Over the past several years, it has become evident that some of the most prestigious academic institutions in this country are nothing more than training grounds for militant leftist activism. There is no better example than Yale Law School, which has been home to some of the most egregious displays of intolerance imaginable.
In 2019, for example, Yale Law students demanded that the university remove Alliance Defending Freedom General Counsel Kristen Waggoner from campus and implement policies that would make it difficult for graduating students to work with ADF and other “discriminatory” organizations in the future. On that latter point, the administration happily obliged and passed a policy requiring employers looking to hire students or graduates who benefit from Yale funding not to consider an applicant’s “religion.” This effectively barred ADF, a Christian organization that expects its employees to share its faith, from hiring Yale Law students who are still being funded by the school.
It would be difficult to argue that ADF is missing out. If anything, Yale Law’s student body has become even more radical since 2019. Just a few months ago, more than 100 students shut down a bipartisan panel on free speech, of which ADF was a part, by barging into the room and shouting down the speakers. The protesting students’ behavior was so abhorrent that a federal judge urged his colleagues to “carefully consider” whether any of the identified students “should be disqualified for potential clerkships.”
Still, the school refused to take action against the students, even though they were clearly in violation of Yale Law’s free speech policies, which forbid any protest that “interferes with speakers’ ability to be heard and of community members to listen,” according to the event’s moderator, Yale Law School professor Kate Stith.
Unsurprisingly, the lack of accountability on campus and the administration’s unwillingness to enforce its own policies has emboldened radical students. A new report from the Free Beacon this weekend revealed that a number of Yale Law students responded to the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion on Roe v. Wade by encouraging each other to harass and intimidate their conservative peers.
“The members of YLS [Federalist Society] are conspirators in the Christo-fascist political takeover we all seem to be posting frantically about,” first-year law student Shyamala Ramakrishna said in an Instagram post. “So why are they still coming to our parties/laughing in the library/roaming these weirdly high school-esque halls with precious few social consequences and without unrelenting daily confrontation?”
Another first-year law student, Leah Fessler, who will be working as a legal intern for federal Judge Lewis Liman this summer, wrote, “If you’re not ready to hold accountable the people and groups who at this very school produced the men who just took away women’s bodily autonomy, miss me with the commentary. Democratic institutions won’t save us. It’s not time for ‘reform.’”
First-year law student Melisa Olgun agreed: “Neither the Constitution nor the courts — nor the f***ing illusion of ‘democracy’ — are going to save us. How can we possibly expect a document, drafted by wealthy, white, landowning men, too protect those who face marginalization that is the direct result oof the very actions of the founders?” she wrote. “How can you uphold the validity of an entire legal discipline that is dedicated to upholding and honoring the intentions of the founders — who intentionally did not bother to codify rights for anyone other than themselves.”
What’s most alarming about these students’ comments is that they are not a minority opinion on campus. The student body has proved repeatedly that it really does despise democratic institutions and values such as free speech. And the administration has all but confirmed it agrees by refusing to hold its students accountable.
In other words, students like Ramakrishna and Fessler are representative of the average graduate Yale Law produces: someone who not only disdains those who think differently but seeks to punish them, someone who not only hates America’s institutions and values but seeks to destroy them.
It’s students like this who are running the asylum that is Yale Law School. And soon enough, they’ll be running a courtroom, law firm, office, or classroom near you.
* Article from: The Washington Examiner
