We’ve written before about how some of the signatories of those Ivy League anti-Israel letters faced some reactions for their actions, including losing job offers.
Now a top law firm has a big message to some of those students, that actions have consequences to them.
Davis Polk, one of the most prestigious firms in the country, has said thanks, but no thanks, and rescinded the job offers the firm made to three students who led organizations at Harvard and Columbia that signed onto the letters.
In an internal email viewed by FOX Business, Davis Polk chair and managing partner Neil Barr informed members of the New York-based firm Tuesday that news of the firm revoking offers to the Ivy League law students over the public statements “regarding the situation in Israel” would soon be hitting the press.
“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,” Barr wrote in the email.
“The views expressed in certain of the statements signed by law school student organizations in recent days are in direct contravention of our firm’s value system,” the law firm said in its official statement on the matter. “For this reason and to ensure we continue to maintain a supportive and inclusive work environment, the student leaders responsible for signing on to these statements are no longer welcome in our firm; and their offers of employment have thus been rescinded.”
Another law firm, Winston Strawn, had also pulled the job offer it made to the president of the New York University Student Bar Association last week.
The Harvard letter blamed Israel for the Hamas attack against them that took the lives of more than 1300 people. Students are certainly free to speak how they want, even if what they might say is reprehensible. But, they’re finding out that actions have consequences that in the work world.
Law firms and other employers can decide they don’t want to have anything to do with people who hold such positions. It’s a pretty big consequence when you lose an offer from such a firm – one that could likely set you up on a good path for a comfortable life. That’s some big money that just went flying out the door.
Good on the firms for standing up for decency here, but they weren’t the only ones who ultimately did so.
Since the letter was published, numerous CEOs, business leaders and a federal judge have responded by cutting ties with the university, calling for the identifications of students involved with the letter or saying they would not hire the students involved.
The students live in the sheltered world of academia where such thoughts seem to be welcome, and they’re finding out that the real world is not quite the same leftwing bastion they are used to.
What made it even better was this small fit from MSNBC’s Medhi Hassan. People on the left have generally downplayed “cancel culture” claiming it doesn’t exist. Now here he is trying to blame this situation on the right. No, Davis Polk is not a right-wing firm. Medhi’s just upset when the left’s rules come back to haunt folks on the left.
For years, the right fulminated against ‘cancel culture’ and ‘snowflakes’ and in favor of ‘free speech’ no matter how ‘offensive’ and now… https://t.co/1b5ThL6WkZ
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 18, 2023
