The law firm Davis Polk said in an internal email to staff members that the students’ statements don’t represent the firm’s values.

Top U.S. law firm Davis Polk announced in an internal email that it had rescinded letters of employment for three law students at Harvard and Columbia universities who signed on to organizational statements about Israel, one of the latest responses to open letters from university groups about the Israel-Hamas conflict that have roiled university donors, employers, alumni and students.

“These statements are simply contrary to our firm’s values and we thus concluded that rescinding these offers was appropriate in upholding our responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive work environment for all Davis Polk employees,” said the email, signed by Neil Barr.

Small-business lawyer Joseph Gerstel posted a screenshot of the email Tuesday on LinkedIn. A Davis Polk representative confirmed it as authentic.

Barr went on to write, “At this time, we remain in dialogue with two of these students to ensure that any further color being offered to us by these students is considered.”

  • yiliu@informis.land
    13·
    1 year ago

    The Israelis are not committing genocide, by any definition. They’re certainly not conducting an organized mass killing of Palestinians–the Palestinian population is one of the fastest-growing populations in the world. They’re not trying to deprive them of language or culture. They’re just containing them–which might be a crime, but it’s not genocide.

    So you’re actually making a racist statement, and then ascribing a racist motive to the people that aren’t even making that racist statement.

    They’re cosigning Hamas. You think Hamas is above racism?

    Anyway, I was just inventing a scenario in which a company might not want to hire these people. For the record, I don’t believe that either the Israelis or Palestinians are evil, or should be massacred, or that every Jew supports the right-wing Israeli government or that every Palestinian supports Hamas. But Hamas does believe it, and has said so explicitly, and by calling them brave and justified freedom fighters you’re kinda taking their side.

    So why can’t you also condemn Israel for killing 2800 civilians non-combatants–including at least 800 children–in Gaza so far?

    Who says I can’t? Allow me to quote myself:

    Same goes for law students who are too enthusiastic about Israel’s violent response, nobody has to hire them either.

    The situation is fucked up, and I think Hamas shares a lot of the blame for the civilian casualties since they’re deliberately using the civilians as a shield. But I have no problem criticizing Israel. It just wasn’t relevant to this discussion.

    It just drives me fucking crazy that people think they are entitled to be hired by a company, regardless of what they’ve said in the past. And a key word there is “they”. I strongly suspect the Venn diagram of people who are currently saying “Oh my God, Davis Polk can’t do this, it’s an assault on free speech!” and the people who were 100% on board with Trump supporters, antivaxxers, or people throwing racial slurs while walking their dog in the park losing their jobs is pretty much a circle. Remember “Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences!”?

    They were right then, however annoyingly smug they were about it, and they’re right now. You can say whatever you want, but not everybody is going to like it, and they are not obliged to hire you.