US law firms urge law schools to take tougher stance on student antisemitism

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Two dozen US law firms have written to the top law schools across the country calling on them to do more to crack down on student antisemitism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

In a letter to a group of law school deans, the firms, including Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Kirkland & Ellis, said they were “alarmed at reports of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assaults on college campuses” and asked the schools to explain how they were addressing the situation, according to a copy of the letter shared with the Financial Times.

The letter comes after Davis Polk, one of the world’s top law firms, rescinded offers to students in recent weeks over their participation in groups criticising Israel over the conflict. High-profile donors are also withdrawing millions of dollars in planned funding to punish US universities for their responses to Hamas’s attack on Israel.

“As employers who recruit from each of your law schools, we look to you to ensure your students who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace communities,” the law firms said in the letter. “There is no room for antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism or any other form of violence, hatred or bigotry on your campuses, in our workplaces or our communities.”

Other signatories to the letter include Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, Ropes & Gray, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. The recipients of the letter were not disclosed individually but included Harvard, Yale and Columbia, according to one person with knowledge of the situation.

The move comes after several high-profile US business leaders expressed outrage over a statement issued by groups from Harvard that held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence”.

Among them was Bill Ackman, the hedge fund billionaire, who said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that chief executives wanted to know who was behind it “so as to insure (sic) that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members”.

The reaction from such powerful names and withdrawal of college funding highlight the increasing pressure from social media on sensitive issues, and the impact that world events can indirectly have on business.

“We trust you will take the same unequivocal stance against [discrimination or harassment] as we do,” the law firms said at the end of their letter. “We look forward to a respectful dialogue with you to understand how you are addressing with urgency this serious situation at your law schools.”

Universities have been struggling to respond to fierce criticism from politicians, business people and activists as they seek to balance freedom of speech against rising concerns over emotional and physical threats to students on campus.

An open letter from 430 academic staff at Columbia University, Barnard College and Teachers College argued that while “there should be robust debate about complex and difficult issues” there was no justification to “recontextualise” Hamas’s attacks. They expressed concern over a rising number of antisemitic epithets, physical assault and swastikas scrawled on bathroom walls on campus.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader of the US Senate, said this week: “We’ve seen student radicals spew outright hate, and campus leaders respond with agonising, equivocating statements. But it appears that neither thickheaded young activists nor mealy-mouthed administrators can hold a candle to university faculties when it comes to moral obtuseness.”

The heads of leading Israeli universities and research institutes have also written a public letter to their peers in other countries expressing concern that “many college campuses have become breeding grounds for anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments, largely fuelled by a naive and biased understanding of the conflict”.

They defended freedom of speech but argued: “Demonstrations that call for our destruction and glorify violence against Jews [should] be explicitly prohibited and condemned.”

Cornell Hillel this week advised students and staff to avoid its kosher and multicultural dining hall out of “an abundance of caution” following a threat.