More than 50 Columbia Law School faculty members in a letter on Sunday castigated the university’s administration over its decision to clear students violating university policy from the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” that sprung up on Wednesday morning.
“As members of the faculty of Columbia Law School, we are deeply troubled by recent events on our campus,” the letter reads. “While we as a faculty disagree about the relevant political issues and express no opinion on the merits of the protest, we are writing to urge respect for basic rule-of-law values that ought to govern our University.”
The signatories acknowledged that Columbia has policies regarding use of the lawn and prohibitions of harassment and discrimination but argued that “it is not clear that any of those established procedures were followed” in this case.
“It is true that the University has asserted the authority to issue interim suspensions ‘if it is determined that the student’s behavior may make their presence on campus a danger to the normal operations of the institution, the safety of themselves, others, or to the property of the University or others.’ But the use of this authority to issue a blanket suspension to over one hundred unidentified students would cast serious doubt on the University’s respect for the rule-of-law values that we teach and cherish,” the authors wrote. “The possibility that this mechanism was used is especially concerning given that President Shafik’s justification for involving the NYPD seems to have partly turned on a finding, pursuant to unknown standards and procedures, that the targeted students were creating a ‘harassing and intimidating environment.'”
The list of signatories includes notable individuals in the legal world. Kimberlé Crenshaw, the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, was one of the earliest academics to develop the idea of critical race theory and coined the term “intersectionality.” Olatunde Johnson, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59 Professor of Law, was a member of president Joe Biden’s commission on reforming the United States Supreme Court. Kerel Murray, an associate professor of law, clerked for Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson during the beginning of her tenure on the bench and during her time as a district court judge.
The letter, before National Review obtained a copy, was apparently meant to be kept secret. Law professor Jeffrey Fagan sent an email requesting that recipients “treat the faculty letter as privileged communication, not to be shared,” writing that some of the signers have expressed their strong desire to keep their participation confidential and private.”
National Review has reached out to Fagan to ask why it was so important that the letter remain private..