Letter

May 6, 2024
Minouche Shafik
Columbia University
202 Low Library
535 West 116 Street MC 4309
New York, NY 10027
Dear President Shafik,
Since the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, Columbia University has become ground
zero for the explosion of student disruptions, anti-semitism, and hatred for diverse
viewpoints on campuses across the Nation. Disruptors have threatened violence,
committed assaults, and destroyed property. 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. As a result, Columbia
has disqualified itself from educating the future leaders of our country.
If Columbia were serious about reclaiming its once-distinguished reputation, it would

undertake the following steps, at a minimum:
1. 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. 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. If not, employers are forced to assume the risk that anyone they hire
from Columbia may be one of these disruptive and hateful students.
2. Neutrality and nondiscrimination in the protection of freedom of speech and the

enforcement of rules of campus conduct.
Freedom of speech protects protest, not trespass, and certainly not acts or threats of
violence or terrorism. Speech is not violence, and violence is not speech. Universities that
are serious about academic freedom understand the difference, and they enforce the rules
accordingly. It has become clear that Columbia applies 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. 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.
3. Viewpoint diversity on the faculty and across the administration—including the

admissions office.
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. 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.
***
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.
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.
Elizabeth L. Branch James C. Ho Matthew H. Solomson
Alan Albright
David Counts
James W. Hendrix
Matthew J. Kacsmaryk
Jeremy D. Kernodle
Tilman E. Self, III
Brantley Starr
Drew B. Tipton
Daniel M. Traynor
Stephen Alexander Vaden
cc: Gillian Lester, Dean, Columbia Law School

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May 6, 2024

Dear President Shaﬁk,

If Columbia were serious about reclaiming its once-distinguished reputation, it would

2. Neutrality and nondiscrimination in the protection of freedom of speech and the

3. Viewpoint diversity on the faculty and across the administration—including the

Elizabeth L. Branch James C. Ho Matthew H. Solomson

cc: Gillian Lester, Dean, Columbia Law School

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