13 Federal Judges Refuse to Hire Columbia Grads Over Antisemitism: School is ‘Incubator of Bigotry’

More than a dozen federal judges said they will no longer hire Columbia University students, calling the school an “incubator of bigotry.” 

Thirteen federal judges sent a letter to Columbia University President Minouche Shafik and Columbia Law School Dean Gillian Lester on May 6, notifying them of their decision to boycott the school and offering suggestions as to how the university may reclaim its “once distinguished reputation.” Two of the judges who signed onto the letter, Judge James Ho from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Elizabeth Branch for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, have previously boycotted Yale and Stanford graduates, citing the schools’ animosity toward conservative views. 

“Considering recent events, and absent extraordinary change, we will not hire anyone who joins the Columbia University community—whether as undergraduates or law students— beginning with the entering class of 2024,” the letter reads. 

“Justice William Brennan refused to hire law clerks from Harvard Law School because he disliked criticisms of the Supreme Court by some of its faculty. The objective of our boycott is different—it is not to hamper academic freedom, but to restore it at Columbia University,” the federal judges continued. 

Below is page one of the letter from 13 federal judges to the University of Columbia. (Click anywhere on the letter to read the rest.)

Columbia University became ground zero for anti-Israel protests in April, and protesters established encampments, which led to a raid by the NYPD and the arrest of hundred of protesters. Students as well as outside agitators have joined the protests, which have included death and terror threats to Jews and destruction of property. 

Anti-Israel protests at Columbia University sparked similar protests and encampments at universities around the country, including George Washington University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, and the University of Southern California, among others. The protests follow the October 7  attacks on Israel, in which Palestinian Hamas terrorists brutalized and mass murdered men, women, and children, which led to the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict. 

Graphic Content Warning: VIDEO — Home Where Hamas Murdered an Israeli Family in Kibbutz Be’eri

“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 conservative-leaning federal judges wrote. “As a result, Columbia has disqualified itself from educating the future leaders of our country.”

The judges outline three ways in which the university could redeem itself, including “serious consequences for students and faculty who have participated in campus disruptions and violated established rules concerning the use of university facilities and public spaces and threats against fellow members of the university community.”

“In recent years, citizens have been told that unlawfully trespassing on and occupying public spaces is a sufficient basis to warrant incarceration. So that same conduct should surely be sufficient to warrant lesser measures such as expulsion or termination,” they wrote.

“After all, elite universities purport to train not just law-abiding citizens but future leaders. Universities should also identify students who engage in such conduct so that future employers can avoid hiring them,” the letter continues. “If not, employers are forced to assume the risk that anyone they hire from Columbia may be one of these disruptive and hateful students.”

The judges also called for “neutrality and nondiscrimination in the protection of freedom of speech and enforcement of rules of campus conduct” and noted that freedom of speech protects protest — “not trespass, and certainly no acts or threats of violence or terrorism.”

The judges accused the school of applying double standards when it comes to free speech and student misconduct.

“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 that the university’s response would have been profoundly different,” the judges argued. “By favoring certain viewpoints over others based on their popularity and acceptance in certain circles, Columbia has failed as a legitimate, never mind elite, institution of higher education.”

The judges also recommended the school revamp its faculty across the administration to promote “viewpoint diversity.” 

“Recent events demonstrate that ideological homogeneity throughout the entire institution of Columbia has destroyed its ability to train future leaders of a pluralistic and intellectually diverse country,” they wrote. “Both professors and administrators are on the front lines of the campus disruptions, encouraging the virulent spread of antisemitism and bigotry. Significant and dramatic change in the composition of its faculty and administration is required to restore confidence in Columbia.”

Judicial clerkships are the most sought-after credential of young lawyers, with federal appeals court clerkships being most coveted — save for clerkships at the Supreme Court, which are only given to lawyers who have already completed a clerkship. There are roughly 179 federal court of appeals judges and 677 district court judges.

Some federal judges receive more than 1,000 applications a year. But despite the large number of candidates, federal appeals court judges only hire four clerks per year, and district court judges hire two. They typically hire clerks who are graduates of elite schools, including Columbia University, a top ten school.

Ultimately, clerkships are the gateway to making the next generation of judges and law professors at top universities, supercharging the career of whoever is selected. Top law school applicants who are accepted by Columbia would likely be accepted by other top schools, giving them a choice of whether to attend a boycotted school with baggage that could ultimately limit their career path, or a less controversial school in the same bracket.

Sources who are distinguished litigators in federal courts told Breitbart News they are fully confident that there are additional federal judges who will decline to hire Columbia University graduates, but chose not to publicly participate in the letter or did not know of the letter before it was sent.