Pro-Hamas law students paying the price
Notably, hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman called on Harvard to release the names of signatories to a letter circulated by a coalition of 34 Harvard student groups that “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
Former Harvard president Larry Summers took a more indulgent line. Summers blasted Harvard’s leadership for their “silence” on the letter’s antisemitism, but balked at naming, shaming and boycotting students who display it, posting on X that many “naïve and foolish” signatories at Harvard “did not understand exactly what they were approving.”
A Canadian case now posits the same dilemma. Should law students be held to a higher standard than the general student population? And if so, blacklist or forgiveness of youthful indiscretion?
On April 19, an email, which I have reviewed, was sent from a Placement Coordinator with Toronto Metropolitan University’s Law Practice Program (LPP) to a Jewish practitioner of family law, “reaching out to see if you can provide a 16-week work experience for an LLP Candidate.” The Placement Coordinator says TMU “would be thrilled to have you participate.” The recipient responded tartly that she could not support the program until TMU’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law (LASL) “cleans up its act and roots out the Jew-hatred that is so prevalent (and apparently supported) there.”
The Jewish lawyer was referring to a viciously anti-Israel, pro-Hamas Oct, 20 letter directed to a cluster of TMU deans by LASL’s “abolitionist Organizing Collective,” and signed by 74 LASL students, more than a few anonymously. TMU’s law school responded to the letter with a broad, toothless condemnation of “antisemitism and intolerance,” acknowledging that the open letter improperly attempted to justify violence.
But it was more than improper, as dozens of Ontario lawyers argued in a critical rejoinder to TMU’s boilerplate discourse. The students’ letter “contravene(d) the values of the law school and is in violation of the Student Code of Conduct and the Discrimination and Harassment Prevention Policy.” The lawyers called for every signatory to be sanctioned, claiming that as “shills for Hamas,” they are not fit to be called to the bar. Howard Levitt, an employment lawyer and Financial Post columnist, called the students’ letter “hate speech,” adding, “I, and many lawyers, will never hire these people.”
