Thirteen federal judges threatened to not hire Columbia undergraduate or law school alumni for clerkships, in response to the pro-Palestinian activism that unfolded on the Ivy League campus - culminating in more than a hundred individuals getting arrested after they occupied an academic building for several hours last week.
The hiring boycott will apply to "anyone who joins the Columbia University community - whether as undergraduates or as law students - beginning with the entering class of 2024," a letter from the judges, addressed to Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, read.
Among the signatories of the letter are appellate court judges James Ho and Liz Branch, who also launched boycotts of Stanford and Yale Law; Matthew Kacsmaryk, who issued the controversial ruling suspending access to the abortion drug mifepristone; and several judges appointed by former President Donald Trump.
The letter demands that "at a minimum" Columbia should level serious consequences against students and faculty involved "campus disruptions and violated established rules concerncing the use of university facilities and public spaces and threats against fellow members of the university community."
It is unclear what "threats" are being referenced in the letter. The internal politics of the encampment has been subject to intense outside scrutiny, with some alleging that the the pro-Palestinian activism is correlated with an increase in on-campus antisemitism. Dozens of Jewish faculty members and students have participated in the pro-Palestine activism, however, with some even holding a Passover Seder inside the encampment.
"In recent years, citizens have been told that unlawfully trespassing on and occupying public spaces is sufficient basis warrant incarceration," the letter reads, in apparent reference to the January 6, 2021 insurrection. "So that same conduct should surely be sufficient to warrant lesser measures such as expulsion or termination."
In addition to administering consequences to the activists, the letter also for neutrality in the "protection of freedom of speech" and an increased diversity of viewpoints among the university's faculty and staff.
"If Columbia had been faced with a campus uprising of religious conservatives upset because they view abortion as a tragic genocide, we have no doubt the university's response would have been profoundly different," the letter reads.
Columbia students have faced disciplinary action from the university - with a number of students being arrested, suspended or expelled. Shafik has also twice authorized the New York Police Department to enter the campus and arrest activists and asked that police remain stationed on campus until mid-May, after students graduate or leave campus for the summer.
