The dean of Yale Law School defended the prestigious school’s commitment to freedom of speech after several federal judges announced they would not accept clerkship applications from Yale graduates.
In a Wednesday letter to alumni, Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken laid out the number of steps taken by administrators to encourage and promote freedom of speech, which included hiring a dean of students and forcefully condemning attempts to shut down speakers on campus.
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“Yale Law School is dedicated to building a vibrant intellectual environment where ideas flourish,” Gerken wrote. “To foster free speech and engagement, we emphasize the core values of professionalism, integrity, and respect. These foundational values guide everything we do.”
Last month, during a Federalist Society conference in Kentucky, Judge James Ho of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called on his fellow federal judges to join him in a boycott of Yale and refuse to consider clerkship applicants who had attended the law school.
“I don’t want to cancel Yale, I want Yale to stop canceling people like me,” Ho said at the event. Last week, Judge Elizabeth Branch of the 11th Circuit told National Review that she would join Ho’s boycott.
“Like Judge Ho, I am gravely concerned that the stifling of debate not only is antithetical to this country’s founding principles, but also stunts intellectual growth,” she told the outlet. “Accordingly, I accept Judge Ho’s invitation to join him in declining to consider students from Yale Law School for clerkships with me, with an exception for past and current students.”
The announced boycott was the impetus for Gerken’s letter, which particularly praised the law school’s new dean of students, who Gerken said is “focused on ensuring students learn to resolve disagreements among themselves whenever possible rather than reflexively looking to the institution to serve as a referee.”
In March, the Ivy League law school made national headlines when students disrupted a panel discussion on civil rights law hosted by the Federalist Society because one of the featured speakers, attorney Kristen Waggoner, works for the conservative nonprofit legal group the Alliance Defending Freedom.
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In her letter, Gerken reiterated that the actions of the students during the March event were “unacceptable and violate the norms of the school, the profession, and our community.”
“In all of these efforts, our core model remains the same — we know that the best way for our students to learn is by engaging with their peers and faculty in small, iterative conversations within our community,” she wrote. “While this work often is not visible to the wider world, the Law School is moving forward on its central commitments and we are focused on educating the next generation of lawyers and instilling them with the values so many of us hold dear.”
