Students at Yale Law School recently disrupted speakers in an example of cancel culture that is common on so many university campuses these days. Now comes a senior federal judge advising his judicial colleagues against hiring the protesting students for clerkships.
The March 10 panel was intended as a debate over civil liberties. It was hosted by the Yale Federalist Society and featured Monica Miller of the progressive American Humanist Association and Kristen Waggoner of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative outfit that promotes religious liberty. The two broadly agree on protecting free speech, despite their differences on other issues.
A hundred or so students heckled and tried to shout down the panel and Federalist Society members in attendance. One protester told a member of the conservative legal group she would “literally fight you, bitch,” according to the Washington Free Beacon, which obtained an audio and videotape of the ruckus. The speakers were escorted from the event by police for their safety. It’s not too much to say that the students were a political mob.
No punishment seems forthcoming from Yale Law School, despite its ostensible policy barring protests that disrupt free speech. But the event prompted Senior Judge Laurence Silberman of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to write the following letter to all of his fellow Article III judges last week: