(Photo
by
Selcuk
Acar/Anadolu
via
Getty
Images)
It
must
be
hard
out
there
for
a
federal
judge.
Having
to
go
into
work
every
day
and
adjudicate
actual
cases
and
controversies
based
upon
the
rule
of
law?
BORING!
Sure,
sometimes
you
can
nod-and-wink
collude
with
litigants
to
legislate
from
the
bench
or
collect
high-priced
vacations
from
wealthy
benefactors
and
fail
to
disclose
them,
but
too
much
of
a
judge’s
time
is
spent
actually
serving
the
public.
Why
can’t
judges
be
cable
news
characters
themselves
so
everyone
can
talk
about
how
edgy
they
are?!?
A
clutch
of
the
least
committed
public
servants
in
America
have
wondered
just
that
and
decided
to
blow
off
the
role
of
dedicated
jurist
that
taxpayers
fund
them
to
perform
to
instead
write
an
angry
letter
to
the
manager
complaining
about
the
campus
protests
they
keep
seeing
on
TV.
Or,
more
accurately
“a
desperate
request
for
media
attention
posing
as
an
angry
letter
to
the
manager.”
And
oh,
look!
The
open
letter
is
helpfully
disseminated
to
public
through
National
Review
editor
Ramesh
Ponnuru.
What
a
coincidence!
Who
are
these
grumpy
judges?
I’m
sorry
but
Branch,
Ho,
and
Solomson
giving
themselves
top
billing
over
everyone
else
like
they’re
RDJ,
Evans,
and
Hemsworth
of
the
Campus
Crybaby
Avengers
is
too
funny.
Also…
Solomson?
Who
invited
the
junior
varsity
squad?
How
much
did
the
rest
of
the
judges
bitch
about
being
repertory
players
to
a
judge
on
the
Court
of
Federal
Claims?
An
Article
I
judge?
But
they
headlined
the
last
superficial
campus
stunt
when
they
bemoaned
Yale
law
students
for
protesting
a
hate
group,
so
now
they’re
stars!
There
are
over
100
campuses
with
ongoing
protests
right
now.
Ask
yourself,
why
are
these
judges
specifically
writing
Columbia?
In
part,
because
they
realize
shutting
off
hiring
from
every
school
with
students
protesting
the
mounting
humanitarian
crisis
would
leave
their
clerking
cupboard
almost
completely
bare,
but
more
because
“Columbia”
will
get
their
performative
stunt
noticed
in
ways
that
boycotting
the
University
of
New
Mexico
will
not.
Campus
protests
against
the
ongoing
Gaza
war
raise
important
issues
for
a
lot
of
stakeholders.
Exactly
zero
of
those
people
are
federal
judges.
Indeed,
to
the
extent
the
protests
and
related
police
action
against
them
could
land
in
court,
a
responsible
and
ethically
conscious
jurist
would
be
mindful
to
remain
detached
from
the
policy
squabbles
that
could
land
before
them.
If
they
want
to
run
for
Congress
or
join
academia,
they
are
free
to
resign.
If
these
judges
just
said
they
didn’t
approve
of
protests
it
would
be
merely
imprudent.
Attempting
to
use
their
offices
to
influence
policy
is
so
much
more
disgusting.
Anyway,
the
judges
have
a
list
of
demands
because
—
apparently
—
holding
a
university
hostage
with
a
list
of
demands
is
acceptable
for
powerful
people
to
casually
play
with
the
careers
of
young
people
but
not
for
a
bunch
of
students
with
no
hope
of
access
to
such
a
platform.
Again,
the
sliver
of
this
that’s
not
just
a
public
relations
ploy
for
judges
looking
to
boost
their
Q
score
with
the
QAnon
set
is
about
rewriting
free
speech
as
a
top-down
right
to
be
imposed
by
the
powerful
upon
the
weak.
But
I
digress.
Anyway…
the
demands:
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….
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.
Doxxing
over
free
expression
is
entirely
in
line
with
the
conservative
legal
movement’s
recent
program.
On
the
other
hand,
this
is
a
welcome
effort
on
the
part
of
these
judges
to
provide
at
least
some
kind
of
explanation
for
collectively
punishing
the
whole
school.
It’s
not
that
they’re
too
dumb
to
make
a
distinction
between
a
Columbia
student
involved
in
the
protest
and
one
who
wasn’t,
it’s
that
they
just
can’t
tell
who
to
trust
unless
the
school
marks
the
students
with
a
Scarlet
P.
After
all,
what
if
some
hardcore
Trotskyist
protestor
is
hoping
to
someday
clerk
for
Matthew
freakin’
Kacsmaryk?
Obviously
this
whole
letter
is
in
the
utmost
bad
faith,
but
their
proposal
would
blackball
a
student
protestor
with
Black
Power
leanings
who
organized
a
walkout
and
participated
in
violent
riots
on
an
Ivy
League
campus…
like
Clarence
Thomas.
The
judges
also
ask
for
“neutrality
and
nondiscrimination.”
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.
Yeah,
Columbia
wouldn’t
have
done
anything.
White
nationalists
marched
on
UVA
literally
chanting
“Jews
will
not
replace
us”
and
the
school
kept
its
distance.
And
these
judges
stood
by
and
shrugged.
Now
that
some
Columbia
kids
are
saying
“maybe
don’t
bomb
Rafah”
suddenly
these
jurists
have
found
“antisemitism”
on
their
Word-of-the-Day
calendars.
That
the
judges’
intended
audience
for
this
very
letter
responded
to
the
UVA
march
by
calling
them
“very
fine
people”
might
give
you
a
sense
of
why
they
didn’t
rush
to
their
typewriters
back
then.
Every
time
you
see
these
judges
on
some
hyped-up
faux
outrage,
be
sure
that
the
intent
is
to
get
their
names
printed
out
by
that
woman
who
sits
behind
Trump
and
hands
him
fawning
news
articles
all
day.
3.
Viewpoint
diversity
on
the
faculty
and
across
the
administration—including
the
admissions
office.
There
it
is!
Up
until
here,
the
judges
could
try
to
drape
their
remarks
as
some
sort
of
vague
legal
advice.
But
we’re
past
implementing
proper
balancing
of
free
speech
and
onto
affirmative
action
—
except
the
“good”
kind
that
advances
the
discrete
and
insular
minority
who
think
voting
rights
are
overrated.
“Viewpoint
diversity”
hijacks
the
language
of
civil
rights
to
advance
bad
scholars.
It
turns
the
classic
formulation
of
being
judged
not
on
the
color
of
your
skin
but
the
content
of
your
character
on
its
head
and
demands
protection
solely
based
on
the
utterly
lacking
content
of
one’s
character.
Now
the
judges
are
nakedly
leveraging
their
office
to
demand
a
university
bend
its
hiring
policy
to
their
whim.
While
conservatives
usually
whine
about
boycotts,
they
are
perfectly
legal
forms
of
private
protest.
But
the
judges
are
not
acting
as
private
protesters.
They
are
using
their
constitutional
office
to
bully
institutions
that
they
don’t
like.
It
is
an
abuse
of
the
public
trust.
They’ll
argue
that
clerkship
hiring
is
their
own
affair,
and
if
we
all
only
slap
on
our
blinders
and
pretend
the
power
of
their
office
isn’t
what’s
giving
their
hiring
decisions
their
taxpayer-funded
gravity
then
it’s
perfectly
acceptable
under
the
rules.
But
that
doesn’t
make
it
any
less
of
a
stain
upon
the
office.
Earlier:
bemoaned
Yale
law
students
for
protesting
a
hate
group
Federal
Judges
All
But
Admit
Yale
Law
School
Boycott
Was
A
Ruse
And
The
School
Fell
For
It
Hard
Free
Speech
Is
The
Freedom
To
Shut
Up
And
Listen
To
Your
Betters,
Trump
Judge
Explains
Columbia
Law
Review
Asks
To
Cancel
Exams
Amid
Administrative
Grading
Confusion,
General
Absolute
Chaos
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
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