The “coddling of the American mind” (indeed, the entire Western mind) and the progressive (in every sense of the word) dumbing down of the academy is not without consequences. Not just the rise in violent authoritarianism and constant attacks from ignorant children who’ve been told all their lives that words are “violence”, nor the destruction of swathes of our heritage in a very real Marxist Cultural Revolution.
The coddled minds are, sooner or later, going to find out that the real world is not a safe space, and the woke quickly go broke. Already, HR firms are reporting that employers are summarily rejecting job seekers whose resumes include their “preferred pronouns”.
Now, the legal fraternity is beginning to decline graduates from woke law schools.
Two federal appeals judges have announced their decision to no longer hire law clerks from Stanford Law School, citing the school’s history of viewpoint discrimination.
Stanford was – was – one of the most prestigious law schools in the US. Second only to Harvard. With tuition fees in excess of $110k (NZD), it would want to be.
Increasingly, though, it isn’t. All thanks to the malign interventions of the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” cult.
Campus Reform has covered the recent controversy at Stanford during which Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Tirien Steinbach disrupted and took over the on-campus talk of Federal Appeals Judge Kyle Duncan, hosted by the Federalist Society, last month. Since then, Steinbach has been placed on administrative leave.
Steinbach only showed that she was the thought leader of spoiled, arrogant brats whose only response to viewpoints they don’t like is to throw tantrums. Suffice to say, that sort of behaviour hardly puts them in good stead for a high-powered legal career.
Employers are noticing.
In response, neither Judge James Ho nor Judge Elizabeth Branch will hire law clerks who have chosen to earn their degree at Stanford after this incident. This does not apply to currently matriculating students but rather to all those entering from Fall 2024 onward.
Formed in 1982 by students at Yale, Harvard and the University of Chicago, the Federalist Society has clout in the American legal world. Six of the current nine justices of the US Supreme Court are tied to it. Its alumni include senators, Attorneys General and Ivy League deans.
Ho and Branch are contributors to the Federalist Society, so they might be said to have some bias. But they’re far from the only judges concerned about the calibre of students from formerly prestigious schools.
Last September, Ho and Branch were part of a group of 12 judges who announced that they would refrain from selecting law clerks from Yale University, citing free speech and intellectual diversity concerns, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
“Law schools like to say that they’re training the next generation of leaders,” Ho said in his formal address to the annual Texas Review of Law and Politics, where he announced his decision. “But schools aren’t even teaching students how to be good citizens – let alone good lawyers. We’re not teaching the basic terms of our democracy.”
In particular, Ho points to the rise of censorship and authoritarianism among students. Employers avoid “pronoun” resumes because they know that such people are an HR nightmare. Law schools like Stanford are being seen as altogether the founts of too much trouble.
“Students learn all the wrong lessons,” Ho notes. “They practice all the wrong tactics. And then they graduate and bring these tactics to workplaces across the country. What happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus. And it’s tearing our country apart” […]
The logical consequence of incidents like Steinbach’s treatment of Duncan, Ho reasons, is the need to ask the basic question: “If a law school openly tolerates and even practices [viewpoint] discrimination, who would want to go to that law school? And why would we want to hire them?”
The whole point of the law, especially an adversarial system like the US’, is having to hear and logically counter opposing arguments. The snowflake generation who throw tantrums at the merest hint of opposition aren’t going to cut it.
Campus Reform Higher Education Fellow Rob Jenkins [says…] “Imagine hiring a lawyer who is so fragile, he or she can’t even bear to hear an opposing argument. If a recent incident at Stanford University Law School is any indication, that may well be the future of the American legal profession,” Jenkins reasons.
Still, there’s good news for students who aren’t snowflakes. Put a conservative, libertarian institution like the Federalist Society on your CV and the doors will stay open.
“Apparently”, Jenkins adds, “conservative students are the only ones who still understand common professional courtesy, the Constitution and the adversarial nature of our judicial system.”
Campus Reform