Clerking and Protests Forum

[Anonymous User]

I am a liberal clerking for a conservative judge in a few years who signed the letter, mostly on a whim and due to severe peer pressure--not smart, yes, I know. I have two questions. First, should I be legitimately afraid of having my clerkship rescinded, and second, given that this is a semi-feeder, should I worry that conservative Justices down the line will be looking for this in 2-3 years when I think I may apply?

I think your chance of getting rescinded is 0--that would be a huge faux pas, the sort of thing that could get a school to blacklist a judge, and your judge obviously isn't so ideological that they wouldn't hire you. Your chances for SCOTUS as a liberal counter-clerking for a conservative semi-feeder were already very, very low, but depending on how Googlable this thing ends up being, it could maybe end up being a problem--e.g. I can't imagine it would impress BMK, who's presumably one of the ones you'd be targeting, or his clerks.

Same situation except it's a conservative feeder, which may have given me a decent shot. Are justices three years down the line really going to google "Yale law protest open letter" and ctrl + f for an interviewee's name? Seems excessive.

If they find out about it (which they might), you're done, at least for 7 of the 11. A significant number of SCOTUS clerks (and feeder clerks) each year are former Blackstone fellows, a program sponsored by ADF. I'm virtually certain that all the conservative SCOTUS justices (including JGR and AMK) and the vast majority of conservative feeder judges hire Blackstone fellows regularly. They clearly don't subscribe to the view that ADF is a "hate group." Signing a letter calling ADF a "hate group" and accusing them of "violence" against LGBTQ folks (whatever that means) is unlikely to be a good look amongst that crowd. If I saw your name on a letter like that, I would flag it to my justice, who would almost certainly ding you. Lots of conservative judges (and some Justices) are willing to hire liberal law clerks. But they want to hire liberal law clerks that they can work with and who will work well with others in their chambers and clerks that have different viewpoints in other chambers. Signing a letter like that tells me a lot about whether you're capable of that.

[Anonymous User]

I am a liberal clerking for a conservative judge in a few years who signed the letter, mostly on a whim and due to severe peer pressure--not smart, yes, I know. I have two questions. First, should I be legitimately afraid of having my clerkship rescinded, and second, given that this is a semi-feeder, should I worry that conservative Justices down the line will be looking for this in 2-3 years when I think I may apply?

I think your chance of getting rescinded is 0--that would be a huge faux pas, the sort of thing that could get a school to blacklist a judge, and your judge obviously isn't so ideological that they wouldn't hire you. Your chances for SCOTUS as a liberal counter-clerking for a conservative semi-feeder were already very, very low, but depending on how Googlable this thing ends up being, it could maybe end up being a problem--e.g. I can't imagine it would impress BMK, who's presumably one of the ones you'd be targeting, or his clerks.

Same situation except it's a conservative feeder, which may have given me a decent shot. Are justices three years down the line really going to google "Yale law protest open letter" and ctrl + f for an interviewee's name? Seems excessive.

If they find out about it (which they might), you're done, at least for 7 of the 11. A significant number of SCOTUS clerks (and feeder clerks) each year are former Blackstone fellows, a program sponsored by ADF. I'm virtually certain that all the conservative SCOTUS justices (including JGR and AMK) and the vast majority of conservative feeder judges hire Blackstone fellows regularly. They clearly don't subscribe to the view that ADF is a "hate group." Signing a letter calling ADF a "hate group" and accusing them of "violence" against LGBTQ folks (whatever that means) is unlikely to be a good look amongst that crowd. If I saw your name on a letter like that, I would flag it to my justice, who would almost certainly ding you. Lots of conservative judges (and some Justices) are willing to hire liberal law clerks. But they want to hire liberal law clerks that they can work with and who will work well with others in their chambers and clerks that have different viewpoints in other chambers. Signing a letter like that tells me a lot about whether you're capable of that.

As OP, I don’t feel as strong about it as this poster (but I’m a counterclerking lib), but this is mostly what I meant re: skepticism about working with others—like many conservative judges, my judge regularly hires Blackstone Fellows. The Blackstone program is way bigger than I would’ve guessed—I hadn’t even heard of it before I started clerking, but they work with like 100+ students per year.

[LBJ's Hair]

Judge throwing temper tantrum over YLS students throwing temper tantrums. Pox on both your houses *eyeroll*

[Anonymous User]

I am a liberal clerking for a conservative judge in a few years who signed the letter, mostly on a whim and due to severe peer pressure--not smart, yes, I know. I have two questions. First, should I be legitimately afraid of having my clerkship rescinded, and second, given that this is a semi-feeder, should I worry that conservative Justices down the line will be looking for this in 2-3 years when I think I may apply?

I think your chance of getting rescinded is 0--that would be a huge faux pas, the sort of thing that could get a school to blacklist a judge, and your judge obviously isn't so ideological that they wouldn't hire you. Your chances for SCOTUS as a liberal counter-clerking for a conservative semi-feeder were already very, very low, but depending on how Googlable this thing ends up being, it could maybe end up being a problem--e.g. I can't imagine it would impress BMK, who's presumably one of the ones you'd be targeting, or his clerks.

Same situation except it's a conservative feeder, which may have given me a decent shot. Are justices three years down the line really going to google "Yale law protest open letter" and ctrl + f for an interviewee's name? Seems excessive.

If they find out about it (which they might), you're done, at least for 7 of the 11. A significant number of SCOTUS clerks (and feeder clerks) each year are former Blackstone fellows, a program sponsored by ADF. I'm virtually certain that all the conservative SCOTUS justices (including JGR and AMK) and the vast majority of conservative feeder judges hire Blackstone fellows regularly. They clearly don't subscribe to the view that ADF is a "hate group." Signing a letter calling ADF a "hate group" and accusing them of "violence" against LGBTQ folks (whatever that means) is unlikely to be a good look amongst that crowd. If I saw your name on a letter like that, I would flag it to my justice, who would almost certainly ding you. Lots of conservative judges (and some Justices) are willing to hire liberal law clerks. But they want to hire liberal law clerks that they can work with and who will work well with others in their chambers and clerks that have different viewpoints in other chambers. Signing a letter like that tells me a lot about whether you're capable of that.

Makes one wonder why the Yale students on this thread are even worried about their judges finding out. Why would they want to clerk for judges and be in chambers with people that support "hate groups" lol? They'd be "doing violence" everyday to the LGBTQ community.

[Anonymous User]

Wait what did Komitee say?

[Anonymous User]

The latest events on the D.C. Circuit email list, in which a federal judge attempted to institute a national blacklist of students based on their expressive activities, prompt me to suggest that judges who are identified as those willing to create such a blacklist should be noted. All law students—and all law students are presumably committed to free speech—should carefully consider whether any judge so identified should be disqualified from receiving clerkship applications.

[Barrred]

I don't know enough about "The Letter" to weigh in (nor do I care to learn about the latest outrages occurring at Yale), but the "it doesn't matter, conservative judges wouldn't have hired you anyway" take is pretty off base, IMO.

I know tons of liberal clerks working for at least mildly conservative judges. I know I was personally surprised by the willingness of my pretty conservative COA judge to hire law students with ACS/other liberal organizations on their resumes, so long as they were smart and it seemed like they'd be easy to get along with. That's even more common at the district court level where politics rarely, if ever, factors into day-to-day judicial decision-making. But signing a letter that viscerally angers conservative judges (whether that's what this letter does, I don't know) is probably enough to counter-act that willingness of many to hire across the ideological spectrum.

If you believe in the letter's contents, sign it! But don't pretend that you were already out of consideration for a clerkship with a conservative judge just because you are liberal leaning.

[Anonymous User]

It really is not the judges that applicants have to worry about, since they are going to be too busy. Its the clerks. As someone who was attacked while escorting an unpopular speaker to a campus event at my undergrad, I find the idea of not providing police protection to people you know are going to be the targets of group communal violence repulsive. So, when I am clerking, I will be sure to ding anyone who signed that letter. This is a common sentiment among my peers who will also be clerking.

This is not hypocritical: freedom of speech is about the right to voice ideas in public, without having those ideas censored prior to publication or muted by violence. Speech has consequences-- that is kind of the point. While the freedom protects the expression of unpopular or offensive ideas, it does not protect a person from becoming unpopular or being regarded as offensive. Giving a speech on why I hate X Corp and, as a consequence, not being hired by X Corp, does not violate my right to free speech.

Here is why it is hypocritical to even whine about it: because while conservative judges hire a good number of liberal clerks, liberal judges do not hire conservative clerks at even remotely close proportions: https://academic.oup.com/aler/article/19/1/96/2669337 This should be unsurprising given the rise of totalitarianism in the "progressive" movement, which is no longer about tolerance, but instead, the intolerance of intolerance (or anything that looks close enough to it).

It is very possible that clerks for liberal judges will also check to see if you did sign the letter.

The point is-- speech has consequences. Silencing other people has consequences. Attaching your name to a letter demanding the removal of bodily protection for other human beings will also have consequences. For those reading this, the point is not to refrain from speech, but to make sure that your speech and your actions are aligned with your values. When the conservative tolerance for opposing viewpoints is abused to secure power positions that stifle that same tolerance-- well, do not be surprised when the gravy train runs out.

[Anonymous User]

It really is not the judges that applicants have to worry about, since they are going to be too busy. Its the clerks. As someone who was attacked while escorting an unpopular speaker to a campus event at my undergrad, I find the idea of not providing police protection to people you know are going to be the targets of group communal violence repulsive. So, when I am clerking, I will be sure to ding anyone who signed that letter. This is a common sentiment among my peers who will also be clerking.

This is not hypocritical: freedom of speech is about the right to voice ideas in public, without having those ideas censored prior to publication or muted by violence. Speech has consequences-- that is kind of the point. While the freedom protects the expression of unpopular or offensive ideas, it does not protect a person from becoming unpopular or being regarded as offensive. Giving a speech on why I hate X Corp and, as a consequence, not being hired by X Corp, does not violate my right to free speech.

Here is why it is hypocritical to even whine about it: because while conservative judges hire a good number of liberal clerks, liberal judges do not hire conservative clerks at even remotely close proportions: https://academic.oup.com/aler/article/19/1/96/2669337 This should be unsurprising given the rise of totalitarianism in the "progressive" movement, which is no longer about tolerance, but instead, the intolerance of intolerance (or anything that looks close enough to it).

It is very possible that clerks for liberal judges will also check to see if you did sign the letter.

The point is-- speech has consequences. Silencing other people has consequences. Attaching your name to a letter demanding the removal of bodily protection for other human beings will also have consequences. For those reading this, the point is not to refrain from speech, but to make sure that your speech and your actions are aligned with your values. When the conservative tolerance for opposing viewpoints is abused to secure power positions that stifle that same tolerance-- well, do not be surprised when the gravy train runs out.

I think the letter/protest was pretty silly of Yale students, but I'm sorry - "conservative tolerance for opposing viewpoints"? Where's that tolerance for all the people chanting "Lock Her Up" to Hillary Clinton but not a peep about Ivanka's private email server? Or the people who stormed the Capitol building because someone who didn't share their views won an election? Or even the few Republican representatives who actually had the guts to vote their conscience on Trump's second impeachment?

Look, if you're conservative and hate liberals (or vice versa), that's fine - just own it. The other side feels similarly, and it's honestly natural given the polarized political environment we live in. But don't pretend that one side is "totalitarian" while the other side is a beacon of tolerance/civility. Neither the truly extreme left nor the truly extreme right will brook any dissent to their orthodoxies. The difference is just that the right (extreme and relatively more centrist) has a supermajority on SCOTUS and a Senate that strongly favors it, so whatever this poster means by "when the gravy train runs out" is much more concerning than whatever petition Yale's NLG is putting out that will ultimately have exactly 0 real-world impact.

[nixy]

I don't know enough about "The Letter" to weigh in (nor do I care to learn about the latest outrages occurring at Yale), but the "it doesn't matter, conservative judges wouldn't have hired you anyway" take is pretty off base, IMO.

I know tons of liberal clerks working for at least mildly conservative judges. I know I was personally surprised by the willingness of my pretty conservative COA judge to hire law students with ACS/other liberal organizations on their resumes, so long as they were smart and it seemed like they'd be easy to get along with. That's even more common at the district court level where politics rarely, if ever, factors into day-to-day judicial decision-making. But signing a letter that viscerally angers conservative judges (whether that's what this letter does, I don't know) is probably enough to counter-act that willingness of many to hire across the ideological spectrum.

If you believe in the letter's contents, sign it! But don't pretend that you were already out of consideration for a clerkship with a conservative judge just because you are liberal leaning.

I’m one of the people who suggested this. I didn’t mean that conservative judges already wouldn’t hire liberals (or liberal leaning). I meant that they probably already wouldn’t hire a liberal *who’s an activist in the vein of this kind of protest.* Maybe there’s a material contingent of such liberals that would normally be able/willing to cover up all their liberal activism to get hired by a conservative judge, but that just doesn’t seem very likely to me. (I’m distinguishing the active protest from the letter because I think they are materially different.)

[Barrred]

I don't know enough about "The Letter" to weigh in (nor do I care to learn about the latest outrages occurring at Yale), but the "it doesn't matter, conservative judges wouldn't have hired you anyway" take is pretty off base, IMO.

I know tons of liberal clerks working for at least mildly conservative judges. I know I was personally surprised by the willingness of my pretty conservative COA judge to hire law students with ACS/other liberal organizations on their resumes, so long as they were smart and it seemed like they'd be easy to get along with. That's even more common at the district court level where politics rarely, if ever, factors into day-to-day judicial decision-making. But signing a letter that viscerally angers conservative judges (whether that's what this letter does, I don't know) is probably enough to counter-act that willingness of many to hire across the ideological spectrum.

If you believe in the letter's contents, sign it! But don't pretend that you were already out of consideration for a clerkship with a conservative judge just because you are liberal leaning.

I’m one of the people who suggested this. I didn’t mean that conservative judges already wouldn’t hire liberals (or liberal leaning). I meant that they probably already wouldn’t hire a liberal *who’s an activist in the vein of this kind of protest.* Maybe there’s a material contingent of such liberals that would normally be able/willing to cover up all their liberal activism to get hired by a conservative judge, but that just doesn’t seem very likely to me. (I’m distinguishing the active protest from the letter because I think they are materially different.)

Fair enough. But I have personally seen a conservative judge ignore a fair amount of "liberal activism" apparent from a resume, though of course not "activism" rising to the level of shouting down speakers/engaging in violence (if thats what happened).

[TheGreatestGunner]

-

[Anonymous User]

Re the whole “liberals don’t hire conservatives” thing, that has to overwhelmingly just reflect the supply-demand mismatch, no? Many conservatives who hire liberals do so because they can’t exclusively hire conservatives without lowering their grading standards, not out of the goodness of their hearts. Plus of late the Plan dynamics provide an extremely strong push for conservative students to apply off-plan, and thus not to apply to the more normie and liberal judges who hire on-plan. Given how easy it is for Fed Soc students to clerk whining that libs they don’t even apply to won’t hire them rings hollow.

Anyway this thread isn’t supposed to be about this sort of bait anyway.

[Anonymous User]

Makes one wonder why the Yale students on this thread are even worried about their judges finding out. Why would they want to clerk for judges and be in chambers with people that support "hate groups" lol? They'd be "doing violence" everyday to the LGBTQ community.

They just appreciate a difficult thing done well. You really think a fedsoc slacker can obliterate the rights of LGBTQ people as well as a YLS liberal?

[Barrred]

Re the whole “liberals don’t hire conservatives” thing, that has to overwhelmingly just reflect the supply-demand mismatch, no? Many conservatives who hire liberals do so because they can’t exclusively hire conservatives without lowering their grading standards, not out of the goodness of their hearts.

I think this is probably a big factor at the district court, and even Circuit levels, but the article linked in one of the posts above showed that, at least as of 2016 when the article was published, even conservatives SCOTUS justices hire more liberal clerks than they do conservative clerks. There were only 5 conservative justices at that time, equating to 21 clerk slots per year. There were certainly more than 11 SCOTUS-qualified conservative clerk candidates in 2016 (such that the conservative justices could have hired more conservatives clerks than liberal clerks if they wanted to), especially considering that the hiring pool includes more than just one law school class year.

[Anonymous User]

At the outset, I'm absolutely not meaning to start a flame war. From posters in the know, and especially current clerks, I'm curious what the reaction has been to the Silberman letter (beyond eye-rolling at such a huge reply-all) across the ideological spectrum.

Fwiw my sense, from my position as a clerk for a conservative semi-feeder who regularly hires liberals, is that being involved in disrupting an event would probably be an auto-ding if we found out about it, and being on the open letter would get some skepticism but would not necessarily be a deal-breaker. I also don't imagine the judge is going to go out of their way to hunt people down, though. Take that for what it's worth as one clerk for one idiosyncratic chambers's perspective.

My take on Silberman's email was that it was to put pressure on Yale to do something about the insanity gripping their campus - the Yale administrators have made it quite clear they aren't going to take any action on their own.

My judge hires liberals with some regularity and they would have cut someone protesting instantly. I suspect there are quite a few more who feel similarly, though they wouldn't openly state it. We wouldn't search for a signature on an open letter, but if we found it, it would also be an auto cut. We do Google search the people we think about bringing in for interviews.

So to be clear here, your judge would deny someone an opportunity at government employment based only on their speech (signing a letter) that is completely unrelated to job ability/duties? That seems very very questionable

[Anonymous User]

So to be clear here, your judge would deny someone an opportunity at government employment based only on their speech (signing a letter) that is completely unrelated to job ability? That seems very very questionable

Not OP, but here's a hypo: Your liberal judge finds out that a law student she was considering for a clerkship had recently signed a letter condemning the police protection of patients attempting to enter an abortion clinic who were being confronted by an angry crowd of anti-abortion protestors, arguing that both the patients and the clinic are complicit in the genocide of the unborn, and that the police presence put the protestors at risk of harm. Should your judge be able to consider that speech, unrelated to job ability, in making her hiring decision?

[Anonymous User]

At the outset, I'm absolutely not meaning to start a flame war. From posters in the know, and especially current clerks, I'm curious what the reaction has been to the Silberman letter (beyond eye-rolling at such a huge reply-all) across the ideological spectrum.

Fwiw my sense, from my position as a clerk for a conservative semi-feeder who regularly hires liberals, is that being involved in disrupting an event would probably be an auto-ding if we found out about it, and being on the open letter would get some skepticism but would not necessarily be a deal-breaker. I also don't imagine the judge is going to go out of their way to hunt people down, though. Take that for what it's worth as one clerk for one idiosyncratic chambers's perspective.

My take on Silberman's email was that it was to put pressure on Yale to do something about the insanity gripping their campus - the Yale administrators have made it quite clear they aren't going to take any action on their own.

My judge hires liberals with some regularity and they would have cut someone protesting instantly. I suspect there are quite a few more who feel similarly, though they wouldn't openly state it. We wouldn't search for a signature on an open letter, but if we found it, it would also be an auto cut. We do Google search the people we think about bringing in for interviews.

So to be clear here, your judge would deny someone an opportunity at government employment based only on their speech (signing a letter) that is completely unrelated to job ability/duties? That seems very very questionable
[/quote]

Are you under the impression that federal judges don’t regularly screen clerks on the basis of their political speech and associations?

Clerks aren’t civil service employees who are supposed to be hired apolitically.

[ksm6969]

Can someone help me understand something.

Give my that liberals vastly outnumber fed soc kids at HLS and YLS, it seems like it would be exceedingly easy to “cancel” fed soc— just join the campus organization (and attend x amount of meetings or whatever the requirement is for voting) and vote for liberal president, board, etc. No more fed Soc inviting right wing speakers. It seems like this should be extremely easy and only hasn’t happened because lib students haven’t quite despised fed soc like they seem to do now…

[Anonymous User]

Can someone help me understand something.

Give my that liberals vastly outnumber fed soc kids at HLS and YLS, it seems like it would be exceedingly easy to “cancel” fed soc— just join the campus organization (and attend x amount of meetings or whatever the requirement is for voting) and vote for liberal president, board, etc. No more fed Soc inviting right wing speakers. It seems like this should be extremely easy and only hasn’t happened because lib students haven’t quite despised fed soc like they seem to do now…

Given that these are the sort of people who cannot even allow a speaker on their campus to voice an opinion that they disagree with at an event that, absent a protest, they would never attend-- you really think they would sit through several such meetings, build credibility, and run? Meanwhile, their liberal peers would "cancel" them for even appearing to be part of the Federalist Society. That' is not going to work. Whining, crying, headbanging on walls, shouting, and violent threats are easy. The whole point of the activity is that it allows the protesting participants to participate in a fantasy narrative where they are somehow heroic (despite being in the very safe majority).

I think the letter/protest was pretty silly of Yale students, but I'm sorry - "conservative tolerance for opposing viewpoints"? Where's that tolerance for all the people chanting "Lock Her Up" to Hillary Clinton but not a peep about Ivanka's private email server? Or the people who stormed the Capitol building because someone who didn't share their views won an election? Or even the few Republican representatives who actually had the guts to vote their conscience on Trump's second impeachment?

Look, if you're conservative and hate liberals (or vice versa), that's fine - just own it. The other side feels similarly, and it's honestly natural given the polarized political environment we live in. But don't pretend that one side is "totalitarian" while the other side is a beacon of tolerance/civility. Neither the truly extreme left nor the truly extreme right will brook any dissent to their orthodoxies. The difference is just that the right (extreme and relatively more centrist) has a supermajority on SCOTUS and a Senate that strongly favors it, so whatever this poster means by "when the gravy train runs out" is much more concerning than whatever petition Yale's NLG is putting out that will ultimately have exactly 0 real-world impact.

The conservative tolerance that I am referencing is that conservative judges hire liberal clerks, some even have an institutional practice of always hiring a liberal. Liberal judges do not hire conservative clerks that same way. The study linked earlier is the support for that proposition.

While I agree that both the "far left" and "far right" are mirrors of each other in totalitarianism, I believe that totalitarianism is dominant in the "left" and "center-left", not just the extreme. Meanwhile, more anti-totalitarian values underlie the "right" and "center-right". Given that judges are much more centrist than truly left/right, this means the community of concern, the people hiring law clerks, are much less totalitarian on the conservative side of the equation. You are much more likely to get dinged by a liberal judge for being affiliated with fedsoc/republican party, than dinged by a conservative judge for an ACS/democrat affiliation.

As for the idea that Liz Cheney is "voting her conscience" rather than trying to make daddy proud-- laughable. Even more hilarious in the context that Dick Cheney was widely regarded as a murderous villain by liberals at the time, but now, that has been forgotten in the wake of Trump, much like how they pretend that Bush was "respectable" when they gave him the same treatment. Of course, come midterms, we will get a new impeachment. Just as Bork-ing returned for Garland, so will fake impeachments return for Biden.

Bottom line: If you want to clerk and you are on this letter, you are not going to get hired by many conservative judges. Because many of the clerks that will be making hiring decisions alongside those judges are going to ding you. If you plan to clerk in the future, do not write or sign on a letter arguing to deny other human beings police protection. Because underneath the pretended LGBQT+ nonsense, the real of the letter is a call to enable violence against people with opinions the majority does not like.

Imagine if, in the aftermath of Brown v. Board, President Eisenhower did not send in the military to protect the Little Rock Nine? They would have been assaulted. Possibly killed. The same will certainly happen to speakers at Yale absent a police presence. Because this is the cowardly approach that liberals take to violence-- too afraid to just say they want it, they remove the safety rails that prevent it, and then act surprised when fires start.

[Anonymous User]

At the outset, I'm absolutely not meaning to start a flame war. From posters in the know, and especially current clerks, I'm curious what the reaction has been to the Silberman letter (beyond eye-rolling at such a huge reply-all) across the ideological spectrum.

Fwiw my sense, from my position as a clerk for a conservative semi-feeder who regularly hires liberals, is that being involved in disrupting an event would probably be an auto-ding if we found out about it, and being on the open letter would get some skepticism but would not necessarily be a deal-breaker. I also don't imagine the judge is going to go out of their way to hunt people down, though. Take that for what it's worth as one clerk for one idiosyncratic chambers's perspective.

My take on Silberman's email was that it was to put pressure on Yale to do something about the insanity gripping their campus - the Yale administrators have made it quite clear they aren't going to take any action on their own.

My judge hires liberals with some regularity and they would have cut someone protesting instantly. I suspect there are quite a few more who feel similarly, though they wouldn't openly state it. We wouldn't search for a signature on an open letter, but if we found it, it would also be an auto cut. We do Google search the people we think about bringing in for interviews.

So to be clear here, your judge would deny someone an opportunity at government employment based only on their speech (signing a letter) that is completely unrelated to job ability/duties? That seems very very questionable

Are you under the impression that federal judges don’t regularly screen clerks on the basis of their political speech and associations?

Clerks aren’t civil service employees who are supposed to be hired apolitically.

Do you have any citation that law clerks fall into the category of "policy making" individuals for which selection based on speech/political association is constitutionally acceptable? (Doesnt matter if they are civil service employees statutorily, since this is constitutional issue)? It would be especialyl ironic for a Fed Soc Judge (who says 'judges shouldnt make policy') to argue that their law clerks are in a policy making position, and thus subject to patronage hiring.

Judges regularly screen for judicial philosophy-- and Fed Soc is (facially, at least) an indicator of judicial philosophy. This is very different than screening for party affiliation or speech. Obviously judges do it, but if a judge were to explicitly say, "I only hire republicans" or were to revoke an offer solely on the basis of political speech that is unrelated to job duties (ie judicial philosophy), I certainly think there would be an issue there. I am interested if you actually have a citation that says this is okay.

[nixy]

Can someone help me understand something.

Give my that liberals vastly outnumber fed soc kids at HLS and YLS, it seems like it would be exceedingly easy to “cancel” fed soc— just join the campus organization (and attend x amount of meetings or whatever the requirement is for voting) and vote for liberal president, board, etc. No more fed Soc inviting right wing speakers. It seems like this should be extremely easy and only hasn’t happened because lib students haven’t quite despised fed soc like they seem to do now…

Why? It wouldn't get rid of conservatives, who would just create another student group to bring their choice of speakers to campus. Plus, it's an actual national organization with a particular viewpoint, so it's not like YLS/HLS students taking over their local chapters would actually change what Fed Soc means. Finally, this is assuming you think it's appropriate to get rid of the group entirely, rather than protesting specific speakers. Disagreeing with bringing a particular speaker to campus doesn't mean you think the group has no right to exist (though I'm sure there are plenty of people who wish that it didn't).

Besides, most students being liberal doesn't mean that they necessarily want to spend their time dealing with student groups. Good luck getting people to do that.

[nixy]

Imagine if, in the aftermath of Brown v. Board, President Eisenhower did not send in the military to protect the Little Rock Nine? They would have been assaulted. Possibly killed. The same will certainly happen to speakers at Yale absent a police presence. Because this is the cowardly approach that liberals take to violence-- too afraid to just say they want it, they remove the safety rails that prevent it, and then act surprised when fires start.

This comparison is fucking RICH.

(To be clear, it's not at all okay that you were assaulted escorting a speaker as an undergrad. But comparing membership in Fed Soc to Black students challenging school desegregation under Jim Crow is just WILD.)

[ksm6969]

Can someone help me understand something.

Give my that liberals vastly outnumber fed soc kids at HLS and YLS, it seems like it would be exceedingly easy to “cancel” fed soc— just join the campus organization (and attend x amount of meetings or whatever the requirement is for voting) and vote for liberal president, board, etc. No more fed Soc inviting right wing speakers. It seems like this should be extremely easy and only hasn’t happened because lib students haven’t quite despised fed soc like they seem to do now…

Why? It wouldn't get rid of conservatives, who would just create another student group to bring their choice of speakers to campus. Plus, it's an actual national organization with a particular viewpoint, so it's not like YLS/HLS students taking over their local chapters would actually change what Fed Soc means. Finally, this is assuming you think it's appropriate to get rid of the group entirely, rather than protesting specific speakers. Disagreeing with bringing a particular speaker to campus doesn't mean you think the group has no right to exist (though I'm sure there are plenty of people who wish that it didn't).

Besides, most students being liberal doesn't mean that they necessarily want to spend their time dealing with student groups. Good luck getting people to do that.

It would disrupt the fed soc organization quite a bit though. My understanding is there is associated national level funding and all that. Yes, yale cons could create the "the real real Fed Soc" organization, but it would take time and lose a lot of signaling and institutional value (and the same thing could just happen there). I agree the reason it hasnt happened is that the mainstream leftwing student body doesnt care enough to do it, but given fed soc tendency now to move into the "we exist mainly to troll woke leftists," I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen.

[Barrred]

It would disrupt the fed soc organization quite a bit though. My understanding is there is associated national level funding and all that. Yes, yale cons could create the "the real real Fed Soc" organization, but it would take time and lose a lot of signaling and institutional value (and the same thing could just happen there). I agree the reason it hasnt happened is that the mainstream leftwing student body doesnt care enough to do it, but given fed soc tendency now to move into the "we exist mainly to troll woke leftists," I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen.

The national organization would probably just quickly revoke recognition of the zombie-chapter and recognize the newly formed group. Its probably written into their bylaws, and wouldnt be hard to do. They could probably also pretty easily prevent the zombie-chapter from using the Fed Soc name.

Another reason that this isn't done is that it would look extremely petty, and would be met with similar backlash as an attempt to silence dissenting political viewpoints.