting the best and brightest—and
if they want to maintain even a fig leaf of ideological diversity.

The judges joining the boycott, all of whom requested anonymity in order
to speak freely, cited a series of incidents where they say free speech
has come under attack at Yale Law, starting with a September 2021
controversy in which administrators pressured second year law student
Trent Colbert to apologize for an email in which he referred to his
apartment as a "trap house." The law school’s diversity director Yaseen
Eldik, also described Colbert’s membership in the conservative Federalist
Society as "triggering," according to leaked audio obtained by the Free
Beacon.

Then in March, over a hundred Yale Law students disrupted a bipartisan
panel on civil liberties, causing so much chaos that police were called to
escort speakers to safety. Though the disruption was an apparent violation
of Yale’s free speech policies, Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken ruled
out disciplinary action for the protesters. She even denied that the
students had transgressed any formal policy, a move that sparked blowback
from her colleague, Kate Stith, who warned that Gerken was setting a
"terrible precedent."

Another circuit court judge—a top "feeder" for Supreme Court
clerkships—said he was "torn" on whether to participate in the boycott,
but that the case for it had "gotten stronger" over the past year. "I’ve
hired a bunch of great Yale Law clerks," the judge said. But "at some
point, the institution becomes so worthless and degenerate that you wonder
what conservative would want to be a part of it."

The law school has done little to address concerns about the atmosphere on
campus. Gerken was reappointed as dean in January and, though one of the
administrators involved in the "trap house" scandal, associate dean Ellen
Cosgrove, retired at the end of the academic year, Eldik remains in his
perch.

While the official boycott marks a deepening of the ideological warfare
between Yale Law and its critics, concerns about the school’s atmosphere
have been percolating in the judiciary for years. Some judges already shy
away from hiring from Yale School, a circuit court judge said, due to what
they see as an echo chamber that retards "intellectual growth."

Several judges noted that Yale is the only elite law school that does not
employ a single prominent conservative scholar, which they argued had made
it more susceptible to groupthink. "It is hard for me to see how one can
get a rigorous, well-rounded education in that environment," one district
judge said. "And that is a concern when it comes to hiring law clerks."

The law school’s ideological monoculture also poses a problem for vetting
clerkship applicants, some judges said, because there are simply no
professors whom they trust to recommend conservative clerks.

The feeder judge told the Free Beacon that he had long relied on Amy Chua,
a left-leaning but heterodox Yale Law professor, for recommendations, but
that the law school has made it a "speech and thought crime" for students
to associate with her.

Gerken stripped Chua of some of her teaching privileges in the spring of
2021 after student complaints that she had hosted dinner parties in
violation of the school’s COVID restrictions. Law school administrators
then pressured two law students to file a formal complaint against her,
according to a lawsuit filed by two students against the Ivy League
school, which alleges that Cosgrove and Eldik retaliated against them when
they refused.

With or without a boycott, Chua’s sidelining "will make it harder for me"
to hire Yale Law clerks, the feeder judge said. "I don’t know how many
I’ll keep hiring."

https://freebeacon.com/campus/citing-concern-for-free-speech-12-federal-
judges-say-they-wont-take-clerks-from-yale-law-school/

[BeamMeUpScotty]

You can bet they also don't go to Affirmative Action Doctors for Brain
surgery or Affirmative Action hired graduates to be their own lawyers
when they get charged with a FAKE ME-TOO sexual accusation.

I said a while back that those colleges are making their degrees as
worthless as toilet paper and I'd use a degree from most of the
Affirmative Action and Woke Colleges as a mark against the applicant
rather than a positive on the Resume`, they'd end-up needing to prove to
me that they can even dress themselves in the morning.






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Hiding from reality to find happiness is almost the "text book"
definition of mental illness.