Here are a few tweets for the good folks at @BadLegalTakes. We’re always amazed by what we see on Twitter coming from law school students (not to mention journalism professors). The Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium did a piece on Yale Law School students calling for “unrelenting daily confrontation” with their conservative classmates of the leaked Roe v. Wade draft decision. (And by the way, how do we not know the name of the leaker yet? It’s a remarkably small pool of candidates.)
NEW: Students at Yale Law School are responding to Alito’s leaked opinion with calls to accost their conservative classmates through "unrelenting daily confrontation" and toss the Constitution by the wayside.
We’ve got the screenshots.🧵https://t.co/T9cddLgltS
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
This is like when people get upset with us for using their tweets and quoting them exactly.
Members of the law school’s conservative Federalist Society, first year law student Shyamala Ramakrishna said in an Instagram post, are "conspirators in the Christo-fascist political takeover we all seem to be posting frantically about." pic.twitter.com/MpSV9Bgk0m
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
“Christo-fascist political takeover.”
Why, she asked, are they still "coming to our parties" and "laughing in the library" without "unrelenting daily confrontation?"
Some of her classmates were less moderate.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
"It’s not time for ‘reform,’" first-year law student Leah Fessler, a onetime New York Times freelancer, wrote on Instagram. "Democratic Institutions won’t save us."
It is unclear how Fessler will apply that view as a legal intern this summer for federal judge Lewis Liman. pic.twitter.com/mhqJanLIhA
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
Fessler isn’t alone. "Neither the constitution nor the courts—nor the fucking illusion of ‘democracy’—are going to save us," first-year student Melisa Olgun posted. pic.twitter.com/82sZi5P5A1
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
"How can we possibly expect a document, drafted by wealthy, white, landowning men, to protect those who face marginalization that is the direct result of the very actions of the founders?"
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
Contacted for comment, the students decried "leaks" of their social media posts and said the Washington Free Beacon was not "authorized" to publish them.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
"This was posted PRIVATELY, on a private story, and was clearly leaked to you," Fessler said in an email, adding that the Free Beacon was "in no way authorized" to use the message.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
“The post was on a private account on a private story that was sent to you without my knowledge," Olgun said. "You are in no way authorized to use it or my name in your story."
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
Attn: @BadLegalTakes.
The replies may have been a tacit invocation of copyright laws that ban the dissemination of photos without their owner’s consent. Publishing private Instagram posts, a lawyer might argue, violates intellectual property rights.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
But Adam Candeub, an intellectual property expert at Michigan State University College of Law, called that argument "bullshit.
It’s not clear copyright would even apply," Candeub said. "I wonder what they’re teaching at Yale Law School."
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
Eugene Volokh, a professor of First Amendment law at UCLA School of Law, said the copyright argument was a stretch. Jack Balkin, a First Amendment professor at Yale Law School, did not respond to a request for comment.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
The reactions at Yale Law School, long ranked the top school in the country, reflect the radicalism of a younger generation of law students—and, some have speculated, of the leaker himself—who believe that long-standing legal norms perpetuate oppression.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
And they’ll be the Supreme Court law clerks of tomorrow.
Olgun, for one, lamented that the "‘liberal’ legal discipline will continue to bend over backwards to uphold the decorum, norms, and the sanctity of an institution that serves only those who benefit from originalism." pic.twitter.com/GY80KMwFPV
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
Such sentiments are widespread at Yale Law School. In March, nearly two-thirds of the student body signed an open letter condemning the Federalist Society for hosting a bipartisan panel on free speech. https://t.co/XlfA6JKZya
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
The letter—which Fessler, Olgun, and Ramakrishna signed—also condemned the law school for calling "armed police" on "peaceful student protesters," who caused so much chaos at the panel that the speakers had to be escorted to a squad car outside. https://t.co/ZrQ4PSrFYV
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
Similar scenes have unfolded outside the homes of Supreme Court justices in the wake of the leak. Though it is illegal to picket a judge’s home "with the intent of influencing" a case, 100s of protesters did just that to Roberts and Kavanaugh, raising concerns about their safety.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
The Biden Administration does not appear to share those concerns: then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that "we certainly continue to encourage [peaceful protests] outside of judges' homes." https://t.co/EkcyKwkerM
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
Congress has likewise taken a page from the Yale Law playbook. Days after a pro-life advocacy office was firebombed in Madison, Wis., House Democrats tried to kill a bipartisan bill that would beef up security for Supreme Court justices. https://t.co/HxW9Z7U6YQ
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
Nearly half those justices are graduates of Yale Law School, which churns out hundreds of law clerks each year. The school has an outsized effect on the legal system, producing a shocking volume of judges, academics, and government officials.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
Since 1789, more than 4 percent of all federal judges have graduated from Yale Law. Alumni of the top-ranked school account for 17 percent of new law professors and three of the Federal Trade Commission’s five commissioners, including agency chair Lina Khan.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
As the law school’s student body has radicalized, some judges are hoping to hem in its prestige. In March, D.C. Circuit judge Laurence Silberman warned his colleagues against hiring Yale students. https://t.co/t018Oo2I0w
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
"The latest events at Yale Law School," Silberman wrote, "prompt me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted.”
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
“All federal judges—and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speech—should carefully consider whether any student so identified should be disqualified from potential clerkships."
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2022
This is a frightening thread. If #Yale Law School is the canary in the coal mine, American jurisprudence is under more active assault than I had imagined, and I’ve imagined a lot. #SCOTUS
— Richard R Balsamo, MD, JD (@balsamo_r) May 14, 2022
How to be put on a "don't hire this kid to clerk" listhttps://t.co/KIXASSA1eJ
— Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) May 14, 2022
So they’re bitching about a SCOTUS leak and then bitching to you about a leak of a private conversation?
— PontificAsian (@PontificAsian) May 14, 2022
No, they want to make sweet love to the leaker (and then joyfully abort the fetus).
https://twitter.com/JanAckley/status/1525536350585270272
I went to law school in SEATTLE in the late 90s and we didn't have 1% as many woke idiots in my graduating class. We would have laughed at this kind of childish behavior, as would our professors.
— Nuclear Herbs (@NuclearHerbs) May 14, 2022
Prediction- this will steel a generation or right wing jurisprudence the left cannot fathom.
— Jose Loco (@jaydubsagain) May 14, 2022
Related:
Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium reveals how Yale Law School’s unjust crusade against part-Cherokee conservative student is going even further off the rails https://t.co/FYydkNuJQQ
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 20, 2021