A senior federal judge in the United States has advised his judicial colleagues against hiring as clerks students protesting at Yale.
On 10 March a debate was convened on civil liberties. It was hosted by the Yale Federalist Society and featured the progressive American Humanist Association and the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative institution that promotes religious liberty. The two broadly agreed on protecting free speech, despite their differences on other issues.
A hundred or so students heckled and tried to shout down the panel and Federalist Society members in attendance. One protester told a member of the conservative legal group she would ‘literally fight you, bitch,’ according to the Washington Free Beacon, which obtained an audio and videotape of the ruckus. The speakers were escorted from the event by police for their safety.
Yale Law School has a policy barring protests that disrupt free speech. However, the event prompted Senior Judge Laurence Silberman of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to write the following letter to all of his fellow Article III judges last week:
‘The latest events at Yale Law School in which students attempted to shout down speakers participating in a panel discussion on free speech prompts me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted. All federal judges—and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speech—should carefully consider whether any student so identified should be disqualified for potential clerkships.”
Judicial clerkships are plum post-graduate positions that open a path to jobs at prominent law firms, in state and federal government, and later to powerful judgeships. Appellate-court clerkships in particular are highly prized and are often a stepping stone to clerk for a Supreme Court Justice.