Law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell recently rescinded job offers to three law students from Harvard and Columbia universities. The move was in response to controversial statements made by organizations that these students were part of, relating to the Hamas attack on Israel. Bloomberg Law had access to a statement made by the firm.
In the statement, Davis Polk & Wardwell cited that the views expressed by these organizations were “in direct contravention of our firm’s value system.” While the students were not directly identified in the statement, they were leaders of groups that had signed the Joint Statement from Palestine Solidarity Groups at Columbia University and the Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine.
On October 9, 31 organizations from Harvard University signed a declaration implicating the Israeli regime entirely for the unfolding violence. The same day, the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine declared that Hamas’ actions were a “counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor.”
Curiously, Davis Polk’s action follows a similar move by another law firm, Winston & Strawn, who withdrew an offer from Ryna Workman, a New York University law student and then-president of its student bar association. She had written in a newsletter asserting that “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life” following the Hamas attack.
Workman reacted to the withdrawal by admitting that her comments might have come across as insensitive to Israelis but argued that an excessive focus on her remarks steered attention away from the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Her full statement can be found here.
The repercussions of these decisions in the legal industry remain to be seen, but they are a stark reminder that the conflict between Israel and Gaza reverberates beyond the immediate stakeholders. The American Bar Association President Mary Smith, has called for the legal community to allow respectful expression of diverse views on the crisis without fear of undue punishment or censorship.