The Wages of Sin at Stanford Law

Let’s call it a language that even the most addled law student can understand. When students and even one administrator made it impossible for federal judge Kyle Duncan to speak at Stanford Law School, more than a few people recommended that the students suffer some consequences. The administrator in question, Dean Tirien Steinbach,  has already been put on leave.

Now, we hear that some federal judges have declared their intention not to recruit clerks from Stanford. Good for them. The New York Post has the story:

Two federal judges appointed by former President Donald Trump will no longer hire clerks from Stanford Law School after students there protested the visit of another conservative judge last month.

The Saturday night announcement from circuit court judges James Ho and Elizabeth Branch came after the duo and 12 other judges said in October they would not hire clerks from Yale Law School due to a pervasive “cancel culture” at the Ivy League school.

Ho, who serves on a federal appeals court in New Orleans, made the announcement in a speech to the Texas Review of Law and Politics, where he was introduced by Branch, an Atlanta judge, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

One underscores the fact that a dozen federal judges announced in October that they would not be hiring clerks from Yale Law School. You will recall that the students at Yale shouted down a speaker several months ago.

You will also recall that the dean of Yale Law has suddenly gotten religion and now stands up for free expression.

The Post continues:

“We will not hire any student who chooses to attend Stanford Law School in the future,” Ho reportedly said.

“Rules aren’t rules without consequences,” he reportedly continued. “And students who practice intolerance don’t belong in the legal profession.”

As is the case with the Yale boycott, Ho and Branch’s Stanford clerkship moratorium would not apply to current students, only ones that chose to enroll in the Palo Alto, Calif. area school in the wake of Ho’s blacklist, he said.

The principle is: actions have consequences. Being an adult means that you are willing to accept the price of bad behavior. If you choose to trample on the free speech rights of a federal judge, you ought to pay for it. Strangely, student protesters have not been disciplined.

In order to avoid the possibility that students who did not protest were being unfairly disadvantaged, Judge Ho said he would apply his rule only to incoming students.

He noted that Yale Law has learned a lesson from a similar boycott:

“My concern is how law students are treating everyone else they disagree with. I’m concerned about what this is doing to the legal profession—and to our country,” Ho reportedly said.

“Students learn all the wrong lessons. They practice all the wrong tactics. And then they graduate and bring these tactics to workplaces across the country. What happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus. And it’s tearing our country apart.”

Ho did not say what it would take for him to reverse the blanket ban, but noted that “Yale have gone much more smoothly this year” since the boycott of the Connecticut Ivy was announced.

“Imagine that every judge who says they’re opposed to discrimination at Yale and Stanford takes the same path,” Ho said, according to the Beacon’s transcript of his speech.

“Imagine they decide that, until the discrimination stops, they will no longer hire from those schools in the future. How quickly do we think those schools would stop discriminating then?”

So, federal judges are taking a stand against discrimination and cancel culture. It’s a small step but it’s a step in the right direction. Now, if only other judges and law firms would apply the same principle.

Cross posted on my Substack.