Harvard President Claudine Gay is quickly becoming a household name, though not for the reasons she might have liked. She’s also receiving fan mail, but it’s not filled with the type of praise that celebrities typically hope for. The latest example was a letter from Jay Edelson, the founder of Edelson PC, a major law firm. He was writing to inform Gay that his firm would no longer be participating in recruitment events at Harvard Law School and he cited Gay’s recent congressional testimony along with the pro-Hamas rallies on campus as the reason for the decision. In other words, if you head out into the world with a law degree from Harvard, you won’t be landing a position at Edelson. Ouch. That’s going to leave a mark. (Just the News)
Edelson PC, a major national law firm representing plaintiffs, said it will no longer participate in on-campus recruiting events at Harvard Law School, citing how the university president refused to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews before Congress.
“Regrettably, I must address a recent incident that has deeply concerned us. We, along with the rest of the nation, observed Dr. Claudine Gay’s testimony before Congress, wherein she refused to unequivocally state that advocating for genocide would breach the school’s code of conduct,” the law firm’s founder, Jay Edelson, wrote in a letter last week to Harvard Law’s recruitment office.
Edelson acknowledged that Gay apologized days after the hearing following her statements that calling for the genocide of Jews depended “on the context” as to whether it violated Harvard’s rules against bullying and harassment.
Edelson made it clear that he won’t be banning all students from Harvard. He doesn’t want to punish those who applied and were admitted to the school before all of this antisemitic hatred bubbled over, provided they weren’t taking part in the protests. He said he will seek other avenues to connect with such students if they are interested in a position at his firm.
This was good to see and we certainly need more employers to follow in Jay Edelson’s footsteps. Not only the administration at Harvard but the students themselves need to understand that actions carry consequences. You can’t simply spend a few years attending an endless Jew-hating party and then expect to be handed a seven-figure job upon graduation. (Particularly if the employer’s management team includes Jews or those who empathize with them.)
If this problem were only taking place at Harvard it might be more manageable, but that’s not the case. A recent survey found that more than half of young Americans aged 18-24 believe that Israel should be “ended and given to Hamas.” 51% responded that way, and that’s the age group that encompasses nearly all college students. By contrast, only four percent of people over the age of 65 felt the same way. Other age groups in between varied in their responses to the question, but none were anywhere near as virulent as the 18-24 crowd.
If there’s any good news to come of this, the law school students around the country who still support Israel as our ally should have a much easier time finding a position after they graduate. A lot of the competition is eliminating itself right before our eyes. Meanwhile, Claudine Gay continues to hold her position as the head of Harvard Law with the public support of a vast majority of the staff there. How long will that condition last if the school gains a reputation for graduating students who are unable to land a job in their chosen field? I would imagine that when the cash flow for Harvard’s coffers starts really drying up, it won’t be much longer.
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