Posted on 03/19/2022 12:00:40 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
A federal judge has encouraged all of his colleagues to "carefully consider" whether the Yale Law School students who attempted to shout down a bipartisan panel on free speech "should be disqualified from potential clerkships."
D.C. Circuit judge Laurence Silberman sent an email on Thursday to all federal judges in the United States, urging them to take the fracas at the nation's top law school seriously.
"The latest events at Yale Law School," Silberman wrote, "prompt me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted. All federal judges—and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speech—should carefully consider whether any student so identified should be disqualified from potential clerkships."
The email set off a flurry of replies from Silberman's colleagues, several of whom expressed interest in discussing the matter further.
"I don't know where I come out on this yet," District Judge Eric Komitee of the Eastern District of New York wrote, "but agree this is a topic of tremendous societal importance."
The emails come amid revelations that the protest was even more disruptive than initially reported. According to Original Jurisdiction‘s David Lat, students in a federal courts class across the hall reported that the "floor was shaking," and students on a different floor could hear the din while they were taking an exam.
The law school also had to move a faculty meeting online because attendees couldn't hear anything over the tumult. Faculty at the meeting kept looking to Heather Gerken, the Dean of Yale Law School, to confront the protesters, according to Lat, but she did nothing.
After news of the protest broke, the law school released a statement on Thursday alleging that police were only "on hand" to ensure that the protesters quieted down, not to protect the safety of panelists. "Fortunately," the statement claims, police "assistance was not needed and the event went forward until its conclusion."
But audio from the panel indicates it was drowned out at several points by the protesters, whose chants went on for more than 10 minutes. The din drowns out Kristen Waggoner, the general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, right as she begins speaking, and chants of "protect trans kids" make it extremely difficult to hear the panel for several minutes.
The audio also suggests that Yale police officers escorted the panelists to a patrol car outside out of concern for their safety—contradicting Yale's claim that the police only came to ensure the protesters quieted down.
"We think the protesters are going to try to follow us to lunch," Zack Austin, the president of the Yale Federalist Society, tells the panel's organizers after conferring with the officers, who say they have a "vehicle on site." So the panelists "are going to take the squad car and meet us at the restaurant," Austin explained.
Kristen Waggoner, the speaker who was the main target of the protest, confirmed that she and her co-panelist did indeed ride in the squad car after being escorted out of the building by Yale police. Members of the Federalist Society walked—though Austin instructed them to "take a very circuitous route."
As the students make their exit, protesters can be heard booing and shouting: "shame, shame."
How about we ban free speech at universities named after slave owners?
At least it gives us a standard to apply which I suppose is better than no standard at all.
My point: whatever standard we choose had better be carefully chosen because sooner or later it will come back to bite us in the ass as the other side applies our standard against us.
Perhaps you missed the part where the students shouted down every opinion there other than their own?
They were actively denying speech they did not support, though it was supposed to be a discussion.
They can clerk at the Department of Justice or the FBI, where they will have life time employment and automatic promotions.
I’m not worried about the anti-Romney folks or the Trump lawyers. More likely than not, they were peaceable.
I AM for keeping violent brats out of judges offices, whatever their political stripe — in this case, leftist.
They’re free to get work doing something other than depriving fellow citizens of their Constitutional rights.
That is an accepted constitutional standard.
What about advocating violence at a different time? Or advocating violence at a different time by other members of an organization like, Black Lives Matter or Proud Boys, can they all be banned at a different time and place? Can the Ku Klux Klan march down Main Street with a permit? Can individual Proud Boys who themselves have not otherwise committed violence, demonstrate in Charlottesville? May Black Lives Matter form a club in high school?
In the fact pattern of the law students at Yale, it is not clear that they acted violently nor is it even explicitly clear that they threatened violence. Assume they did not, should we then ban them from clerkships? If some did and some did not, would you ban them all? If we would ban them all doesn't that mean that we are banning them not because of violence but because we abhor their politics?
If we are banning them because of their left-wing politics, is that constitutionally permissible? Is that a standard we want to have applied against us? That is, can the left when they get power ban conservatives because of their right-wing politics?
Yes.
and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speechROTFL.
I certainly don't presume that.
Poison Ivy League
You think that is the same??
Really??
The case is not that they acted violently, advocated or threatened violence, but rather that they clearly demonstrate explicit hostility to the First Amendment.
Hence the sensible warning,
“”I don’t know where I come out on this yet,” District Judge Eric Komitee of the Eastern District of New York wrote, “but agree this is a topic of tremendous societal importance.””
IOW - he thinks it’s a big deal if they decide not to intern ass-hat assholes for being ass-hat assholes - screw them.
So you think that just because they did not actually commit any violence that their behavior is something that should be accepted? They were pushing their perverse agenda of trans crap. You and people like you are the reason this kind of Society wrecking behavior is tolerated.
All the more significant due to the ABA mesmerize(cobra-rat) view of an Eli CV.
Ain’t affirmative action grand?
Nailed it.
If you can’t see the difference you need to rethink it
People shouldn’t get cancelled, unless it’s the person saying they want to fight them.
The school should apologize, but I don’t like a judge saying that.
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