Free Republic

Columbia Law students want their final exams called off … in the name of Palestine. In a recent letter, the student editors of the Columbia Law Review made a public call for the school to cancel the semester’s remaining exams and “give all students passing grades for their work throughout the semester.” “We believe that canceling exams would be a proportionate response to the level of distress our peers have been feeling,” the unnamed students wrote in an open letter. The plea comes after Columbia University, on April 30, authorized the NYPD to clear out trespassers who violently and forcibly...

Columbia Law Professor Says Columbia University Violated Federal Laws, Fostered A "Hostile Environment" On Campus .. Professor Joshua Mitts (Columbia Law School) argues that Columbia university violated the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students by fostering and tolerating a hostile educational environment on campus. Mitts writes: Since October 7, Jewish students at Columbia have been subject to appalling episodes of antisemitism both on campus and just outside the campus gates, which intensified with the establishment of the encampment. As documented in an open letter signed by hundreds of faculty and thousands of community members, these included chants like “Go...

The student editors of the Columbia Law Review issued a statement on Wednesday urging Columbia Law School to cancel exams in the wake of the police operation that cleared the university’s unauthorized encampment, saying the "violence" had left them "irrevocably shaken" and "unable to focus." The statement, which represents the majority opinion of the editorial board and was endorsed by five other law journals, including the Columbia Human Rights Law Review & A Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual, accused the police of "brutalizing" students—though no major injuries have been reported—and claimed that canceling exams was a "proportionate response" to the "distress our...

Columbia Law journals are delaying admissions decisions in the wake of the Court's landmark ruling. The move highlights how the verdict could have implications beyond undergraduate admissions. Law journals at Columbia University Law School are delaying their masthead decisions in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling last week outlawing race-based college admissions, a sign that the ban on affirmative action is already having an effect beyond undergraduate programs. The law school's office of student services, which coordinates applications to all journals including the flagship Columbia Law Review, said Sunday that journal acceptances had been postponed until the school could...

Columbia Law School was essentially united in opposition to Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation in 2018 -- as the university established a new, mandatory sexual misconduct education initiative, dozens of faculty members signed a petition in The New York Times saying the nominee's "temperament" alone was disqualifying, and students staged round-the-clock protests. Now, as Joe Biden prepares to deliver a virtual commencement address at Columbia Law School on Wednesday, he also stands accused of sexual assault (which he, too, adamantly denies) along with previously reported incidents of inappropriate touching. The once-vocal advocates for women's rights and the "Me Too" movement...

Facebook on Wednesday announced the first 20 members of its Oversight Board, an independent body that can overturn the company’s own content moderation decisions. The oversight board will govern appeals from Facebook and Instagram users and questions from Facebook itself, although it admitted it will have to pick and choose which content moderation cases to take due to the sheer volume of them.  The board will receive cases through a content management system that is linked to Facebook’s own platforms. They will then discuss the case as a group before issuing a final decision on whether the content should be allowed to stay...

Fired FBI Director James Comey is now in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee to testify about his interactions with President Trump as they relate to the federal government's Russia probe — and there's been some significant revelations thus far. A big thing: Comey refused to state whether he believed that President Trump's request to shut down the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn amounted to obstruction of justice — saying it was a question for the investigation's special counsel Bob Mueller — but he called it "a very disturbing thing, very concerning." Another big thing: After his...

Law school incidents don’t garner much coverage in this undergrad newspaper, but, given the situation I found last Friday, October 7th, I believe this incident should be an exception. First, some background. At Columbia Law, the Career Services Office offers second and third year law students the opportunity to interview with prospective employers on campus. Columbia posts interview dates online, and students sign up online; generally, employers have limited time frames (one day, maybe two), and slots fill up quickly. Employers take these interviews seriously. Additionally, Columbia is currently locked in a Supreme Court case over the Solomon Amendment. The...