Last week, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Ho announced that he would no longer look to recruit clerks from Yale Law School (YLS) and encouraged others in the judiciary to do the same because of the university’s “closed and intolerant environment.” The nation’s top-ranked law school has undoubtedly been reduced to an intolerant cesspool hostile to anyone with heterodox views, as evidenced by last year’s infamous “Trap House” imbroglio.
But some prominent voices are casting doubt on the potential efficacy of Judge Ho’s decision. One of those skeptics is George Washington University Law School legal scholar Jonathan Turley, who claims this move will only exacerbate the plight of the besieged conservative students at YLS without inducing any difference in behavior.
While believing that Judge Ho is “right on the merits” concerning problems at YLS, Turley disputes his means. In addition to rejecting the notion that Yale students “should be the subject of a boycott for the failure of the faculty,” he explains how the judge’s boycott will do little to fix the culture or administration in New Haven:
Even if the boycott were successful in dramatically reducing the prestigious clerkship for the school, it would likely not produce a change of behavior by the faculty. The sad reality is that many professors long ago jettisoned the interests of their students and their institution in favor of pursuing their own agendas.
Turley hits the nail on the head. Conservatives have tried this before in other areas. Elite woke-captured institutions resist incentives to change their illiberal ways not only because their unrivaled reputation has immunized them. They don’t respond to conservative public-pressure campaigns because the individual actors within them feel they don’t have to. Most professors at YLS lack institutional fealty. Their allegiance lies with the dogma to which they’ve wedded themselves.
Insofar as academics are willing to sacrifice institutional desiderata at the altar of intersectionality, conservatives are best off maintaining some skin in the game and rejecting the academic equivalent of the “Benedict Option.” Attempts to establish sanctuaries of normalcy like the Univerity of Austin are helpful but not a panacea. It’s better to play the game than to be an onlooker from the sidelines.