A federal appeals court has rejected a complaint that alleged judges who announced they would not hire Columbia University students as law clerks were committing misconduct.
They cited the protests that unfolded at the university in support of Palestine, noting a subset of protesters expressing support for the Hamas terrorist group.
“Disruptors have threatened violence, committed assaults, and destroyed property. As judges who hire law clerks every year to serve in the federal judiciary, we have lost confidence in Columbia as an institution of higher education. Columbia has instead become an incubator of bigotry,” the judges wrote. “As a result, Columbia has disqualified itself from educating the future leaders of our country.”
Two of the judges, U.S. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch and U.S. District Judge Tilman Self III, are part of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or sit within it.
The panel said in a one-page order signed by U.S. Circuit Judge Charles R. Wilson that it was upholding an earlier decision by Judge William Pryor, the chief judge of the 11th Circuit.
In Pryor’s 10-page decision, he said that the claims in the complaint “are based on allegations lacking sufficient evidence to raise an inference that the subject judges used their office to obtain special treatment for friends, engaged in partisan political activity or made inappropriate partisan statements, treated or will treat individuals in a demonstrably egregious and hostile manner, discriminated against individuals, violated the code of conduct for United States judges, or otherwise engaged in misconduct.”
Pryor said that judges regularly look at the backgrounds of applicants when choosing which to hire as law clerks. “As part of that consideration, judges are permitted to make reasonable conclusions regarding the value and quality of a school’s educational program,” he wrote.
Judicial conduct rules prohibit certain actions, including abusive behavior such as “creating a hostile work environment for judicial employees.”
Substantiated misconduct can lead to “corrective action.”
Richman said the judges who announced the boycott did not express their views on politics, race, color, or religion, but merely expressed disapproval of the “unlawful and rule-breaking conduct in which some of the protestors reportedly engaged and of the university’s response to the disruptions on campus.”
She added: “Judges do not violate ethical rules or standards when they exercise discretion in refusing to hire law clerks who may have engaged in unlawful conduct or violation of a [university’s] rules. Likewise, the judges (regardless of whether they are correct in their assumptions) have discretion to refuse to hire law clerks who graduated from a university that does not foster what the judges believe to be important aspects of higher education, such as viewpoint diversity and tolerance of differing viewpoints.”
