A leading law professor at the University of California-Berkeley has penned a Wall Street Journal column expressing concern about the antisemitism of some of his students and urging law firms not to hire them.
Steven Davidoff Solomon, one of the nation’s top experts on corporate law and an adviser to the Jewish Law Students Association, wrote in the column that he recommends most of his students to employers but has grown concerned about a group of students who oppose Israel and supported Hamas’ murderous invasion. His words ran under the headline, “Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Law Students.”
More than 1,400 Israelis were killed.
“If you are a legal employer, when you interview students from Berkeley, Harvard, NYU, or any other law school this year, ask them what organizations they belong to,” Solomon wrote. “Ask if they support discriminatory bylaws or other acts and resolutions blaming Jews and Israelis for the Hamas massacre. If a student endorses hatred, it isn’t only your right but your duty not to hire him. Do you want your clients represented by someone who condones these monstrous crimes?”
Last year, he said, Berkeley’s Law Students for Justice in Palestine group asked other student groups to “adopt a bylaw that banned supporters of Israel from speaking at events.” The bylaw excluded any speaker who “expressed and continued to hold views or host/sponsor/promote events in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.” Nine student groups passed it, including the Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, the Queer Caucus and the Women of Berkeley Law, he wrote.
“It was rightly criticized for creating ‘Jew-free’ zones,” he wrote. “... The student conduct at Berkeley is part of the broader attitude against Jews on university campuses that made last week’s massacre possible. It is shameful and has been tolerated for too long. It’s time for the adults to take over, and that includes law firms looking for graduates to hire.”
Solomon’s column was published as a series of controversies have taken place across university campuses in the wake of the Hamas attack.
The Wexner Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on promoting Jewish leadership, cut ties with Harvard over what the foundation said was the university’s slow response to a controversy over the Hamas attack. A Harvard student group had signed a letter saying Israel was “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
Jon Huntsman said his family’s Huntsman Foundation would no longer donate to the University of Pennsylvania because of its “silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel.”
Columbia University also has been embroiled in a controversy after one of its professors, Joseph Massad, wrote a column applauding the invasion of Israel and saying the Jewish people were “living on land stolen from another.” The attack, he wrote, was “astounding.” Israel, he said, was engaging in “colonialism” and apartheid.
Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/Spencer Platt / Staff
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
