2nd federal appellate judge publicly says she will not hire Yale law clerks

[Anonymous]

A federal appeals court judge on Friday said she was joining a boycott of hiring law clerks from Yale Law School proposed by a fellow appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump who said the school was plagued by "cancel culture."

U.S. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed her participation in the boycott proposed last week by U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho in a statement to National Review, a conservative publication.

Ho, a judge on the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a speech delivered at a Federalist Society conference in Kentucky on Sept. 29 said he would cease hiring clerks from Yale and urged other judges to do the same.

He cited incidents in which students had disrupted conservative speakers at New Haven, Connecticut-based Yale, where "cancellations and disruptions seem to occur with special frequency."

Branch told the National Review that Ho raised "legitimate concerns about the lack of free speech on law school campuses, Yale in particular," and that she would not consider students from Yale for clerkships in the future. She exempted, though, current and past students.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/2nd-trump-appointed-judge-publicly-says-she-will-not-hire-yale-clerks-2022-10-07/

[Anonymous]

Here's a report on Yale's free speech policies:
https://www.thefire.org/schools/yale-university/

[Anonymous]

A judge's role is to hear both--or all--sides of a case so this reaction is understandable. The concern, however, is that our judicial system is designed to judge individual actions and a particular law clerk applicant may not have participated in any boycott or cancel culture type activity.

[Anonymous]

who’s cancelling whom now? what hypocrites.

[Anonymous]

And this conservative judge denounced the boycotts and invited Yale law students to come clerk for him instead: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/judges-yale-clerk-hiring-boycott-regrettable-conservative-colleague-says-2022-10-05/

The boycotting judges will see fewer clerkship applicants, not just from Yale but from everywhere, because law students will be concerned about stamping their resumes with “right wing extremist” if they clerk for, and thus pass the ideological litmus test of, one of the boycotting judges.

[Anonymous]

Live by your reputation, die by your reputation.

[Anonymous]

This is a nonissue. There are hundreds of other federal judges Yale grads can and will go clerk for.

[Anonymous]

This is grossly unjudicial behavior. Guess they didn't get the rule book.

Of note, federal judges have been impeached and removed for failing the standard of "Good Behavior" or "high crimes and misdemeanors" for conduct ranging from intoxication on the bench, abandoning the office and joining the Confederacy, and various types of corruption, perjury, and income tax evasion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a nonissue. There are hundreds of other federal judges Yale grads can and will go clerk for.

You seem to be missing the point. It is a huge issue, unrelated to the employability of Yale grads.

[Anonymous]

It’s a big deal because many Yale Law grads depend on becoming law clerks and professors. In general they don’t have solid training and a lot of law firms avoid hiring them due to their entitled attitudes and lack of practical skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a big deal because many Yale Law grads depend on becoming law clerks and professors. In general they don’t have solid training and a lot of law firms avoid hiring them due to their entitled attitudes and lack of practical skills.

Yale grads aren’t going to have any problems getting jobs.

The real issue is the hypocrisy of these judges to claim they are championing free speech by blacklisting a group of students who have no control over their school’s policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a big deal because many Yale Law grads depend on becoming law clerks and professors. In general they don’t have solid training and a lot of law firms avoid hiring them due to their entitled attitudes and lack of practical skills.

This is absurdly untrue, but thanks for playing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:who’s cancelling whom now? what hypocrites.

+1

The Federalist Society has become even more cuckoo than it was before. They gather at these events and a few people tell the others what to do, and now we have judges cancelling an entire school because they say individuals cancelled their friends. These judges don’t sound like they are in their right mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:who’s cancelling whom now? what hypocrites.

+1

The Federalist Society has become even more cuckoo than it was before. They gather at these events and a few people tell the others what to do, and now we have judges cancelling an entire school because they say individuals cancelled their friends. These judges don’t sound like they are in their right mind.

Clearly, you don't know many judges.

[Anonymous]

If they want to stop hiring Yale law clerks, they can do that without announcing it. Or they could simply tell Yale Law School's career office.

(If any of my kids end up wanting law school, I'll probably discourage my kids from applying to Yale. Plenty of other T14s. -retired attorney)