Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh

Kavanaugh got his J.D. at Yale and was a member of the Yale Law Journal, serving as a notes editor.

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas

Thomas earned his J.D. from Yale.

Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Alito earned his J.D. degree from Yale and became a Yale Law Journal editor. During his time at Yale, Alito and a classmate shared a prize granted to the most outstanding contributors to the journal: the Israel H. Peres Prize. He was also awarded the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize in Yale's moot court competition in recognition of his oral arguments.

Associate Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor

Sotomayor earned her J.D. degree at Yale and was an editor of the school's flagship law journal. In addition, she served as managing editor of the publication Yale Studies in World Public Order.

Associate Justice Elena Kagan

Kagan is a magna cum laude Harvard Law graduate and held a supervisory editor position on the school's law review.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/articles/where-supreme-court-justices-earned-law-degrees

SCOTUS OFFICIAL BIOS - FULL COURT PLANTATION...

From <https://www.scotusblog.com/biographies-of-the-justices/>

Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice,

was born in the Pinpoint community near Savannah, Georgia on June 23, 1948. He attended Conception Seminary from 1967-1968 and received an A.B., cum laude, from College of the Holy Cross in 1971 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974. He was admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri, 1974-1977; an attorney with the Monsanto Company, 1977-1979; and Legislative Assistant to Senator John Danforth, 1979-1981. From 1981–1982 he served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, and as Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1982-1990. From 1990–1991, he served as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and he took his seat October 23, 1991. He married Virginia Lamp on May 30, 1987 and has one child, Jamal Adeen by a previous marriage.

Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice,

was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on April 1, 1950. He married Martha-Ann Bomgardner in 1985, and has two children - Philip and Laura. He served as a law clerk for Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1976–1977. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, 1977–1981, as Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1981–1985, as Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1985–1987, and as U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, 1987–1990. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1990. President George W. Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat January 31, 2006.

Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice,

was born in Bronx, New York, on June 25, 1954. She earned a B.A. in 1976 from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and receiving the Pyne Prize, the highest academic honor Princeton awards to an undergraduate. In 1979, she earned a J.D. from Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she served as an associate and then partner from 1984–1992. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit where she served from 1998–2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009.

Elena Kagan, Associate Justice,

was born in New York, New York, on April 28, 1960. She received an A.B. from Princeton in 1981, an M. Phil. from Oxford in 1983, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1986. She clerked for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1986-1987 and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1987 Term. After briefly practicing law at a Washington, D.C. law firm, she became a law professor, first at the University of Chicago Law School and later at Harvard Law School. She also served for four years in the Clinton Administration, as Associate Counsel to the President and then as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. Between 2003 and 2009, she served as the Dean of Harvard Law School. In 2009, President Obama nominated her as the Solicitor General of the United States. A year later, the President nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 10, 2010. She took her seat on August 7, 2010.

Justice Clarence Thomas

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas was born on June 23, 1948, in Pin Point, Georgia. Thomas considered a career in the priesthood and attended several seminaries before going to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, from which he graduated  in 1971. He then entered Yale Law School, graduating in 1974. After graduation, he took a job as an assistant attorney general of Missouri, and from 1976 until 1979 he worked as an attorney for Monsanto. In 1979, he became a legislative assistant for the Senate Commerce Committee; he joined President Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1981, working as assistant secretary of education for the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education and then as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush nominated Thomas for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Thomas was confirmed in March 1990. In 1991, Bush nominated Thomas to replace retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall. In October of that year, Thomas was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 52-48.

Justice Samuel A. Alito

Associate Justice Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. was born on April 1, 1950, in Trenton, New Jersey. Alito received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1972. Following his graduation, Alito was commissioned to the U.S. Army Signal Corps and assigned to the Army Reserve. He went on to attend Yale Law School, becoming editor of the Yale Law Journal and graduating in 1975. Following his graduation, Alito clerked for Judge Leonard Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit and then went on to work as an assistant U.S. attorney for the district of New Jersey. In 1981, he became an assistant to the solicitor general, arguing 12 cases before the Supreme Court. He went on to serve as a deputy assistant to the attorney general and later became the U.S. attorney for the district of New Jersey. In February 1990, President George H.W. Bush nominated Alito to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; he was confirmed unanimously in April of that year. In 2005, after White House counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination, President George W. Bush nominated Alito to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. By a vote of 58-42, the Senate confirmed Alito in January 2006.

Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor

Associate Justice Sonia Maria Sotomayor was born on June 25, 1954, in the Bronx, New York. Sotomayor graduated from Princeton University in 1976 and in 1979 from Yale Law School, where she was the editor of the Yale Law Review. Following her graduation from Yale, Sotomayor served as an assistant district attorney under Robert Morgenthau, then the district attorney of New York County; after that, she entered private practice, working for eight years at the law firm of Pavia & Harcourt. In 1991, Sotomayor was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; she was confirmed in August 1992. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. She served on that court until 2009, when she was nominated by President Barack Obama to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice David Souter. By a vote of 68-31, Sotomayor was confirmed in August 2009 as the court’s 111th justice, becoming the third woman – and the first person of Hispanic descent – to serve on the court.

Justice Elena Kagan

Associate Justice Elena Kagan was born on April 28, 1960, in New York City. Kagan graduated  from Princeton University in 1981 and then attended Oxford University on a fellowship, receiving a Master of Philosophy in 1983. After graduating from Oxford, Kagan attended Harvard Law School, becoming supervisory editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduating in 1986. Kagan clerked for Judge Abner Mikva on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and on the Supreme Court for Justice Thurgood Marshall. She then entered private practice at the Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly, leaving to join the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1991. She served as associate White House counsel in President Bill Clinton’s administration from 1995 until 1999 before returning to academia at Harvard Law School, where she became a full professor in 2001. In 2005, Kagan became Harvard Law School’s first female dean. In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated her to become the first female solicitor general of the United States; she was confirmed in March 2009. In May 2010, Obama nominated Kagan to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. She was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 63-37 and was sworn in on August 7, 2010.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch

Associate Justice Neil McGill Gorsuch was born on August 29, 1967, in Denver. Gorsuch graduated from Columbia University in 1988 and Harvard Law School, which he attended on a Harry S. Truman Scholarship, in 1991. He clerked for Judge David Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and on the Supreme Court for Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. In 1995, Gorsuch entered private practice at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, where he later became a partner and where he worked until 2005. During this period, he also attended Oxford University on a Marshall Scholarship, receiving his doctorate in 2004. From 2005 to 2006, he served as the principal deputy associate attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2006, President George W. Bush nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, and the Senate confirmed him by voice vote. In January 2017, President Donald Trump nominated him to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, after the Senate declined to act on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Chief Judge Merrick Garland to replace Scalia. Gorsuch was confirmed by a 54-45 vote, and he was sworn in on April 10, 2017.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh

Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was born on February 12, 1965. Kavanaugh graduated from Yale College in 1987 and Yale Law School in 1990. He clerked for Judge Walter Stapleton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. Following his clerkships, Kavanaugh worked both in public service, as an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States and as associate counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and in private practice, for Kirkland & Ellis. From 2001 to 2003, Kavanaugh was associate counsel and then senior associate counsel to President George W. Bush, and from 2003 to 2006, he was Assistant to the President and White House Staff Secretary. After being originally nominated by Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2003, Kavanaugh was confirmed in 2006. In July 2018, President Donald Trump nominated him to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh was confirmed by a 50-48 vote, and he was sworn in on October 6, 2018.

From <https://www.scotusblog.com/biographies-of-the-justices/>

Since Rubenfeld’s suspension: Yale Law Women and YLS Title IX Working Group advocate for increased transparency and justice

In the fall of 2018, Yale Law School Professor Jed Rubenfeld was slammed with allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct. How have student groups and the University administration responded in the aftermath?

Jane Park May 22, 2023 Yale Daily News Contributing Reporter

Ryan Chiao, Senior Photographer

Content Warning: This article contains references to sexual violence.

SHARE is available to all members of the Yale community who are dealing with sexual misconduct of any kind, including sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, intimate partner violence and more. Counselors are available any time, day or night, at the 24/7 hotline: (203) 432-2000. 

Yale Law School professor Jed Rubenfeld was publicly accused of a pattern of inappropriate behavior and sexual misconduct in October 2018. Student allegations ranged from verbal harassment to unwanted touching and attempted kissing both inside the classroom and at his home. 

For two years, it seemed that the University took no action until students received news about the findings of an internal investigation in August 2020. That investigation resulted in Rubenfeld’s suspension until 2022. Details around the suspension were never formally announced to the Law School community, sparking demands for greater transparency among students and faculty.

“It was not a surprise to basically any woman in my class that this investigation is going on,” said Grace Kao LAW ’15 in an interview with the News in 2018.

In a 2020 message to the Yale Law School community, Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken stated that she was unable to comment on the existence of misconduct allegations but that the University addresses all matters of misconduct “thoroughly.” 

Rubenfeld, alongside his wife, professor Amy Chua, had come under national scrutiny prior to the misconduct allegations. In September 2018, The Guardian reported that the couple allegedly told female students that they should “look and dress” a certain way to attain a clerkship for Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90, advising them that Kavanaugh preferred to select female candidates based on their attractiveness. 

“I have made jokes and comments that I would not make today and I wish I had not made,” Rubenfeld told The New York Times in August 2020. “This may have made students uncomfortable. I respect students for coming forward if it did … But I never sexually harassed anybody. That’s a completely different thing.”

In an email to the News in November 2020, Rubenfeld wrote that he “categorically and unequivocally” denies the allegations made against him. 

Yale Law Women and Yale Law School Title IX Working Group’s joint report

Yale Law Women, a student organization at the Law School now known as Yale Law Women+, and the Law School’s Title IX Working Group jointly released a report on Rubenfeld’s case in October 2020. 

The first section of the report, penned solely by the Yale Law Women Board of 2020-2021, directly addresses University President Peter Salovey, demanding him to permanently remove Rubenfeld and release information regarding the allegations and findings of Yale’s internal investigation. 

“When Jed Rubenfeld is allowed to return to YLS and resume teaching, in just two years, he will still be dangerous,” reads the report. “There is no reason to believe there will be any change in his behavior — the only change will be that all the students who are aware of his transgressions will have graduated, thereby impairing institutional memory. We do not want Jed Rubenfeld to prey on a new generation of students.”

As of fall 2022, Jed Rubenfeld has resumed teaching at the Yale Law School, instructing the classes “Advanced Constitutional Law” and “Advanced Constitutional Law: Directed Research.” 

The second section of the report provides a timeline of Rubenfeld’s allegations, tracing them through publicly accessible sources such as news articles and online posts. The report notes “monthly soirées” and drinking parties hosted by Rubenfeld and his wife, Law School professor Amy Chua, at which students allegedly experienced uncomfortable and coercive interactions and behavior. 

This timeline cites forum posts and jokes made during Yale Revue — a yearly Yale Law student-produced comedy show — performances, which imply that the Law School community was aware of Rubenfeld’s “mildly inappropriate behavior.” 

The report also points to a 2017 anonymous Top Law Schools forum post that warned Yale Law School students to keep their distance from Rubenfeld “unless you enjoy being hit on by a middle-aged, married man who wields power over your career.”

These sentiments were also echoed in Slate’s 2018 coverage, which detailed how Rubenfeld and Chua’s influence in helping students attain career-advancing, competitive clerkship positions and deterred or hindered alleged victims’ decision to report Rubenfeld’s behavior.

The final section of the report highlights three broad recommendations for improving the University’s response to misconduct. According to the report, these suggested changes would be feasibly enforced in the wake of the Trump administration’s changes to Title IX policy, which allow plaintiffs to be cross-examined and redefines sexual harassment as a series of actions that are “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive.”

The first recommendation calls for an updated reporting system, where students would be able to anonymously file records of misconduct and be alerted if other reports had been made against the same offender. The report also demanded that the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, or UWC, which investigates and adjudicates allegations of sexual misconduct under the University’s Title IX Office, and the UWC hearing panel release a “community impact statement” after any internal investigation found evidence of misconduct. Within the statement, the UWC would have to explain how the resulting disciplinary action would protect the Yale community and why and how they chose to disclose certain information about cases. Currently, the hearing panel must only provide a written decision report of its findings, remedies and penalties to the parties involved and is not publicly released.

The report also urged the University to provide pro-bono legal representation to all student claimants and student respondents involved in a UWC investigation. The two student groups advocated that, as the Title IX process increasingly resembles a legal proceeding, it is imperative that the University help students obtain legal services free of charge. They went on to note that Yale was an outlier among its peer institutions for failing to do so.

The University and the Law School respond

UWC Chairs Mark Solomon and University Title IX Coordinator Stephanie Spangler informed student groups that their demands for pro-bono legal representation would not be met. In an email to the groups, Solomon and Spangler explained that the UWC could instead refer students to a panel of “UWC advisors,” two of whom had legal training. In an email to the News from October 2020, University Spokeswoman Karen Peart wrote that this advisor system has “worked well” in the past and that students could also reach out to supportive bodies such as the Title IX Coordinators, SHARE Center counselors and Yale Police. 

Salovey responded to the leaders of Yale Law Women and the Title IX Working Group in a Nov. 3 email, one month after receiving the report. While Salovey addressed general concerns about the University’s management of misconduct allegations, the email did not provide specific information about Rubenfeld’s case nor did it respond to the recommendations outlined in the report. Instead, Salovey’s email doubled down on Yale’s policies, stating that while “there are merits to transparency…, [the] University also places a high priority on maintaining confidentiality in these cases.” 

The News reported that in the aftermath of the Rubenfeld investigation, Yale Law professor George Priest ’69, alongside a host of students and faculty, urged the University to rethink its policies to better support complainants.

“I think the administration is doing everything in its power, but it does abide by University regulations,” Priest said. ”I think these privacy restrictions are certainly designed to protect complainants, and that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be protecting perpetrators. Change the rules, Yale University and Yale Law School ought to be on the vanguard of changing these rules to protect victims and not perpetrators.”

The UWC is composed of faculty, senior administrators and graduate and professional students throughout the University. 

Tweets by yaledailynews

About Us About The Site Join Us Advertise

jane.park@yale.edu

From <https://yaledailynews.com/commencement2023/2023/05/22/since-rubenfelds-suspension-yale-law-women-and-yls-title-ix-working-group-advocate-for-increased-transparency-and-justice/>

2022Nov15 Rubenfeld & Ramsaswamy | WSJ opinion The New Woke Discrimination Demands a New Law

Expand the Civil Rights Act to protect employees from being fired for their political beliefs.

By Vivek Ramaswamy and Jed Rubenfeld

Nov. 15, 2022 

From <https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-discrimination-demands-a-new-law-civil-rights-act-political-views-content-viewpoint-corporations-hostile-workplace-supreme-court-11668538745?mod=article_inline>

Republican politicians often ask what they can do in office to combat “wokeness.” The best approach is to amend state and federal civil-rights laws to protect employees from discrimination on the basis of political beliefs. Corporate viewpoint discrimination is unfair and widespread, a driver of polarization, and a direct consequence of the way existing civil-rights laws have been interpreted—a legal mistake that demands a legal solution.

On signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared that it would “end divisions” and told Americans to “lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.” But while the act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and religion, it doesn’t protect political beliefs, and today corporations across America fire employees who express the wrong political opinions.

Disney fired actress Gina Carano after she compared the treatment of conservatives on social media to Nazi persecution of Jews. The company called her post “abhorrent and unacceptable,” although co-star Pedro Pascal wasn’t sacked for likening Trump supporters to Nazis. Longtime Sacramento Kings broadcaster Grant Napear lost his job for tweeting “ALL LIVES MATTER.” A Virginia high school teacher was fired for refusing to use a student’s “preferred pronouns.” A software company dismissed an employee for posting a TikTok video complaining about Bronx bodegas. A USA Today editor was demoted for tautologically tweeting: “People who are pregnant are also women.”

This is un-American, and it’s also counter to the spirit of the Civil Rights Act. You can’t be fired for expressing your religious beliefs or gender identity. Why can you be fired for your political beliefs?

The answer lies in Supreme Court cases, beginning with Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986), which interpreted the Civil Rights Act broadly to protect workers in protected categories from “harassment.” The justices defined that term to include “verbal . . . conduct” that create “an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment.”

Since then, hostile-workplace litigation has exploded, and today political viewpoints or symbols perceived by minorities or women as hurtful or demeaning can create unlawful “hostile work environments” subjecting the employer to liability:

• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that a postal worker stated a valid hostile-workplace claim against the U.S. Postal Service for allowing a co-worker to wear a cap with the “don’t tread on me” flag; the aggrieved employee “stated that he found the cap to be racially offensive to African Americans because the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a slave trader & owner of slaves.”

• A federal judge ruled that a New York policeman stated a valid hostile-workplace claim based in part on a “one-time placement of a campaign sticker” for Donald Trump on another officer’s locker.

• A federal judge in Idaho found that a company’s letter disapproving of athletes’ “kneeling during the national anthem” as disrespectful to the military could “indicate a culture of racial discrimination” that would support a black worker’s hostile-workplace claim.

• A federal judge in Georgia allowed a claim to proceed in which, among other things, the plaintiff’s co-workers made “frequent comments that ‘President Obama was stupid.’ ” The court explained that “President Obama is African American” and that the plaintiff “understood” these comments to be “harassment based on race.”

If companies face liability when employees express such views, suppressing them is a prudent policy. Corporate explanations for speech prohibitions often say so explicitly: When Goodyear faced backlash for telling employees that “Blue Lives Matter” and “Make America Great Again” shirts were prohibited but “Black Lives Matter” shirts were acceptable, the company claimed it needed to keep its “work environment” free of “any forms of harassment or discrimination.” When Southwest Airlinesfired a flight attendant who made antiabortion posts on Facebook, it asserted that she might have violated its anti-sexual-harassment policy.

The laws prohibiting race and sex discrimination have turned into engines not only of suppression but of compulsion. A professor at the University of North Texas was fired, he alleged in a lawsuit, “for refusing to affirm a view—the concept of microaggressions—with which he disagreed,” in a judge’s paraphrase. A Texas hospital fired a nurse for objecting to a mandatory course that required her to admit she is racist because she is white.

Free-marketeers argue that businesses should be free to set workplace conditions and to hire and fire as they please. But for many companies, a prohibition on viewpoint discrimination would come as a liberation, not a restraint. Numerous CEOs of major corporations have told us in private that they don’t want to be part of “cancel culture”—or participate in culture wars at all. They don’t want to force an ideology into their workplace; they feel compelled to act because of pressure from activists and employees, backed by the threat of hostile-workplace litigation.

Lawmakers can adopt a framework that builds on the legal test for civil servants, who are already protected by the First Amendment from discrimination on the basis of political opinion. Employers couldn’t penalize an employee for off-duty political expression but could set rules for on-the-clock political speech in a viewpoint-neutral manner. A company could say “no political hats” but couldn’t favor BLM over MAGA. These rules have not led to unworkable challenges or neo-Nazi explosions in government workplaces.

It’s true that discrimination is more invidious when it’s based on immutable characteristics than on freely chosen beliefs. Yet the law protects employees from discrimination based on religion and gender identity, both of which can be matters of choice.

Companies at their best unite their employees in a common cause that transcends politics—to create, innovate, serve customers and generate wealth together. Protecting political expression as a civil right would respect LBJ’s admonition “to lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.”

Mr. Ramaswamy is executive chairman of Strive Asset Management and author of “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam” and “Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence.” Mr. Rubenfeld is a professor at Yale Law School and a First Amendment lawyer.

From <https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-discrimination-demands-a-new-law-civil-rights-act-political-views-content-viewpoint-corporations-hostile-workplace-supreme-court-11668538745?mod=article_inline>

Letters

The Danger of an Anti-Woke Civil-Rights Act

Government bureaucracies stray far beyond their original remit.

Nov. 23, 2022 12:24 pm ET

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 5.Photo: ELIZABETH FRANTZ/REUTERS

In “The New Discrimination Demands a New Law” (op-ed, Nov. 16), Vivek Ramaswamy and Jed Rubenfeld assert that “the best approach is to amend state and federal civil-rights laws to protect employees from discrimination on the basis of political beliefs.” On the contrary, the best approach is to create different and better workplaces where employees are free from such discrimination.

Stop looking for centralized government solutions to our problems. As the authors detail, the original intention of the Civil Rights Act has gone far astray, leading to division, harassment and animosity. What makes them certain that new laws wouldn’t become subject to the same misuse?

Matthew Mohlman

Westfield, Ind.

Viewpoint discrimination has become insidious. While Messrs. Ramaswamy and Rubenfeld propose a new law to address it, and I agree, I can’t imagine how we could get the support needed to pass it. My progressive friends believe their viewpoints are so virtuous and morally superior that no other opinion deserves airing. They are OK with this form of discrimination as a means to their desired ends.

From <https://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-woke-civil-rights-act-law-government-cancel-culture-11669156795>

YLS 2013 Commencement: Graduates Encouraged to Use Law as Tool for Change

Facing a world filled with great possibilities, but also “inexorable” and “unfathomable” challenges, Yale Law School graduates were encouraged Monday to use law as a powerful tool for change.

Several hundred people, including more than 200 graduates and their families and friends, filled the William K. Lanman Center at Payne Whitney Gymnasium during commencement ceremonies Monday afternoon.

The ceremonies featured remarks from Dean Robert C. Post '77, Jacquin D. Bierman Professor in Taxation Anne L. Alstott '87, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’79, who thrilled the crowd when she appeared after having been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Law by Yale University earlier in the day.

Speaking about both the perils and power of law, Alstott discussed the societal problems that impact the youth of the country, from education inequality, to the rising cost of obtaining a degree, to dismal unemployment numbers among young graduates.

At the heart of these problems of generational transition, Alstott said, lies the law. 

“Law too often serves power at the expense of the vulnerable,” Alstott said. “Legal rules too often reinforce class divisions and bolster privilege. Legal actors too often abuse their power in order to distribute largesse to the wealthy at the expense of the public.”

However, Alstott encouraged graduates to internalize these sobering realities with an optimistic mind, and focus on the true power and potential their degrees have to make a difference.

“As you reflect on our time together, I hope you will see that we showed you the dark side of the law to give you clarity and resolve—not to make you cynical,” said Alstott. “We taught you to spot the hidden advantages accorded to the powerful so that you can level the playing field. We taught you to see the invisible walls that insulate privilege so that you can dismantle them. We have helped you grasp the tools of justice, and we trust you to use them. I cannot wait to see the results!”

Alstott closed with a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “We, as lawyers, can be builders too. We can use our tools to build a society in which every member of the new generation can celebrate her graduation –not only with joy but with well-founded hope for the future.” - Anne L. Alstott

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

“We, as lawyers, can be builders too,” said Alstott. “We can use our tools to build a society in which every member of the new generation can celebrate her graduation –not only with joy but with well-founded hope for the future.”

Following Alsott’s address, Justice Sotomayor arrived on the dais, prompting the cheers and applause to grow louder as she waved and sat down beside the faculty.

Welcoming her back to New Haven, Dean Post reflected on Sotomayor’s time at Yale Law School and her remarkable career.

“She is judicious; she is empathetic; she is firmly grounded in social reality,” said Post. “She is a superb legal craftsman, faithful to the integrity of the law while shaping the law to be responsive to our shared values.”

“You are a Justice who does the appellation credit, and we are delighted and proud to welcome you back to Yale,” added Post.

When Sotomayor took to the podium, she reflected on how she felt more than 30 years ago, sitting in the same seats as the graduates before her. She urged graduates to listen to their instincts and focus on building a life, not a resume.

“Find your passion,” Sotomayor said. “Find your passion, not other peoples' passion. And that actually is the real answer to the difficulties most of you may experience about questions like am I doing meaningful work.”

“The answer is, if you are doing work that satisfies you, that makes you feel good about what you are learning and accomplishing, even if to others it’s not what they want to do, it doesn’t matter, because you are serving.”

“Law is service if you do it with honor and integrity and a sense of passion…” added Sotomayor.

During Dean Post’s address to graduates Monday, he instilled on them the importance of using the judicial skills they have acquired at Yale Law School as a vehicle to deal with the ever-changing and uncertain world around them.

“We can be confident only that in the coming decades we will encounter a world of rapid and almost unimaginably profound change,” Post said.

“And a question that we might consider is how we could possibly have prepared you for the multiple and unforeseeable challenges that await you?”

Post told graduates that they must believe in themselves in order to face these challenges and advocate for positive change.

“It is not enough that when you leave here you understand the challenges you will face, or even that in facing them you are able to envision new possibilities of improvement,” he said.

“You must also believe, deep in your souls, that you matter, that your response to these challenges will make a difference to the world,” added Post. “You must have the confidence to respect your own considerable capacities, and this will inspire you to act, whenever action is needed.”

Two hundred thirty three degree candidates were honored at the ceremonies Monday. The students will officially receive their degrees — 207 JDs, 21 LLMs, 3 JSDs, and 2 MSLs — when the Law School faculty votes on May 29.

From <https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/yls-2013-commencement-graduates-encouraged-use-law-tool-change>

========================

University confers 3,084 degrees at 312th Commencement

Cynthia Hua & Julia Zorthian 1:38 pm, May 20, 2013

Blue and white confetti shot into the air above Old Campus as University President Richard Levin conferred undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees during Yale’s 312th Commencement ceremony.

In the last Commencement of his career at the top of the University administration, Levin conferred 3,084 degrees and 262 provisional degrees before a crowd of 18,000. Yale also awarded 10 honorary degrees — including a doctorate of laws for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor LAW ’79 and a surprise doctorate of humane letters for Levin himself. Graduates of the Yale College Class of 2013 earned 933 Bachelor of Arts and 326 Bachelor of Science degrees.

The traditional series of processions and ceremonial exchanges began at 10:30 a.m. Monday morning. Yale College Dean Mary Miller was the first to take the stage, repeating the names of students who received awards at Sunday’s Class Day ceremony. When she asked Levin “to confer upon [Yale College seniors] these degrees,” the Yale College graduates sprang up and cheered as they had practiced with President-elect Peter Salovey the day before.

Students from each graduate and professional school then received degrees from Levin when their respective deans took to the stage. The groups all reacted differently — Law School students started cheering, “YLS! YLS!” while members of the School of Music waved instruments in the air. The University awarded the provisional degrees to law students and physician associates who have not yet completed their semesters.

Students continued the creativity displayed with Class Day hats by personalizing their graduation regalia based on their schools. Members of the School of Forestry wore flowers, branches and stuffed grizzly bears atop their caps and at least two students from the School of Drama donned clown noses. Undergraduates bore their residential college emblems on their graduation caps and a few colleges accessorized, including Morsels who waved foam axes.

Although the sky was filled with clouds that threatened rain at the beginning of the ceremony, the overcast weather eventually gave way to sunlight as the University began awarding honorary degrees.

Graduates of the law school stood and waved as Sotomayor took to the stage to receive her honorary degree.

“From the Bronx to the seat of our nations highest court, by way of Yale Law School,” Levin said, “your alma mater takes great pride in your inspiring journey.”

Levin awarded a doctorate of technology to Vinton Cerf, a computer scientist who appeared to be wearing Google Glass, describing him as “one of the fathers of the Internet.” Born in New Haven, Cerf is the vice president and chief internet evangelist for Google.

Following Cerf, religious scholar Elizabeth Clark received a doctorate of divinity for her work on the origins of Christianity, and Levin then awarded a doctorate of music to composer John Adams for his work’s ability to reflect human emotion.

“Your compositions have comforted and confronted, amused and amazed,” Levin said.

Levin next conferred a doctorate of letters upon author Edwidge Danticat for creating “truth-telling narratives” in her works about Haiti, her home country. South African artist William Kentridge received cheers from the School of Art graduates as he received his doctorate of fine arts for “helping us see in new ways.”

Economist Esther Duflo received a doctorate of social sciences for her work in development economics and poverty alleviation, and Fed-Ex founder Frederick Smith was awarded a doctorate of humane letters for revolutionizing the package transport system and consequently creating a new industry, Levin said.

“You conceived the idea that became Federal Express while writing a term paper for a Yale College economics course,” Levin added. “Your idea shrank the planet.”

Natalie Davis, a historian, received a doctorate of humanities for her transformative work in Early European history, which Levin said has “illuminated the human condition.”

After Levin conferred the nine honorary degrees, Yale Corporation Senior Fellow Ed Bass ’67 ARC ’72 stood up for a surprise announcement, which was unlisted in the ceremony program. He awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters to Levin for his service to the University.

Levin will step down this summer after 20 years in Yale’s highest office. As departing students in Yale College and the Graduate School and the rest of the audience stood to applaud him, Levin wiped away tears from his eyes. He mustered a soundless “thank you” to the crowd.

“You stand among the great presidents of Yale’s history,” Bass said. “The legacy of your service will benefit Yale forever.”

Diploma ceremonies for individual schools and residential colleges followed the ceremony on Old Campus.

From <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/05/20/university-confers-3084-degrees-at-312th-commencement/>

Graduation Speech May 2013

Dean Robert C. Post

GRADUATION

It is now my great pleasure to welcome all of you, distinguished guests, faculty colleagues, families, friends, and members of the graduating class, to the 2013 Commencement Exercises of the Yale Law School. We gather today to celebrate a moment of consequence in the lives of 207 JD candidates, 21 LLM candidates, 2 MSL candidates, and 3 JSD candidates. When these 233 individuals finish their academic requirements, when the final staple goes through the final paper, and when the last examination is at last graded, they will be, quite simply, the finest new law graduates on the planet

https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/17627/Commencement_2013_Post.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

LAW SCHOOL**

Juris Doctor,   206

Master of Laws,  21

Master of Studies in Law, 2

Doctor of the Science of Law,  2

Total:  231

From <https://news.yale.edu/2013/05/20/commencement-2013-numbers>

Dean Post Welcomes the J.D. Class of 2013 to Yale Law School

In his convocation address on Wednesday, August 25, Dean Robert Post ’77 welcomed the 205 members of the Yale Law School J.D. Class of 2013—a diverse and extraordinary group winnowed down from 3800 applicants for admission. It was the 199th class of new students at Yale Law School. “For this one astonishing moment,” said the dean, “you are poised at the very edge of what undoubtedly will become one of the great adventures of your life…Take in the fragile anticipation of this moment and treasure it, because it is filled with the potential of new futures.”

From <https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/dean-post-welcomes-jd-class-2013-yale-law-school>

==============

The Degree of Doctor of the Science of Law

The Doctor of the Science of Law (J.S.D.) program at Yale Law School is a select doctoral program for graduates of Yale's LL.M. program who aspire to careers in law teaching and scholarship.

From <https://law.yale.edu/studying-law-yale/degree-programs/graduate-programs/jsd-program>

The Degree of Master of Laws

Yale Law School admits a limited number of graduate students each year to pursue one year of full-time study leading to the degree of Master of Laws (LL.M.). Admission is generally open only to those committed to a career in teaching law. The LL.M. program at Yale Law School is not designed to prepare students to take the New York State Bar Examination.

LL.M. students at Yale Law School enjoy small class sizes, the camaraderie of fellow LL.M. and J.D. students, and a close relationship with the Yale Law School faculty.

From <https://law.yale.edu/studying-law-yale/degree-programs/graduate-programs/llm-program>

YALE LAW SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT 2013

REMARKS OF PROFESSOR ANNE L. ALSTOTT

As I look out at you, the Class of 2013, my heart leaps up.1 On this Commencement Day, I am delighted for you, I am thrilled for your families, and I am hopeful for the world.

As I look out at you, I see so many faces I know, and I recall so many conversations. I have taught most of you -- 162, to be exact, or 78%. You will remain in my mind and in my heart, and I wish you the greatest good fortune as you leave our halls.

Looking ahead, the future is so bright. You will be great lawyers, without doubt, and you will argue landmark cases. You will become judges and agency officials and elected officials too. Some of you will return to the academy as professors.  Some of you will start businesses that innovate for the benefit of all. And some of you will found nonprofit enterprises that advance the interests of the disadvantaged.

I have the sense that we stand atop floodgates that are about to set free a gigantic wave of talent, energy, and dedication.

You have reached this moment of celebration thanks to a combination of choice and chance. You are each endowed with talents and with virtues, and you have chosen, time and time again, to work hard, to devote yourself to matters beyond yourself. You are, at the same time, as am I, beneficiaries of luck. The good luck that gave you parents and guardians and other family members to guide you, support you, and love you. At the same time, many of you have weathered misfortune and have found within yourselves the strength to persevere.

For our part, we, as a faculty, have made choices and reaped the fruits of chance. When we read your admissions files four years ago, we made the sound choice to admit you! Our choice, in turn, granted us the good fortune to spend three years in your company.  I hope that we have helped you gain a firm foothold in the law.  I know that you have pushed us to be our best, to think hard about the problems facing our society and the global community. Still, we know that we have played only a minor role, a bit part, in making you what you are.

My heart leaps up, too, because today marks a rite of passage, a moment of generational transition. As of this moment, you are students no more. You are lawyers. And, as lawyers, you have stepped up to a new responsibility -- responsibility for the shape of the law.

Now, technically, I suppose that the bar examiners of the several states might take issue with my calling you “lawyers.” So I will add the caveat that your diploma does not authorize you to practice law just yet. But permit me, one last time, to make a signature Yale Law School move. In addressing you as lawyers today, I will pass lightly over the actual rules in order to make a larger point.

So I want to speak to you now, lawyer to lawyer, peer to peer. And I hope that we can reflect, together, on what it means to be a lawyer and to take responsibility for the shape of the law.

For me, the starting point is that the law plays a central role in distributing resources and opportunities in our society. As lawyers, we have access to the hidden structures that shape choice and chance for us and for our fellow citizens.  And, as lawyers, we have an obligation to use the law to advance the cause of justice.

Today, I want to focus on the situation of the millions of young Americans who, like you, are taking part in a generational transition. Throughout this month of May, more than four million young Americans will celebrate their own rites of passage, leaving high school or college or graduate school for the world of employment and family life. I hope that each of these celebrations is no less joyous than ours, and yet, many of these young people face limited choices -- and sobering consequences if their luck in this American economy turns sour.

We might talk at length about all the features of law that shape the choices open to the new generation. But in the time that we have, I want to focus on just three -- three features of society, shaped by law, that open up bright vistas for some young people but leave others facing futures that seem cloudy or even dark.

First, consider the inequality that blights American education from preschool through college. Your presence here today reflects the culmination of a path that you have walked for decades now, and the same is true of all young Americans. But too many children have been denied a decent education, beginning in preschool and extending through college.

Poor children are least likely to attend preschool. Too often, these same children find themselves in public school systems that are not adequately funded to meet their students’ needs. Children from families of modest means are less likely to graduate from high school, less likely to enroll in college, and less likely to complete college than students from higher-income families. Even when low-income students beat the odds and achieve at a high level, they can still find themselves shut out of the opportunities that high-income students take for granted.2

Second, consider the high cost of college, which leaves some young Americans outside the ivy walls and exacts a heavy price from those who enter. I don’t need to tell you that the burden of university tuition and expenses has risen to daunting heights. Today, the average four-year college costs $22,000 per year 3 -- or a staggering 44% of median family income.4

With tuition outpacing inflation and the price tag of a bachelor’s degree now approaching $100,000 on average, student debt has continued to balloon, even during the Great Recession.5 Today’s college graduates feel, with good reason, that they have mortgaged their futures.  And the strain of college debt affects the generational transition for older generations too: many parents whose thoughts have turned to retirement must, instead, struggle to repay money they have borrowed to finance a child’s education.

Third, consider the still-grim outlook for young Americans in the job market.  In 2012, the unemployment picture improved for most workers, with the overall rate at 8%. But the unemployment rate for workers in their early-to-mid-twenties remained at near- record levels at more than 13%.6 New graduates confront even worse numbers, I am sorry to say. As of 2012, new high school graduates faced a 31% unemployment rate. Even new college graduates faced a 9% unemployment rate.7 And these data understate the gravity of the employment situation for many young people, who take part-time jobs or jobs for which they are overqualified simply in order to earn some kind of paycheck.

This dismal employment picture is neither natural nor inevitable, even in a Great Recession. Young people in the United States today face a worse unemployment picture than do young people in Germany, Japan, Australia, and Canada.8

And youth unemployment, like high college costs, has ripple effects on generational transitions later in the life course. Today, an unusually large percentage of people aged 65 and older remain in the labor force.9 Some of these older workers enjoy good health and interesting jobs, and they have elected to delay retirement. But others find themselves unable to retire. And when older workers remain in the labor force, the pipeline of jobs narrows for younger workers.

These are sobering facts, and yet, it would take more to conclude that the situation is not just unfortunate but unjust. The question of intergenerational justice -- what one generation owes another -- is contested, with different thinkers taking different views. My own view, which I have only begun to sketch here, is that we as a society are engaged in injustice -- that we are failing to provide the rising generation with its fair share of opportunities and resources.

You may think I’m right -- or you may not. You may wonder whether I have exaggerated the detriment of the new generation. After all, they benefit from technological advances that have improved our lives immeasurably in the last generation. Or you might think that instead of focusing on the distribution of existing resources, we should focus on the problem of generating more resources -- that our best hope for justice for everyone of all ages is to help the economy grow.

But, whatever your view, I hope we can concur on one point, and that is that law lies at the heart of the problem of generational transition.

Take elementary and secondary education. Education law and family law play a role in shaping children’s readiness for education -- and what happens to them once they reach school. When the law treats preschool as a private obligation, something to be funded by families out of their wages, the law consigns poor children to second-class status. And American education is also shaped by the property rules, voting rules, political boundaries, and tax policies that perpetuate segregation and link school funding to local property taxes.

The path to educational equality might take many routes. We can -- and should -- debate solutions from charter schools to tax reform to redrawing school districts. We most likely will not agree on the right answer, but we should understand that we are “doing law” as we diagnose causes and debate solutions. For instance, some of you might argue the best way to reform education is to promote greater liberty and choice -- for parents, for teachers, for students. I might be more inclined to statist solutions, and yet you and I are in fundamental agreement on the core point. Liberty requires law.

The law creates the preconditions for freedom. And even the minimal state of Robert Nozick depends on law to protect freedom and to prevent illicit regulation.

The problem of college cost is also very much a problem of law. Nominally, the private market sets tuition based on the forces of supply and demand.  It might seem that there’s little that law can do to command these economic tides. But you, the Class of 2013, know better.  You know that the “free market” is not a black box, a machine whose workings are impenetrable to our gaze. You know that that decision to allocate the tuition burden primarily to students and their families is a legal decision.  The student loan system is also a creation of law, and it can be changed. We can imagine a range of legal solutions, from government subsidies to income-contingent loan repayment, to greater deregulation so that colleges can truly compete to offer a cost- effective education.

And the problem of youth unemployment is very much a problem of law. Our nation’s tepid response to the Great Recession reflects, in part, political and legal structures that empower wealthy and powerful interest groups to defend the status quo. Election law, campaign finance, even the structure of the legislature hand power to interests who continue to benefit from present patterns of regulation and distribution.

At the same time, the law shapes what it means to be unemployed, and our legal system disadvantages the young. Unemployment insurance, for example, is only available to workers who have established a work history -- meaning that it is unavailable to many young workers who have yet to gain a foothold in the job market. Disability insurance, likewise, requires a substantial work history. And on the tax side, the taxes used to fund social insurance tend to fall heavily on lower-wage labor and on part-time workers, again burdening the young.

We as lawyers are uniquely privileged in our society.  For many of our fellow citizens, the law is given, as immutable as stone. For them, the structures of politics, the rules of family law, the terms of unemployment insurance are beyond reach. Not so for us. We have been entrusted with the knowledge and ability to shape the law.

Perhaps all this this seems overly sanguine, even PollyAnna-ish. After all, if we have taught you anything, we have taught you to be skeptical about the relationship between law and justice. Law too often serves power at the expense of the vulnerable. Legal rules too often reinforce class divisions and bolster privilege. Legal actors too often abuse their power in order to distribute largesse to the wealthy at the expense of the public.

But as you reflect on our time together, I hope you will see that we showed you the dark side of the law to give you clarity and resolve -- not to make you cynical. We taught you to spot the hidden advantages accorded to the powerful so that you can level the playing field. We taught you to see the invisible walls that insulate privilege so that you can dismantle them. We have helped you grasp the tools of justice, and we trust you to use them.  I cannot wait to see the results!

*****

I want to end the way all speeches about economic justice should end, and that is with 19th-century nature poetry.

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a poem, which many of you will recognize, called “The Chambered Nautilus.”10 The poem is a familiar one, but it had new resonance for me when I re-read it recently, and I hope it will for you too.

Oliver Wendell Holmes the poet was, of course, the senior Holmes, who was also a doctor. It was his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Junior, who is the Justice Holmes whose opinions we all know. So, in keeping with my theme of generational transition, I want to read the father’s words and consider their meaning for the profession we share with his son.

The notable feature of the chambered nautilus is that it makes it own shell. As the nautilus grows, it constructs a new chamber to accommodate its larger body, and it closes off the older and smaller compartments.  Holmes writes:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that Holmes wasn’t writing to express concern about the nation’s housing stock. Congress uses tax policy to nudge us all to buy McMansions, but Holmes the poet focused his gaze beyond bricks and mortar. The religious references to the soul and to the afterlife are clear enough, but I think we can also read the poem another way.

The key trait of the nautilus is that it is a builder. Bit by bit, this little creature builds a gorgeous “ship of pearl.” We, as lawyers, can be builders too. And unlike the nautilus, we can build, not for ourselves alone, but for others as well. Armed with the tools of law, we build -- not a ship of pearl but the ship of state.

We can use our tools to build a society in which every member of the new generation can celebrate her graduation -- not only with joy but with well-founded hope for the future.

This, then, is my wish for you, and for all of us: As you go into the world, may you build ever greater mansions.

1 William Wordsworth, My Heart Leaps Up (1807).

2  http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/projects/bpea/spring%202013/2013a_hoxby.pdf

3 http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76

4  http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb12-172.html

5 http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2012/pdf/scf12.pdf (Table 12).

6 http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat03.pdf. See also http://stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-jobs-table- 5-2-labor-force-share-unemployment/.

7 http://www.epi.org/publication/bp340-labor-market-young-graduates/ See also http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/02/art1full.pdf

8 In 2011, the unemployment rate for young people aged 20-24 was 15% in the United States, 8% in Australia, 11% in Canada, 8% in Germany, and 8% in Japan. http://stats.oecd.org

9 http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm.

10 Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Chambered Nautilus” (1858).

https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/17628/Commencement_2013_Alstott.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Yale Commencement Ceremony 2013

Yale University celebrates the 312th Commencement ceremonies on Monday, May 20th, 2013. Yale President Richard C. Levin will confer degrees for Yale University graduates.

From <https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=n57DAHJKC-o>

https://www.facebook.com/YaleLawSchool/photos/yls-graduates-gather-in-front-of-sterling-memorial-library-prior-to-yale-univers/10151674982555856/

Commencement Exercises Scheduled For May 20, 2013, at the William K. Lanman Center

Yale Law School’s 2013 Commencement ceremony will take place on Monday, May 20, 2013.

Events begin at 10:30 a.m. with University Commencement exercises on Old Campus. Law School Commencement follows at approximately noon in the William K. Lanman Center at Payne Whitney Gymnasium. (Map with directions to Payne Whitney Gym.) No tickets are required for either commencement ceremony, and there is no limit on the number of guests.

Immediately after the Law School ceremony, at approximately 2:30 p.m., graduating students and guests will adjourn to the Law School courtyard for a champagne reception, followed by an optional buffet luncheon in the Law School dining hall. No tickets are required for the champagne reception. Tickets for the luncheon may be purchased at the door for $19 per person. Students may use their unused dining hall meal plan to pay for the buffet.

The night before Commencement, on Sunday evening, May 19, Dean Robert Post ’77 will host a reception for graduating students, their families, and guests from 5-7 p.m. in the Law School courtyard. No tickets are required, and there is no limit on the number of guests.

Invitations will be available in the Registrar’s office in April. There is one invitation to the two Commencement ceremonies and a second invitation to the Sunday evening reception. For more information, visit the Yale 2013 Commencement website www.yale.edu/commencement.

From <https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/commencement-exercises-scheduled-may-20-2013-william-k-lanman-center>

Graduates may 29, 2013

https://bulletin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/yale-law-school-2013-2014.pdf

Chirelstein Colloquium: "Reimagining Biopharma: A Conversation with Vivek Ramaswamy '13, CEO, Roivant Sciences, Inc."

• Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 12:00PM - 1:30PM

• Faculty Lounge

• Open To The Yale Community

• Event URL

• Add to Calendar:

Description

Vivek Ramaswamy ‘13,** CEO, Roivant Sciences, Inc., “Reimagining Biopharma: A Conversation with Vivek Ramaswamy.”*

Lunch will be served starting at 12:00 pm; the talk will begin at 12:15 pm.  Please RSVP to corplaw@yale.edu by April 13, 2017.

* For more information about Vivek Ramaswamy and Roivant Sciences, Inc., please see this Forbes article.

** Vivek Ramaswamy has served as the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Roivant Sciences, Inc. since May 2014. Mr. Ramaswamy also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Axovant Sciences, Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Roivant, and the Chairman of Arbutus Biopharma Corporation, a company focused on developing a cure for chronic hepatitis B virus infection. Prior to founding Roivant, Mr. Ramaswamy was a partner at QVT Financial LP from 2007 through 2014, where he focused on biotechnology investments in multiple therapeutic areas. In addition, in 2007, he co-founded and served as the President of Campus Venture Network, a technology company that was acquired in 2009. Mr. Ramaswamy received his A.B. degree, summa cum laude, in Biology from Harvard College and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School.

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law

Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School

The Career Development Office

Yale Law & Business Society

From <https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/yale-law-school-events/chirelstein-colloquium-reimagining-biopharma-conversation-vivek-ramaswamy-13-ceo-roivant-sciences>

November16Thursday

Coffee Chat with Vivek Ramaswamy ’13, Founder and CEO of Roivant Sciences

• Thursday, November 16, 2017 at 4:10PM - 5:00PM

• Room 122

• Open To The Yale Community

• Add to Calendar:

Description

RSVP here by COB, Monday, November 13.

All students are invited to network and to learn about Vivek, his company, and his entrepreneurial path.

1L students have the additional opportunity to hear about his plans for hiring a first-year Summer Entrepreneurial Fellow.

Sponsoring Organization(s)

CDO, YLBS, the Center for the Study of Corporate Law, and the Solomon Center for Health Law & Policy

From <https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/yale-law-school-events/coffee-chat-vivek-ramaswamy-13-founder-and-ceo-roivant-sciences>

Coffee Chat with Vivek Ramaswamy ’13, Founder and CEO of Roivant Sciences

The form Coffee Chat with Vivek Ramaswamy ’13, Founder and CEO of Roivant Sciences is no longer accepting responses.

Try contacting the owner of the form if you think this is a mistake.

From <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSch7O9xePd-R5U32Nr_8ZKJtZRYjX6I53WhCI02-jEZNJFERQ/closedform>

About

Paul and Daisy Soros, Hungarian immigrants and American philanthropists, established their Fellowship program for New Americans—immigrants and children of immigrants—in December of 1997 with a charitable trust of fifty million dollars. They created the program as a way to give back to the country that had afforded their family such great opportunities.

Mr. and Mrs. Soros decided on a fellowship program because it allowed them to assist young New Americans at critical points in their educations, which they felt was an unmet need. They also wished to call attention to the extensive and diverse contributions of New Americans to the quality of life in the United States.

In 2010, Mr. and Mrs. Soros contributed an additional twenty five million to the charitable trust that funds their Fellowships for New Americans. For details, see the Wall Street Journal article.

Mr. Soros passed away on Saturday June 15, 2013 at the age of 87. His inspiring personal story, his commitment to American constitutional democracy, and his visionary philanthropy are fundamental to the Fellowship program. A New York Times obituary detailing his life story and many contributions is available online. 

The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans is a $90,000 merit-based fellowship exclusively for immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate school in the United States. The program draws more than 1,800 applications annually for just 30 fellowships.

The rigorous selection process is focused on identifying the most promising New Americans who are poised to make significant contributions to the nation through their work. In addition, the selection team looks for a commitment to the United States’ fundamental principles and ideals. The Fellows can study in any degree-granting program in any field at any university in the United States. Selection is based on merit – the specific selection criteria emphasize creativity, originality, initiative and sustained accomplishment. Neither financial need nor distributive considerations are taken into account in the selection process. Each Fellows attends two weekend conferences of Fellows. The great majority continue to be involved with the program through regional dinners, service in the selection process for later classes, and through the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows Association.

​A Network of Immigrant Excellence

• History: In its 25 year history, The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans has built a community of over 740 immigrants and children of immigrants.

• Nationalities: The Fellowship has supported New Americans with heritage in 90 countries. India, China, and Mexico are the most well represented.

• Types of Immigrants: In addition to the children of immigrants, Green Card holders, naturalized citizens, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, the Fellowship also supports individuals who have come to the United States as refugees or asylum seekers and who have received a Green Card or become naturalized US citizens. The Fellowship also supports immigrants who were born abroad and graduated from both high school and college in the United States. 

• Age: All of our Fellows are 30 or younger as of the application deadline for the year they applied. Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows from the 1998 class, the very first class, are now in their mid-careers.

• Careers: Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows have pursued careers in medicine, science, law, policy, technology, business, government, non-profits, the arts, academia, and in many cases they have built their career across several sectors.

A Fellowship for Immigrants & Children of Immigrants

The map below shows where many of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows and their families are from around the world (the green icons), as well as where they immigrated to in the United States (the blue icons). Click on any icon to see which Fellow it represents and to learn more about their story. You can also zoom in and out of the map below, or you can view the map in a new window on your browser by clicking here.

Note that this map only includes a portion of The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows; it is not a complete representation of the Fellows.

From <https://www.pdsoros.org/fellowship>

OFFICIAL YALE BIO: vIVEK RAMASWAMY `13

https://ccl.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Biography_Ramaswamy_Vivek.pdf

Chief Executive Officer, Roivant Sciences, Inc.

Vivek Ramaswamy has served as the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of

Roivant Sciences, Inc. since May 2014. Mr. Ramaswamy also serves as the Chief Executive

Officer of Axovant Sciences, Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Roivant, and the Chairman

of Arbutus Biopharma Corporation, a company focused on developing a cure for chronic

hepatitis B virus infection. Prior to founding Roivant, Mr. Ramaswamy was a partner at QVT

Financial LP from 2007 through 2014, where he focused on biotechnology investments in

multiple therapeutic areas. In addition, in 2007, he co-founded and served as the President of

Campus Venture Network, a technology company that was acquired in 2009. Mr.

Ramaswamy received his A.B. degree, summa cum laude, in Biology from Harvard College

and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School.

https://ccl.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Biography_Ramaswamy_Vivek.pdf

YLS Students Paul Linden-Retek ’12, Shayak Sarkar ’13, and Vivek Ramaswamy ’13 Named Soros New American Fellows

Three Yale Law School students have been named Paul & Daisy Soros New American Fellows for 2011. Paul Linden-Retek ’12, Shayak Sarkar ’13, and Vivek Ramaswamy ’13 are among the 30 accomplished young people chosen for the honor. The fellowships are awarded to immigrants or the children of immigrants to support their graduate study at any university in the United States.

Paul Linden-Retek ’12, who came to this country from the former Czechoslovakia, is a second-year student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on international human rights law, comparative law, and jurisprudence. He plans to pursue a joint J.D./Ph.D in political theory, in preparation for a career as a legal academic and international human rights lawyer. He’ll use his Soros Fellowship to support the remainder of his studies in law and an initial year of his doctoral work at Yale.

Shayak Sarkar ’13, born to Bengali parents, is currently pursuing both a law degree from Yale and a Ph.D in economics from Harvard. He earned A.B. and A.M. degrees in applied mathematics and statistics from Harvard, and then as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, earned M.Sc degrees in evidence-based social work and development economics. He will use his fellowship to support his continuing studies at Yale and Harvard.

Vivek Ramaswamy ’13, born to Indian parents, is a first-year student at Yale Law School. He graduated from Harvard College with a major in biology. During his senior year, he co-founded StudentBusinesses.com, a technology startup company that connected entrepreneurs with professional resources via the Internet. Following college, he worked for three years in life sciences investing in New York. He plans to use his fellowship to support the concluding years of his study at Yale.

The Fellowship Program for New Americans was established by Hungarian immigrants Paul and Daisy Soros in 1997 as a way to “give back” to the country that had afforded them and their children great opportunities.

Read more about the 2011 Soros New American Fellows here.

From <https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/yls-students-paul-linden-retek-12-shayak-sarkar-13-and-vivek-ramaswamy-13-named-soros-new-american>

uesday, November 27, 2018

Centers Host Alumni Breakfast on Innovative Approaches to Financing Pharmaceutical R&D

Vivek Ramaswamy ’13 speaks during the Craig Wasserman ’86/Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Alumni Breakfast program on “Law, Finance, and Innovation in Pharmaceutical R&D.”

On November 8, 2018, the Center for the Study of Corporate Law and the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School cohosted a special Craig Wasserman ’86/Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Alumni Breakfast program in New York City exploring “Law, Finance, and Innovation in Pharmaceutical R&D.” The panel was moderated by Professor Abbe R. Gluck ’00, Faculty Director of the Solomon Center. Panelists included Pablo Legorreta, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Royalty Pharma; Vivek Ramaswamy ’13, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Roivant Sciences; Richard Thakor, Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management; and Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). More about each panelist follows below.

Pablo Legorreta

Pablo Legorreta is the CEO of Royalty Pharma, a company he founded 1996. Legorreta has over 20 years of experience investing in pharmaceutical royalties and building and managing a rapidly growing life sciences investment company that is today one of the largest dedicated life sciences investors in the world with over $16 billion in royalty assets. Royalty Pharma does not discover, develop, manufacture or market biopharmaceutical products. Royalty Pharma funds innovation in life sciences, indirectly, when it acquires existing royalty interests from the original innovators (academic institutions, research hospitals, foundations and inventors) or, directly, when it partners with life sciences companies to codevelop and co-fund products in late-stage human clinical trials. Royalty Pharma has assembled a portfolio that includes royalty interests in 8 of the top 30 drugs in the world. In 2017, Royalty Pharma recorded $2.5 billion in royalty revenue and $2.4 billion in EBITDA.

Legorreta founded Pharmakon Advisors in 2009, a leading provider of debt capital to the life sciences industry. In 2017, he founded BioPharma Credit PLC, the first London Stock Exchange listed fund specializing in debt financing for the life sciences industry. Prior to founding Royalty Pharma, Legorreta spent a decade at Lazard Frères in Paris and New York where he provided cross-border M&A and corporate finance advisory to European and U.S. corporations.

Legorreta serves on the Board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences, as well as the Boards of Trustees of Rockefeller University, Brown University, the Hospital for Special Surgery, Pasteur Foundation (the U.S. affiliate of the French Institute Pasteur), Open Medical Institute and Park Avenue Armory. Legorreta is the founder and chairman of Alianza Médica para la Salud, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the quality of health care in Latin America by providing doctors and healthcare providers with continued education opportunities. Since its foundation in 2010 AMSA has provided over 450 scholarships to Mexican and Latin American doctors and healthcare providers to study abroad.

Legorreta has a degree in industrial engineering from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

Vivek Ramaswamy ’13

Vivek Ramaswamy is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Roivant Sciences. Roivant’s mission is to systemically reduce the time and cost of drug development and to advance important medicines for patients in disease areas where the magnitude of R&D investment from industry is disproportionately low relative to societal needs.

Roivant has unique approach to industrial organization: the company builds “Vants” — nimble, entrepreneurial biotech companies with a unique approach to sourcing talent, aligning economic incentives, and deploying technology to drive greater efficiency in R&D. Roivant also incubates new businesses focused on improving drug development and commercialization through applications of healthcare data.

Roivant has over 700 employees and over 30 investigational medicines in development across its family of companies and has raised over $3 billion in capital to support its mission. Companies in the Roivant family today include Myovant, Axovant, Arbutus, Urovant, Enzyvant, Dermavant, Genevant, Metavant, Altavant, Immunovant, Sinovant, and Datavant. Roivant recently announced the initiation of a Biologics License Application (BLA) submission for an investigational regenerative therapy designed to reconstitute the immune systems of children born with a rare and fatal pediatric disease.

Prior to founding Roivant in 2014, Ramaswamy was an investor in the biotechnology sector. He received his A.B. summa cum laude in biology from Harvard College and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow.

Richard Thakor, Ph.D./M.S./M.Sc.

Richard Thakor is an Assistant Professor of Finance at University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. He joined the finance department at University of Minnesota in June 2016 after earning his Ph.D. in Financial Economics from MIT. He also holds an M.S. in Management Research from MIT, an MSc in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics, and a B.A. summa cum laude in economics and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to earning his Ph.D., he worked in investment management as a Derivatives Trading Analyst. His research interests are in empirical and theoretical corporate finance, in the areas of managerial decision-making, R&D investments, and the effects of financial frictions on investment.

Janet Woodcock, M.D.

Janet Woodcock is Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2015, Dr. Woodcock also assumed the role of Acting Director of CDER’s newly formed Office of Pharmaceutical Quality, (OPQ). Dr. Woodcock first joined CDER in 1994. For three years, from 2005 until 2008, she served as the FDA’s Commissioner, holding several positions, including as Deputy Commissioner and Chief Medical Officer, Deputy Commissioner for Operations, and Chief Operating Officer. Her responsibilities involved oversight of various aspects of scientific and medical regulatory operations. Before joining CDER, Dr. Woodcock served as Director, Office of Therapeutics Research and Review, and Acting Deputy Director in FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. Dr. Woodcock received her M.D. from Northwestern Medical School and completed further training and held teaching appointments at the Pennsylvania State University and the University of California in San Francisco. She joined the FDA in 1986.

Related News

From <https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/centers-host-alumni-breakfast-innovative-approaches-financing-pharmaceutical-rd>

jennifer.nadelmann@gmail.com

allen.granzberg@gmail.com

bmeginniss2017@gmail.com

douglas.walled@gmail.com

anthony.triolo@aya.yale.edu

douglas.walled@gmail.com

janetz2010@qq.com

peterspaulding@gmail.com

Jennifer Nadelmann '13

Secretary

Allen Granzberg '13

Briana Meginniss '13

From <https://alumni.yale.edu/groups/yale-college-classes/yale-college-class-2013>

Douglas Walled '06 MD

From <https://alumni.yale.edu/people/douglas-walled>

2022feb01 Yale Daily | Judge denies plaintiffs’ anonymity in Yale Law School case

Judge Merriam denies two plaintiffs anonymity in their lawsuit against Yale Law School

Philip Mousavizadeh  Feb 01, 2022 Yale Daily News

Staff Reporter

Tim Tai, Staff Photographer

Sierra Stubbs LAW ’23 and Gavin Jackson LAW ’22 will not be able to proceed anonymously in their suit against three Yale Law School administrators, a Connecticut judge ruled earlier this month.

While the two students’ names have been published in media outlets, including the News, over the last several months, they had been participating in the suit anonymously until Judge Sarah Merriam denied their application to continue doing so on Jan. 18. Stubbs and Jackson allege that three Yale Law School officials — Dean Heather Gerken, Law School Associate Dean Ellen Cosgrove and Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Yaseen Eldik — “blackball[ed]” them from job opportunities after they refused to endorse a statement in the ongoing investigation against law professor Amy Chua.

In her decision, Merriam wrote that the lawsuit brought by the students does not contain highly sensitive matters that would warrant the protection of anonymity, but that they are merely concerned with reputational harm and lost economic or professional opportunities. They have similarly failed to demonstrate a reasonable concern for retaliation, Merriam wrote. 

“Plaintiffs, each of whom is or was a law student, should appreciate that ‘litigation is quintessentially public and public disclosure is in general an inherent collateral consequence of litigation,’” Merriam wrote in the decision. “Accordingly, having balanced plaintiffs’ interest in anonymity against the public interest in disclosure, disclosure is warranted.”

University spokesperson Karen Peart, writing on behalf of the University’s lawyers, affirmed Yale’s initial position that the lawsuit is “legally and factually baseless, and the University will offer a vigorous defense.” She did not provide further comment.

The plaintiffs are suing the officials on the grounds of breach of contract, intentional interference with prospective business relationships and defamation, among other grounds. They are seeking punitive damages of at least $75,000 and compensatory damages of at least $75,000, as well as other monetary rewards.

According to the complaint, Stubbs and Jackson were the main subjects of the 20-page dossier of emails and text messages which became central to the Chua investigation, as they were the law students who allegedly were invited to Chua and law professor Jed Rubenfeld’s private residence, in violation of certain Law School restrictions. When the Law School administration became aware of the dossier, the complaint alleges that Cosgrove and Eldik pressured the two students to substantiate the claims in the dossier by submitting a formal complaint against Chua. 

Stubbs and Jackson were seeking to proceed in the lawsuit under the pseudonyms of Jane and John Doe, respectively, in order to protect themselves from further retaliation. They argued that the case involves sensitive matters under which they should be granted anonymity. 

Following the decision from Merriam, John Balestriere LAW ’98, Jackson and Stubbs’s attorney, wrote in an email to the News that “while we believe that our clients should have been able to proceed pseudonymously, we of course respect the Court’s decision, and look forward to proceeding with the case.”

In her decision, Merriam further argued that the publication of the students’ names in various media outlets undermines their claim for anonymity. 

“[The] plaintiffs’ identities have not been kept confidential,” Merriam wrote. “John Doe in particular has been publicly identified by various media outlets.” 

David Lat LAW ’99, the author of “Original Jurisdiction” — a newsletter about law and the legal profession — noted that the decision does not significantly alter the trajectory of the case. He also surmised that Stubbs and Jackson were likely not significantly invested in maintaining their anonymity. 

“The plaintiffs would have preferred to use pseudonyms, but now that their request has been denied, they have filed an amended complaint under their own names — which suggests that this wasn’t really a big deal to them in the first place,” Lat noted. “If they truly cared about remaining pseudonymous, they could have dropped their suit. But they did not.”

This decision comes just as the University reaffirmed its confidence in Gerken as dean, appointing her for a second five-year term. 

“Gerken’s reappointment, including how quickly it was made, suggests that the University is not hugely worried about this litigation,” Lat continued. “Yale appears to have concluded that any risks from this lawsuit are outweighed by the benefits of having Dean Gerken remain in office for a second term.”

The defendants have to respond to the amended complaint by Feb. 14.  

 From <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2022/02/01/judge-denies-plaintiffs-anonymity-in-yale-law-school-case/>

PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH

Philip Mousavizadeh covers Woodbridge Hall, the President's Office. He previously covered the Jackson Institute. He is a sophomore in Trumbull College studying Ethics, Politics, and Economics

2021Nov15 Yale Daily | Two students sue Yale Law administrators for alleged retaliation in Amy Chua case

The students, both unnamed in the suit, argue the administrators kept them from obtaining fellowships and job opportunities after they refused to endorse a formal complaint against Chua. Since the suit’s filing, some have called it “frivolous” and “embarrassing.”

Eda Aker & Philip Mousavizadeh Nov 15, 2021

Staff Reporters | Yale daily news

Madelyn Kumar, Contributing Photographer

Two unnamed Yale Law School students filed a complaint Monday against three Law School administrators and the University for allegedly “blackball[ing]” them from job opportunities after they refused to endorse a statement in the ongoing investigation against law professor Amy Chua.

The students, referred to as Jane and John Doe throughout the lawsuit, are suing the University and Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken, Law School Associate Dean Ellen Cosgrove and Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Yaseen Eldik on the grounds of breach of contract, intentional interference with prospective business relationships and defamation, among others. The complaint — a copy of which was obtained by the News — was filed in the United States District Court of Connecticut. The plaintiffs requested punitive damages of at least $75,000 and compensatory damages of at least $75,000, among other monetary rewards.

“Two Yale Law School deans, along with Yale Law School’s Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, worked together in an attempt to blackball two students of color from job opportunities as retaliation for refusing to lie to support the University’s investigation into a professor of color,” the complaint reads.

Yet various legal experts expressed questions over the goals and origins of the lawsuit. They explained that one outcome of the case could be the revelation of private communications between the Law School administrators during the discovery process, and flagged that it was unusual for the plaintiffs to remain anonymous in a case of this nature.

“The lawsuit is legally and factually baseless, and the University will offer a vigorous defense,” University spokesperson Karen Peart wrote in an email to the News. 

Law professor Monica Bell LAW ’09 said that she believes the sole point of the lawsuit is to generate press attention. She said that she does not believe the two law students “think they can win” the lawsuit, and that the lawsuit’s purpose is to “make things … look bad.”

David Lat LAW ’99, founding editor of the legal news website Above the Law, noted that the $75,000 in damages is the “bare minimum” for entering into federal court, suggesting that the plaintiffs may have other goals besides monetary rewards, namely seeking an official acknowledgement of wrongdoing on behalf of the University or wanting some sort of redress. 

Lat also said that this lawsuit comes at a poor time for Gerken, whose deanship is soon up for review. Bell also noted the timing of Gerken’s upcoming possible reappointment, saying that it is important to keep in mind a “broader context” for the lawsuit. Yale’s deans are reviewed for reappointment every five years, and Gerken was appointed dean in 2017.

“Given that, it’s unsurprising that we would see these stories escalate at this particular moment,” Bell said. “But I think the point is really to cause a stir, because the lawsuit frankly is embarrassing for those who filed it.”

Chua told the News that the issue underlying the lawsuit was “absolutely not about me. I am just trying to put this whole horrific nightmare behind me and I wish it would just go away… I don’t ever want to speak of it again.”

The Chua investigation

Chua and her husband, currently-suspended law professor Jed Rubenfeld, first came under public scrutiny in September 2018 when they reportedly told female law students that they needed to look and dress a certain way to attain clerkships for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90. In 2020, Rubenfeld was suspended until at least 2022 due to allegations of sexual misconduct. University President Peter Salovey has not released specifics about Rubenfeld’s case.

Chua faced her own allegations of misconduct that she drank heavily with Law School students and remarked inappropriately on both students and faculty, according to a 2019 letter from Gerken that was obtained by the News. The Law School punished her — privately — by mandating that Chua not teach a small group for the 2020-21 academic year, imposing a financial penalty and removing her from the judicial clerkship committee. Chua also agreed “on her own initiative” to stop drinking with her students and socializing with them outside of class and office hours, according to Gerken’s letter. 

The Law School’s investigation into Chua’s behavior was first made public in April 2021, when the News reported that she was hosting private gatherings in her New Haven home — despite having agreed to cease such out-of-class interactions in 2019. After Law School administrators were informed of these gatherings, including from a 20-page dossier that was compiled by a law student with personal knowledge of the gatherings, the Law School revoked Chua’s ability to lead a first-year small group for the 2021-22 academic year. 

The ensuing controversy between Chua and Law School administrators gained national attention and was covered by the New York Times, the New Yorker, The Atlantic and New York Magazine. 

The Doe v. Gerken lawsuit

According to Monday’s filing, the Jane and John Doe mentioned in the lawsuit were the main subjects of the 20-page dossier of emails and text messages which became central to the Chua investigation, as they were the law students who allegedly went to Chua and Rubenfeld’s private residence. 

Chua told the News that she has maintained a “friendly but distant relationship” with the two unnamed students since news of the dossier came to light, and that she has continued to offer herself as a mentor to them only if “there was no one else for them to talk to.”

The two law students claimed in the filing that the dossier placed them at the center of an “ongoing campus-politics feud” between Gerken and Chua. They objected to the dossier’s contents and reported this to the University.

According to the complaint, when the Law School administration became aware of the dossier, Cosgrove and Eldik pressured the two students to substantiate the claims in the dossier by submitting a formal complaint against Chua. The complaint claims that the dossier, and by extension the complaint, would have contained “knowingly and materially false statements.” 

The lawsuit further alleges that after the students denied the contents of the dossier and declined to sign onto the statement against Chua, Cosgrove and Eldik called the students on a daily basis during one week in April 2021, saying that the two had a “moral obligation” to “future generations of students” to make the statement against Chua.

The lawsuit also states that Eldik told Jane Doe that the dossier would likely end up in “every judge’s chamber,” keeping her from receiving job opportunities if she did not comply with the Chua investigation.

“I think this lawsuit does advance the public good because Yale Law School is a powerful institution, and people should know, and Yale Law School administrators should know, that they could be in a position of intimidating students — however privileged and fortunate those students may be to have gotten into the school,” said John Balestriere LAW ’98, who represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

After the two students ultimately refused to endorse the statement against Chua, the lawsuit alleges that Gerken and Cosgrove spoke with an “esteemed law professor and expert in constitutional law” who already employed the two students as research assistants, and attempted to dissuade him from hiring the students for the prestigious Coker Fellowship, annually offered to select third-year law students. The lawsuit alleges that Gerken and Cosgrove cited Jane and John Doe’s “lack of candor” regarding the dossier as reason for the professor not to hire them. Neither of the students were ultimately hired as Coker Fellows, according to the lawsuit.

Multiple sources have confirmed that the constitutional law professor in question is Paul Kahn, who could not immediately be reached for comment. 

Underlying issues

Lat spoke to the News about the intricacies of this suit and said that it is “unusual” for parties in a lawsuit to remain anonymous, explaining that the judge will have to approve the motion for the plaintiffs to retain anonymity. In certain circumstances, plaintiffs may drop the case entirely if their motion for anonymity is denied by the judge, according to Lat. 

In this case, Lat explained, the students may be pursuing anonymity in order to avoid this story being tied to their names for years to come. Bell similarly said the students may be worried about attaching their names to “this frivolous lawsuit” — especially given that they are pursuing careers in the legal profession.

“It actually has to do with what I like to call the Google footprint,” Lat said. “They just don’t want this to be the thing that pops up for years and years and years when [you] Google their name.”

Lat further added that one possible goal for this lawsuit is what might be produced during the discovery process. 

“They want to get documents, they want to subpoena the other side [and] get internal emails between Gerken, Cosgrove and Eldik,” he said. “All of those emails would be… discoverable, meaning that they can be produced and turned over to the plaintiffs. The other thing about discovery is you get to ask questions of the relevant people under oath or deposition.”

He said that, even if the plaintiffs do not win the case, they could still force Law School administrators to reveal some “embarrassing” documents and emails. 

Eldik and Cosgrove have already gained national attention this semester, after reports revealed that they had urged a student to send out a pre-drafted apology email after the student sent an invitation to a “trap house”-themed party that some students found to be racially insensitive. 

The Yale Law School is located at 127 Wall St.

Update, Nov. 16: This article has been updated with additional sourcing and analysis.

EDA AKER

Eda Aker is a WKND Editor and previously covered Yale Law School for the University Desk. She is a junior in Timothy Dwight College majoring in Global Affairs.

PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH

Philip Mousavizadeh covers Woodbridge Hall, the President's Office. He previously covered the Jackson Institute. He is a sophomore in Trumbull College studying Ethics, Politics, and Economics

From <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/11/15/two-students-sue-yale-law-administrators-for-alleged-retaliation-in-amy-chua-case/>

2021Jul28 The Atlantic |The New Moral Code of America’s Elite

Two students went to Amy Chua for advice. That sin would cost them dearly.

By Elizabeth Bruenig | The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/amy-chua-yale-law-school-real-story-dinner-party/619558/

Getty; The Atlantic

July 28, 2021

Every striver whoever slipped the rank of their birth to ascend to a higher order has shared the capacity to ingratiate themselves with their betters.

• What the truly exceptional ones have in common is the ability to connect not only with their superiors but also with their peers and inferiors. And only the rarest talents among them can bond authentically—not just transactionally—with the people who will help them be who they want to be in the world. It’s a preternatural, almost Promethean gift if you have it, and Amy Chua does.

• Thus begins the scandal dubbed “dinner-party-gate,” the latest in the annals of Amy Chua, Yale Law’s very own Tiger Mom, whose infamous defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the “dinner-party-gate” of its day approximately three years ago.

• Then, as now, Chua’s differences with some denizens of her milieu played out in the press, vituperations, allegations, insinuations, and all.

But whatever Chua had done this time, it was either so terrible that it was unspeakable, or so minuscule that it didn’t warrant mentioning in the pages of The New York Times, New York magazine, or The New Yorker. Even so, each outlet gave the mysterious affair a lengthy report.

The New York Times declared the conflagration “murky,” something to do with Chua breaking her 2019 agreement with Yale Law School about socializing with students in off-campus settings;

• The New Yorker noted that the alleged get-togethers had taken place during the pandemic, and considered the rest “a riddle.”
  Nobody could produce a complainant or a victim; the only thing anyone seemed able to verify was that, whatever Chua had done last winter, the result was that this coming fall, she would no longer be leading a first-year “small group”—intimate cohorts of first-semester law students who are guided through their first few months by a faculty member who teaches, advises, and, per a 2020 budget memorandum from the Law School, likely lunches and dines with the lawyers-to-be.

The reporting left open a pair of related questions: What, exactly, had happened? And, perhaps more salient, if what took place really was something on the order of a minor violation of an ad hoc agreement between Chua and the Yale Law School dean, Heather Gerken, why had the news spilled into the nation’s most prominent news outlets rather than fading below the fold of a campus daily?

It appears to me that what transpired amounts to a skirmish between a notorious professor and an administration that seemed so eager to relieve itself of her presence that it lunged at an opportunity to weaken her position at the expense of two students who were left to deal with the consequences of the ultimately aborted campaign. Still, the answer to the latter question is more revealing than any single aspect of the whole affair. It has to do with the culture of elite institutions, where putatively righteous ends justify an array of troubling means, and noble public virtues like fairness and safety cloak more prosaic motives—the kind of vulgar envy and resentment that people with the best manners deny.

Derek Thompson: Does it matter where you go to college?

Everyone is just trying to get ahead, after all; this is no less true, and perhaps even more true, at a place like Yale Law School. It just comes more naturally to some than others. In that case one must take matters into one’s own hands.

The proximate dramabegins with a trio of second-year law students, friends and acquaintances for a time. There was a person I’ll call the Guest—all three students asked not to be named, and, believing young people should have a chance at carrying on after having their reputation destroyed or destroying the reputation of others, I agreed—who was born and raised in California. He’d arrived at Yale Law School optimistic and younger than most, having come directly from UCLA. During his first semester, he’d befriended the Visitor, a young woman from a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, who had arrived on campus from Emory. The two made a happy pair: the Guest dreamier and prone to touches of poetry, occasionally drawn to Byzantine history and Christian theology; the Visitor shrewd, practical, and levelheaded, with a keen focus on the concrete facts of policies, problems, current affairs. After working together on a major project that fall, they became and remained close.

And then there was the Archivist, a young man whom the Guest had also befriended early in his time at Yale. The two young men bonded after meeting in their contracts class, after which they would find one another at bars and parties to chat about history, politics, and other shared interests. They met up in New York City for a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Guest eventually gave the Archivist a key to his apartment, where the latter would often stop by to visit or do his laundry. In the second semester of their second year, things seemed placid.

And they may have remained that way, had it not been for a minor snag in the Guest’s academic year that put him on a path that would eventually lead him to Amy Chua’s doorstep.

A natural provocateur, Chua has vexed the Law School for years: First with Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a wry ode to the high-pressure parenting tactics of Chinese matriarchs, which didn’t thrill the gently-brought-up sorts who sometimes pass through New England’s finest universities; then with The Triple Package, a book co-authored with her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, on the specific qualities that enable certain cultural groups to succeed in America relative to others—you can imagine how that went over—then with a Wall Street Journal op-ed taking a stand for the embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who, she said, was a “mentor to women,” including her own daughter. All throughout, Chua routinely scandalized the school by making edgy comments (allegedly remarking that Kavanaugh preferred his female clerks on the comely side, for instance, which Chua says is a gross distortion) and, yes, having students over for dinner, serving alcohol, and declining to filter her decidedly piquant inner monologue.

There is another side to Chua. It seems that for every student who emerges from her acquaintance embittered and put off, someone else comes away with nothing but the fondest of feelings for her. Her Twitter feed is peppered with spontaneous congratulations for her accomplished students, and features photos of the professor embracing former protégés in celebration of their success. During this latest contretemps, students advocated in Chua’s favor—quietly, perhaps, but with no less fervor than their anti-Chua counterparts. On April 1, a student emailed a trio of Law School deans: “Professor Chua cares more about her students than any other professor I’ve encountered at YLS. Professor Chua does more to advocate for her students than any other professor I’ve encountered at YLS. Professor Chua does more to mentor her students than any other professor I’ve encountered at YLS,” he insisted. “As you are all likely aware, I am far from the only student who feels this way. Does that not count for anything?” A PDF compilation of student and alumni letters in support of Chua spanned nearly 70 pages of similar sentiments.

Chua’s gift for relationships has also vested her with a great deal of power. Chua does know judges; she does have connections. It’s inconceivable that anyone on staff at Yale doesn’t. But Chua’s roster is either unusually expansive or perceived as such or both, and her status as a legal-career “kingmaker” has cast her in a supercharged penumbra. It’s the sort of mystique that can breed all kinds of resentments, especially in an environment where relationships with people in power are a finite resource.

Then there are Chua’s private, personal relationships—most notably, with her husband, Rubenfeld, a fellow Yale Law professor whose time at the university has been stained of late by allegations of sexual misconduct with students. Per a 23-page brief prepared by Yale Law Women, a respected student advocacy group with a formidable reputation for defending women’s interests on campus, the Rubenfeld saga stretches back to at least 2008, when a poster on the Top Law Schools forum obliquely mentioned rumors of monthly parties at Chua and Rubenfeld’s residence. A decade hence, Dean Gerken hired Jenn Davis, an independent Title IX investigator, to look into a range of allegations concerning Rubenfeld’s behavior with female students, from drunken, unwelcome, off-color remarks to unwanted touching and attempted kissing, on and off school grounds. Rubenfeld has categorically denied the claims. In its report, Yale Law Women said that fear of retaliation by Chua—concern that she would sabotage opportunities for career advancement—discouraged women who resented Rubenfeld’s advances from complaining about them to the administration.

At the conclusion of Davis’s investigation, Rubenfeld was suspended from his duties for two years, a penalty that took effect in 2020. Instead of closing the matter, Rubenfeld’s penalty seemed to strike concerned student groups such as Yale Law Women as a half-measure that would leave the matter to simmer until student turnover and the passage of time permitted another eruption.

Not that the Guest had any reason to contemplate any of this when, early in the spring semester of 2021, he decided to step down as an executive editor at the Yale Law Journal. The Guest, who describes himself as half-Korean, had misgivings about the way the journal’s staff had responded to his questions about the lack of racial diversity in its ranks, and his suggestions for addressing it. Still, even after making his decision, the Guest felt uncertain and unsettled. He confided this to the Visitor, who as a Black student at Yale Law had wrestled with similar questions, and she took it upon herself to bring them up with Chua during a Zoom meeting that served in place of the professor’s usual office hours. At that point, the Visitor recalls, Chua casually offered to talk with the two of them about the Journal affair at her home in New Haven, and the Visitor called the Guest to pass the invitation along.

Unfortunately for the Guest, the Archivist happened to be doing his laundry at his friend’s apartment when the call came, and he overheard the conversation, later documenting it as follows:

Feb. 18. I go over to [the Guest’s] to do my laundry. While at his apartment, I hear him call [the Visitor], who explains to him that Chua has just invited them over for dinner tomorrow. They discuss what to wear and what they should bring (ultimately deciding to bring a bottle of wine). [The Guest] makes zero mention of going over because of any personal crisis. After the phone call, he says that he’s been invited to a dinner party at Chua’s. [The Guest] implores me not to tell anybody so that Chua doesn’t get in trouble.

Despite his gumshoe efforts, the Archivist seemed to come away with a vastly different impression of the meeting than Chua, the Guest, or the Visitor.

The Guest and the Visitor independently told me that the meeting took place sometime in the afternoon, and that Chua offered cheese and crackers, but mentioned that she had dinner plans later on. The Guest recalled that he offered the bottle of wine as a hostess gift, which Chua accepted, though she drank only canned seltzer; the Guest opened the wine, meanwhile, and recalls pouring some for himself.

The Visitor recalled a fairly serious conversation: Chua offered advice about how the Guest should handle the brewing tempest his decision had spawned in their shared teapot. “He was getting press requests,” the Visitor told me. “Should he talk to the press? Professors are like, ‘What happened?’ Should he tell professors? Should he tell anyone? Or should he internalize it? Should he tell judges? Judges are clearly going to know about this, and I’m sure they do. And she wanted to know the full story of what happened. I think a big question was ‘Did I make a mistake?’”

The Guest came away from the conversation feeling reassured. The Archivist, however, was perturbed. Earlier that day, he’d texted two friends that the Guest and the Visitor were “going to dinner” at Chua’s, which, he added, they were “banned by the law school from doing.” One friend replied that this was weird, to which the Archivist replied: “Weird is a nice way to put it!” Chastened, the friend tried again: “So they are still ok with nepotism and complicity as long as it benefits them?” That was the ticket. “Yup!” the Archivist replied. Moments later, the Archivist sent a text that seemed to be more of a press release than a remark: “I think it’s deliberately enabling the secret atmosphere of favoritism, misogyny, and sexual harassment that severely undermines the bravery of the victims of sexual abuse that came forward against Rubenfeld,” he declared. How, why, or whether the Guest or the Visitor actually did any such thing was evidently left to the reader to infer.

Later that night, the Archivist logged a call with the Guest in which, he later said, the Guest sounded “extremely intoxicated”; the Guest denies that he was.

By March, the Journal imbroglio was boiling over into the public sphere. Several of the school’s affinity groups had released statements, and the Journal had released information about the racial makeup of its editors—then the conflict came to the attention of conservative media outlets. Once more, the Guest had a series of questions for someone familiar with bad press.

This time, the Guest and the Visitor brought a premade date-and-cheese plate, the sort of appetizer offering, I gather, that you pick up at Wegmans on the way to Bible study. Again the two of them joined Chua at her New Haven manse for what sounds more like a media-strategizing session than the kind of debauched rager that would eventually possess the imaginations of Chua’s campus detractors. Again, the Archivist recorded the get-together in his notes:

March 13: [The Guest] texts me again at 9:18 PM that he’s outside, indicating he has once again gone to Chua’s but won’t commit to saying so in writing

At that point, it seems, the Archivist had finally had enough. It was time to tell the administration what they had done.

When I was alittle girl growing up in suburban North Texas not so very long ago, my grandmother, a housewife of the ’60s, would turn my cousins and me outside to play in the summer so she could sit at her kitchen table and chain-smoke her way through her library of paperback bodice-rippers. And when one of us would inevitably bolt back inside to complain about being annihilated with a Super Soaker at close range or nailed with a Nerf dart to the eye, she would always eject us with the same dismissal: Don’t be a tattletale. As far as childhood admonishments go, it was an interesting one—she wasn’t telling us not to do something, but rather not to be something.

I don’t credit homespun wisdom with any special salience. But the suggestion that it may be useful to morally evaluate oneself before volunteering to monitor everyone else’s conduct isn’t a ridiculous one. It’s wise to be careful that, in one’s zeal for justice or fairness or the more prosaic things that ride beneath those banners, one doesn’t lose sight of one’s own moral obligations or aspirations. And it’s decent, if you have a problem with someone, to take it up with them before running it up the nearest flagpole. But this is something people with the right views and the best degrees, it seems, simply do not do; just as the distinction between tattling and whistleblowing—resting, as it does, on a sober evaluation of one’s own motives and the stakes at hand—is one they often fail to make.

And so on March 22, the Archivist texted a member of Yale Law Women, with the evidence he had gathered proving that the Guest and the Visitor had spent time with Chua at her home. The Yale Law Women member said she would present the goods to Dean of Student Affairs Ellen Cosgrove, who also serves as the Law School’s deputy Title IX coordinator. Per the Archivist’s log, by March 26, the screenshots and notes he had collected thus far were in Cosgrove’s hands.

Up to that point, the Archivist had managed to gather only the flimsiest written evidence that the Guest and the Visitor had been to Chua’s home. Eventually, he composed a roughly 20-page PDF narrating the timeline of his private campaign to turn proof of his friends’ wrongdoing over to the administration—complete with screenshots of text messages, summaries of conversations, a reference to a secretly recorded phone call, and some offhanded musings on his peers’ moral laxity. The document would achieve campus infamy as “the dossier.”

On March 28, two days after the Archivist’s notes first reached Cosgrove, Chua received an email from a reporter at the Yale Daily News at about one in the afternoon. In the email, a reporter explained that the paper had learned that students had complained to Cosgrove about Chua “hosting parties” at her house, which “at least three” students had attended, and that Chua would “no longer be leading a small group” as a result. The reporter speculated that a formal announcement would be made the following day, and requested Chua’s comment.

Chua sent Dean Gerken a stricken one-word email within the hour: “What???” Gerken suggested that they discuss the matter via Zoom that evening, and Chua agreed. Chua told me that during the ensuing confrontation, “after 15 minutes of grilling me about drinking with students and federal judges—and never once mentioning COVID or asking about masks or social distancing—[Gerken] informed me that she had decided ‘to go with a different small-group lineup for the fall.’ She repeated that two more times … Only at that point did I ask whether I could offer to step down [from teaching the small group] rather than be publicly humiliated.”

Gerken responded to The Atlantic’s request for comment and said that the university’s strict confidentiality rules made speaking on the record impossible. In a statement, she added that the law school “does not move to resolve a conflict until both sides have had their say and proceeds in a measured fashion that is consistent with due process.” A spokesperson for Yale Law School told The Atlantic that Gerken’s final “assessment of this situation was based on information Professor Chua shared with her directly, not anonymous text messages among students,” which suggests that the Archivist’s work did not play a decisive role in Chua’s removal from teaching a small group. “Professor Chua has acknowledged that she asked to withdraw from teaching the small group course during a conversation with the Dean,” the statement went on. “When the Dean accepts a faculty member’s offer to withdraw from a course, the matter is closed.” Chua stressed that, contrary to the statement the university gave to The Atlantic, she “absolutely did not withdraw voluntarily.”

On April 7, the Yale Daily News finally reported that Chua had been stripped of the small group she had been set to lead in the fall due to allegations that she had violated the 2019 agreement with Gerken concerning “drinking and socializing with students in all out-of-class settings.” The exposé went on to note that “a student submitted to Law School administrators a written affidavit detailing allegations that Chua hosted law students at her household for dinner on multiple occasions this semester, as well as documented communication between themself and other law school students who acknowledged having gone to Chua’s household.” This served as the equivalent of a book launch for a PDF memoir about spying on your friends, and within a fortnight the dossier was in wide circulation among the student body.

Many of Chua’s colleagues were startled by the news. During an April 21 faculty meeting (which, like so much that happens on campus, was surreptitiously recorded), Gerken informed them that students had come forward with proof—not just statements, she emphasized, but contemporaneous texts and “other evidence”—that Chua had been hosting “parties” where food and alcohol were served, which had caused concern about Chua’s planned small group. Gerken went on to point out that Chua’s denials and her efforts to figure out how and why the get-togethers had come to light added further weight to her apprehensions.

Per comments given to The Atlantic by a spokesperson for Yale Law School, the whole affair was, by that point, long over. Chua had admitted to hosting the Guest and the Visitor, and had agreed to give up the small group. If it really was just a curricular decision between dean and professor, then the twin emails Gerken and Cosgrove sent to the student body on April 9, offering assurance that faculty misconduct has no place at Yale Law School and that any student reporting such would be protected from retaliation, must not have had anything to do with Amy Chua.

But that’s not how the Guest and the Visitor read them. When they had first heard of Chua hosting dinner parties with students during recent months, they had privately wondered who the students in question might be. Now, with the campus awash in rumors about things that had happened before their time, they had no idea what Chua really stood accused of, nor whether or why they seemed to be viewed as aiding and abetting some kind of crime. They sent an anxious, anonymous email to Cosgrove, admitting that they had spent time with Chua in person recently—though, they stressed, “we never met any federal judges. We never met Jed Rubenfeld. There was nothing approaching the level of sexual harassment, verbal or otherwise; bullying; or anything rising to the level of ‘partying.’” But they were upset that neither Yale nor Chua had been forthcoming about the 2019 agreement and, given the recent press reports, questioned the “propriety” of some of Chua’s comments, “considering the power dynamics and setting.” They wanted to know what Chua had done so they could judge to what degree, if any, they had been deceitfully ensnared in her web.

Cosgrove replied to the message from the anonymous email account—first on April 10, then again on the 14th, and once more on the 23rd. But the Guest and the Visitor never wrote back. By then, they had concluded that Chua herself had never been accused of anything like the sexual harassment being discussed on gossip mills like Twitter. They knew she hadn’t been anything but helpful to them. They wanted no part of this.

But it was too late. During the last two weeks of classes, the Guest told me, he was in frequent telephone contact with Cosgrove and her deputy. “They seemed very interested in trying to get me to say something against Professor Chua in a complaint and not in actually helping me in the things that I was very concerned about,” such as responding to the acute invasion of his privacy by a fellow student, he recalled. (A spokesperson for Yale Law School told The Atlantic that Cosgrove objects to this characterization.) Though the Guest had no interest in filing any kind of complaint against Chua, he felt that the administrators tried to persuade him with arguments “framed in terms of ‘Well, you have a moral obligation to protect future generations of students; you need to protect these students; the students think that you need to do this; the students think that you have a moral duty.’” But he demurred. “At one point, I even think I said, like, ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to complain about. I don’t know what the misconduct is. I don’t know what I’m supposed to complain about.’”

The Visitor remembers feeling subject to the exact same sort of pressure campaign. When the Office of Student Affairs contacted her, she told me, she protested that she felt nothing Chua had done warranted a formal complaint—but she did have significant objections to what the Archivist had done to her and the Guest, distributing their private communications with insulting narration and tarnishing their reputations. (The Archivist told The Atlantic that he did try to keep the Guest and the Visitor anonymous in his communications with the administration—though he had already used their names elsewhere, and his efforts were ineffective, whatever the case.) “[The OSA] would say things like ‘Well, it’s an effort to protect people from Amy Chua, and he’s trying to protect you,’” the Visitor told me. And she still felt they wanted her to file an official complaint. “They said something like, if I remember correctly, ‘All we need you to—all we need is the alcohol, just give us the alcohol. And that’s enough.” (A spokesperson for Yale Law School told The Atlantic that Cosgrove objects to this characterization as well.)

Yale did provide the Guest and the Visitor with information on how to file a complaint against the Archivist and also took additional steps to protect them, including trying to prevent their names from circulating online. But neither the Guest nor the Visitor ever filed any kind of complaint against Chua, who, they still maintain, did nothing worth complaining about. And yet both of them have suffered—not in the jaws of the tigress herself, but in the subtler and more brutal back channels of the Ivy League, where every regal edifice hides a charnel house of human spirits. In the end, they were collateral forfeited in a cold war that began long before they arrived on campus, and that will continue long after it has spit out their bones.

On April 29, the Visitor received an anonymous text message a little after midnight: “Snake.” She replied immediately: “Who is this?” The person replied: “Just know that everyone knows what you did. Trying to bury the Rubenfeld report. Shilling for Chua. And that reputation is gonna follow you.” What had she done? On Twitter, the rumors were more explicit (and just as baseless). “Suddenly I have the urge to deeply thank all my profs who never coerced me into dinner parties which were actually hunting grounds for their sex predator partners,” one user wrote. “Someone made an anonymous complaint that [Chua] was having sex parties with students,” another helpfully explained, “but I don’t see why people can’t just politely disagree.” Another declined to excuse “the sex parties she threw so her husband could fuck college kids.” And again: “The parties help her pimp for her husband’s perversity, part of their own sexual underpinning/agreement. The parties let her abuse her power and get away with it. The parties give her power over students’ career chances.”

And yet, despite so much certainty among students and administrators about Chua’s malign influence over careers, it became clear to the Guest and the Visitor that if they were to actually receive any clerkship or fellowship opportunities at the end of their hellish second year, those achievements would be instantly (and maliciously) attributed to dirty favors done for Chua and Rubenfeld. They began to wonder whether receiving any of the clerkship or fellowship opportunities they had applied for would be worse than losing them.

Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. On June 10, the Guest received an email from Cosgrove’s deputy, with Cosgrove copied, listing all the measures of kindness and support the administration had offered him during his long ordeal, and assuring him that they had spoken “at length” about his application to serve as a Coker Fellow—a prestigious campus honor—in the coming year and that Cosgrove and her deputy had “encouraged [him] to remain in active consideration for the position.”

But when Cosgrove emailed the professor who was considering the Guest for the fellowship a version of the Archivist’s dossier that she had annotated herself, she highlighted “some of the passages that have raised the greatest concern about candor”—the Guest’s, that is. Cosgrove’s highlights include the Archivist’s color commentary, including his opinion of his friend’s willingness to be complicit in misogyny, sexual harassment, and whatever else.

Reached for comment about Cosgrove’s annotation, a spokesperson for Yale Law School said only that “it is routine for the faculty and administration to seek out and share information with each other. Due to confidentiality rules, we are unable to comment further.”

Yale Law School is a funny place:

• Everyone you talk to says they’re there more or less for charity work, but somehow the graduates keep getting rich and famous.

• While we all contemplate that mystery, the Guest and the Visitor will be contemplating something very different—how to recover from this strange turn of events.

• The Guest, whose only documented offense was visiting Chua to talk about his run at the Journal, withdrew his application for the Coker fellowship, and applied for no clerkships.

• The Visitor quietly accepted one fellowship, and likewise declined to seek any clerkships, reasoning along the same lines as the Guest. What else could they have done? It takes an admirable perceptiveness to know when the truth can’t save you anymore.

Carl Elliot: Why they blow the whistle

Read: The problem with the whistle-blower system

From the April 2021 issue: Private schools have become truly obscene

From <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/amy-chua-yale-law-school-real-story-dinner-party/619558/>

What Is Going On at Yale Law School?

The prestigious institution has tied itself in knots over a dispute involving one of its most popular—and controversial—professors, Amy Chua.

By Lizzie Widdicombe 

June 19, 2021 New YOrker

Amy Chua, a celebrity professor at the top-ranked law school in the country, is at the center of a campus-wide fracas known as “Dinner Party-gate.”Photograph by Rick Wenner / Redux

A decade ago, back when we talked about things besides new coronavirus strains and vaccination rates, there was a weeks-long media frenzy over a parenting memoir called “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” In that book, Amy Chua, an American daughter of Chinese immigrants, described her efforts to raise her children the “Chinese” way. For her, that meant dispensing with squishy Western conventions like “child-led learning” and participation trophies, and ruthlessly driving her two young daughters to master their classical instruments and maintain perfect grades. The book provoked a fierce backlash, much of which centered on Chua’s tactics, which ranged from threatening to burn her older daughter’s stuffed animals to rejecting a hand-scrawled birthday card that demonstrated insufficient effort. Chua’s younger daughter “rebelled” at the age of thirteen, choosing competitive tennis over concert-level violin, but, for the most part, Chua’s system worked. Her daughters became musical prodigies and successful athletes, who attended Harvard and Yale. The phrase “tiger mom” entered the cultural lexicon and spawned a Singaporean TV show, “Tiger Mum,” and a show in Hong Kong, “Tiger Mom Blues.”

That was the last time many of us heard about Amy Chua—unless you’ve been following the news out of Yale Law School, where Chua is a professor. If so, you know that the discussion kept going. Over the past few months, Chua has been at the center of a campus-wide fracas that, nominally, concerns the question of whether she hosted drunken dinner parties at her home this past winter. The controversy began in April, when the Yale Daily News reported that the law-school administration was punishing Chua for the alleged offense by removing her from the list of professors leading a special first-year law class called a “small group.”

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Normally, drinking with students wouldn’t be out of bounds. Yale Law is known for being a cozy place, as far as law schools go, and students are typically in their mid-twenties—well past the legal drinking age. But, last winter, when Chua’s parties supposedly took place, there was a pandemic going on. And Chua’s husband, her fellow Yale Law professor Jed Rubenfeld, was serving a two-year suspension from the faculty for sexual harassment. And, as the Yale Daily News article revealed, Chua technically wasn’t supposed to be having students over to her home or serving them alcohol. Three years ago, when the law school investigated Rubenfeld for harassment, the investigator also looked into allegations that Chua had engaged in “excessive drinking” with students and had said offensive things to them. Chua denies that this is exactly what happened. But, at any rate, in 2019, she was issued a financial penalty, and she wrote a letter to the law school’s administration agreeing “not to invite students to my home or out to drinks for the foreseeable future.”

Everyone on campus knew about Rubenfeld’s situation, but Chua’s had not been made public—only the dean’s office and the student complainants knew about it. Chua was outraged that the student newspaper had divulged a private disciplinary matter. She told me that her Gen Z daughter Lulu, the former violin prodigy, encouraged her to come out swinging. “She’s, like, ‘You have to fight the narrative,’ so I just did something shocking,” Chua said. She wrote an open letter saying that she’d been falsely accused and described a Zoom call with the Yale Law dean in which she’d been treated “degradingly, like a criminal.” She also claimed that she had been barred from teaching a small-group class without receiving an explanation from the dean’s office. “I sent it to my entire faculty, and I tweeted it,” Chua said. “Ever since then, it’s been kind of an escalating nightmare.” Slate, Fox News, and the Post picked up the story. Earlier this month, the Times published an investigation into what has become known as “Dinner Party-gate.”

The question has arisen, in online comments sections and on Twitter, why anyone is even talking about Amy Chua. Who cares about a parenting memoirist’s removal from a law-school teaching roster? The answer is, in part, because this story manages to touch on seemingly every single cultural flashpoint of the past few years. Chua’s critics see a story about #MeToo—because of her husband, but also because Chua supported the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, even after he was accused of sexual assault. Meanwhile, Chua’s defenders see a morality tale about liberal cancel culture. “What they’ve done to you is SOP”—standard operating procedure—“for conservative allies but chills me to the bone nonetheless,” a supporter tweeted at her, earlier this month. Megyn Kelly weighed in, tweeting, “Make no mistake: this is retribution for her support of Brett Kavanaugh, & it is disgusting.” Chua’s allies have also suggested that anti-Asian bias is involved. “The woke academy reserves a special vitriol for minority faculty who don’t toe the line politically,” Niall Ferguson, a historian, tweeted.

Chua and her husband aren’t politically conservative—she says that Rubenfeld has historically been “very left-leaning,” whereas she is a “solid independent”—but they are provocateurs. Both husband and wife have a knack for finding subjects that get people talking, or, rather, screaming at one another around the dinner table. In a 2013 legal article, Rubenfeld pontificated on how we define rape. (See: “The Riddle of Rape-by-Deception and the Myth of Sexual Autonomy,” Part V, Section 3: “No Means No – but It May Not Mean Rape.”) Chua often writes about ethnicity. In 2014, the couple co-wrote a book, called “The Triple Package,” about why some cultural groups are more successful in America than others, inspired by the authors’ own Chinese and Jewish heritage. In a New York Times review of Chua’s latest book, “Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations,” published in 2018, David Frum described the professor as “an uncomfortable presence in American intellectual life.” He went on, “Chua approaches the no-go areas around which others usually tiptoe. The warning alarms burst into ‘WAH-OH, WAH-OH’—and Chua greets the custodians with a mild, ’Oh sorry, was that a taboo?’ ”

On the Yale Law campus, in New Haven, the Chua-Rubenfelds are local celebrities. Until recently, their home was something of a salon: a place where you could meet a federal judge, a published author, or a television producer. “New Haven craves a little bit of glamour,” an alum from the late nineties told me. “Amy was friends with Wendi Murdoch. She’d go to Davos. They have a super-nice apartment in New York, and they’d throw parties there.” Once Chua became known as the Tiger Mom, she even began dressing accordingly. A current Yale Law student told me that, this past semester, the professor wore a tiger-print mask in every class.

One must understand the social dynamics at Yale Law to truly grasp the significance of Dinner Party-gate. The top-ranked law school in the country, Yale is known for being the spot where Bill and Hillary Clinton met, as well as the alma mater of four current Supreme Court Justices. It’s supposed to be more philosophical and progressive than its counterpart at Harvard, which has more than twice as many students, many of whom tend to go on to more boring, lucrative careers in corporate law. This makes for an intense social environment at Yale. “The law school is quite small, but it’s quite riven,” a woman who graduated earlier this year told me. “There’s a very vocal minority of social-justice-oriented students,” who are there to pursue their passions for criminal-justice reform or women’s rights. There are also plenty of hyper-diligent strivers, sometimes referred to as “gunners.” Frequently, these groups overlap.

Every gunner shares the same dream: to kick off their careers with a clerkship for a big-name judge—ideally one of the “feeder judges” (usually those serving on the Court of Appeals), whose clerks often end up clerking on the Supreme Court. A Supreme Court clerkship is the ultimate gold star. “If you get that, it’s like the key that unlocks all the other doors in the legal profession,” a Yale Law graduate from 2019 told me. “If you want to be in the Solicitor General’s office, a Supreme Court clerkship will open that door. Same goes for a top law firm with a huge signing bonus.” (According to lore, the Supreme Court-clerk sweetener clocks in at four hundred thousand dollars.)

The best clerkships go to the very best law students. But the first semester at Yale is pass-fail—after that, the marks range from “honors” to “failure”—so it can be hard to distinguish one brilliant applicant from the next. In this context, a professor’s recommendation counts for a lot. A recommendation from Amy Chua, even more so. “She’s kind of seen as a golden ticket to clerkships,” the woman who graduated earlier this year told me. She explained that when she began the process of applying for clerkships, she reached out to other students for advice. “Every person I called to ask ‘How did you get this job?’ told me, ‘Amy Chua made a phone call.’ ”

Video From The New Yorker

The Challenges of Reporting #MeToo

Chua’s path to becoming a kingmaker has been unorthodox. Rubenfeld, a constitutional-law expert, was hired by Yale in 1990. According to Chua, she bungled her initial interview, instead landing at Duke’s law school, and didn’t join her husband until the spring of 2001, when Yale brought her on as a visiting professor. Later that semester, she was offered a tenured position. “My perception when I came to Yale Law School was that my husband was a superstar, and all these people were so articulate, and I was the only Asian-American woman on the academic faculty,” Chua recalled. “I could barely speak at faculty meetings, and I was always so on the outs—just a kind of marginal figure.” It took a few years for the tide to shift. By the early twenty-tens, though, “Amy was the most popular teacher at the school, with the possible exception of Heather Gerken,” a professor told me.

At Yale, Gerken and Chua represent two different kinds of figures. Gerken is one of the nation’s leading specialists in election law and constitutional law, and served as a senior adviser to Barack Obama during both of his Presidential campaigns. (In 2017, she was named the dean of Yale Law, becoming the first woman ever to hold that position.) Chua, on the other hand, doesn’t have much standing as a legal scholar. While many of her colleagues—Rubenfeld included—built up their résumés with law-review articles, Chua threw herself into teaching and mentorship with the same vigor that she once applied to parenting.

As a mentor, Chua is known to have a type: immigrants or students of color, usually those who have come from impoverished backgrounds. But she also takes an interest in conservative students—an arguably marginalized group at Yale—and those pursuing nontraditional careers, like business or journalism. (One of her most notable mentees was J. D. Vance, the author of the 2016 best-seller “Hillbilly Elegy,” who ticked several of those boxes.) “I think she likes people who are a little bit of an outsider or underdog for whatever reason,” the 2019 graduate told me. One group of mentees even began calling themselves “ChuaPets.” “A lot of people adore Amy Chua,” the woman who graduated earlier this year said. “They take a class with her, and she takes a shine to them, and then their lives get better. And it’s not just the gunners. She’s also supposed to be very caring and supportive even with weirdos who can’t get clerkships.”

In the wake of Dinner Party-gate, Chua posted sixty-seven pages of e-mails, from student mentees past and present, on her personal Web site. The stories have a similar arc. The mentees describe their backgrounds: one came from a tiny fishing village in China that did not have indoor plumbing; another writes, “I grew up a poor Black bastard raised by a single-mother of two.” I spoke to one of the letter writers, a recent graduate, who is also a first-generation immigrant. The graduate had found many faculty mentors, but those relationships were “more or less purely academic,” she said. Chua was different. “She was interested in knowing who I am, where I came from, about my family back home.” Chua gave her detailed feedback on her papers and insidery advice on how to apply for clerkships. For example, she advised the student to keep quiet about her passion for international law, warning that it might make her a less attractive candidate. “No other professor had told me that,” the graduate said. “It was something I wouldn’t have known unless I had a dad or a mom who was a lawyer in this country.” On graduation day, she recalled, “I was reflecting on what I would have done differently if I had another chance at the law school. Basically, I wish I’d gotten to know Professor Chua earlier. That’s my biggest regret.”

In 2017, the legal world, like everyone else, started to feel the effects of the #MeToo movement. The first domino to fall was Alex Kozinski, a prominent conservative judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who, in late 2017, resigned after multiple women, including clerks, accused him of sexual misconduct. Kozinski, a Reagan appointee, was probably one of the most influential judges in America, apart from the nine Supreme Court Justices.

In 2018, Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh, a former Kozinski clerk, to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh had attended Yale Law and was known for hiring clerks from the school. Chua, whose oldest daughter, Sophia—also a Yale Law alum—had been chosen to clerk for Kavanaugh, endorsed him in an op-ed titled “Kavanaugh Is a Mentor to Women.” Later that month, Christine Blasey Ford accused the nominee of sexual assault. Chua didn’t withdraw her endorsement. Then, days before Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, the Guardian reported that Chua had made suggestive comments to students in her small-group class about Kavanaugh’s preferences regarding the appearance of his female law clerks.

In some ways, this wasn’t surprising. Chua often describes herself as “unfiltered.” A lawyer who has interacted with her told me that it’s more than that: “It’s almost like she has verbal Tourette’s.” I spoke with one alum who took a small-group class that Chua was teaching in the fall of 2017. At first, she loved Chua’s candor. “She was, like, ‘I’m going to be straightforward and give you the real deal about clerkships and jobs,’ ” the alum recalled. But, sometimes, things got weird. There was a lot of drinking, and Chua would share details about professors’ personal lives or the internal politics of who was getting tenure. During one gathering, at Chua’s home, Chua “brought up some weird sexual kinks of a friend she used to spend time with in her twenties,” the alum said. “It was a non sequitur.” The alum wasn’t offended; it was just too much information. “It read to me like social anxiety,” she said. “She seemed kind of desperate to impress people and be liked.” (Chua wrote to me, in response to that story, that “I have a lot of regrets, and that I know it’s one of my faults to be unfiltered or over-the-top or too spontaneous—sometimes saying something stupid just to fill up an awkward silence. I’ve really tried to change—in fact, I think definitely have changed.”)

Another student from that small-group class recently wrote a kind of open letter to Chua, in which she told her version of the Kavanaugh story. She claims that Chua was hanging out with a group of female students at a bar, when she started talking about the #MeToo movement and the federal judiciary. “You went on to mention that a judge named Kavanaugh”—then a Circuit Court judge—“had a predilection for good-looking clerks. . . . You said, however, that you weren’t concerned for your daughter, his future clerk, because she would never put up with that sort of behavior.” The student adds that Chua later said that Kozinski’s harassment “was an open secret,” but that she did her best to combat it “by steering female candidates in another direction.” (Chua claims that her statements have been distorted.)

At the time of the Kavanaugh debate, Chua was off campus, undergoing surgery for a medical issue. When she returned, in 2019, both she and her husband were under a cloud. At the time, Rubenfeld was dealing with his own sexual-misconduct scandal; in the spring of 2018, following complaints of Rubenfeld’s attempting to kiss or touch students and making suggestive comments to them—for example, joking about “tickling” female students, and asking about their sex lives—Dean Gerken hired an outside investigator to look into his behavior. Rubenfeld denied sexually harassing anyone, but, in 2020, he was suspended for two years without pay, which is among the most severe punishments that a tenured professor can receive. Some student activists were not satisfied. A campus group called Yale Law Women released a statement demanding that he be permanently removed from campus. “We do not want Jed Rubenfeld to prey on a new generation of students,” they wrote.

Chua’s connection to the matter was ambiguous. She hadn’t been accused of harassment herself. But some of Rubenfeld’s critics saw her as an enabler of her husband. “She kind of provides muscle for him, because of her clerkship connections,” one Yale alum said. “ ’Cause it’s like, you’re one of Jed’s acolytes? If you put up with his shit, she’ll help you get a clerkship.” Her relationships with judges could also make her seem scary. Slate reported that, after a student publicly condemned a Times Op-Ed that Rubenfeld wrote about campus rape, Chua threatened to “call every justice on the Supreme Court” to tell them not to hire the student. Chua has denied making such threats. She told me, “Many people have suggested that the way I’m being depicted—as this ruthless, cunning, intimidating, manipulative, domineering person—that’s exactly the stereotype of the dragon lady.”

But the perception stuck. A man who recently graduated from Yale Law recounted a conversation that he’d had with two female friends while selecting his courses for the spring 2020 semester. “I mentioned I was thinking about taking International Business Transactions”—Chua’s class—“and it was like I’d said, ‘I’m signing up for Holocaust studies with Hitler,’ ” he said. “The mood changed immediately. They started talking about her husband, and Brett Kavanaugh, and rape culture.” He decided to take the course anyway, although he eventually stopped mentioning it to people.

Chua told me that even though her classes remained popular, she could feel the shift in her reputation. “Everything changed after the Kavanaugh debacle,” she said. “You know, I then stood for something else.”

In the spring of 2021, a few weeks after Chua published her open letter about Dinner Party-gate, a PDF titled “Timeline of Events” began circulating around Yale Law. The document was written loosely in the style of a legal affidavit; it includes blacked-out passages and an appendix with screenshots of text messages. Its author, a Yale Law student who is friends with two of Chua’s mentees, describes watching from afar as the professor appears to advance friends’ careers:

Feb. 3:

John Doe texts me (Document 1) explaining that Chua thinks he would make a good clerk to a competitive judge on the Ninth Circuit and that she “has picked several judges” for him.

Feb. 18:

I go over to John Doe’s to do my laundry. While at his apartment, I hear him call Jane Doe, who explains to him that Chua has just invited them over for dinner tomorrow. They discuss what to wear and what they should bring (ultimately deciding to bring a bottle of wine). . . .

Later on, the author hears a rumor that “Chua has been hosting dinner parties with judges.” Concluding that both friends have been going to them, the author reported Chua. As criminal evidence, this “dossier” is extremely thin. And yet it appeared to contain the evidence that had led to Chua’s not teaching her small-group class. As the document made the rounds, the campus broke down along the battle lines that had been drawn during the Kavanaugh hearings.

The pro-Chua faction included the professor’s mentees past and present. Some argued that punishing Chua would be harmful to minorities at Yale. One student wrote, “We often scratch our heads and wonder how ‘structural racism’ happens, who is accountable for it. . . . Well, this is how it happens! This is it!”

Chua’s opponents included many of the people who had been outspoken during the investigation into Rubenfeld’s alleged misconduct. At the center was the student group Yale Law Women, but there were also outside figures like Leah Litman, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Litman, who is one of the women who came forward with allegations against Kozinski, objected to the idea of Chua and her husband as campus power brokers. She told me, “No student should go to the No. 1 law school in the country and be made to feel that their future success hinges on their willingness to get drunk with law professors, one of whom has been accused of sexual harassment for decades.”

As time went on, the dossier’s chief claim—that Chua had been hosting secret dinner parties with judges—began to seem less plausible. Chua told me, “That’s classic Ivy League arrogance, to assume that federal judges, in the middle of COVID, want to fly across the country to be with twenty-two-year-olds.” She did, however, admit to inviting a few students over to her house, including John and Jane Doe, who came over “in a mentorship capacity.” She says that she asked the Does to get COVID tests beforehand, and that they all sat ten feet apart, with the windows open. “They did show up with a bottle of wine,” Chua said. “Since they opened it, I think I poured the guy a glass.” She claims she didn’t drink herself: “I had two cans of Fresca.” She says they talked about law school and racism, and that Rubenfeld was not present.

On June 7th, the Times published its article, which appeared to confirm Chua’s version of things. The story cited three students who had visited Chua’s house, who claimed that “there were no dinner parties and no judges; instead she had students over on a handful of afternoons, in groups of two or three, mostly so they could seek her advice.” Chua tweeted a link to the story, adding, “It’s still hard to believe this happened at a LAW SCHOOL.” Among the faculty, much of the discussion centered on Yale Law’s dean, Heather Gerken, and her handling of the situation. One professor I spoke with said, “I think Heather is wrong. She’s gotten her facts wrong,” and blamed her for listening to “clueless students who don’t know what they’re talking about.”

The voice of the Yale Law administration has been largely absent from this story, except for a few opaque statements, such as “Faculty misconduct has no place at Yale Law School,” or references to COVID-19 protocols. This is because, as a spokesperson wrote to me, Yale has rules that “strictly prevent the Law School from commenting on, or even acknowledging the existence of, faculty disciplinary cases.” Which is awkward, because Dinner Party-gate involves a faculty disciplinary case.

But Gerken e-mailed me to clarify that she wasn’t acting on the claims documented in the “Timeline of Events” dossier: “The innuendo that I made a decision about a faculty member’s teaching based on anonymous texts is false. My own assessment rested on the information Professor Chua herself shared with me.”

Gerken relayed her version of the story in an April Zoom meeting with the faculty. The dean and the professor had Zoomed on a Sunday night. The dean asked the professor what was going on. Were the student complaints accurate? Had she been inviting students over to her house for dinner parties with federal judges and serving them booze? Initially, the dean said, Chua denied everything, claiming that, no, there had been no students and no alcohol. Then Chua backtracked, admitting that, yes, she’d had a few students over, while still asserting that no alcohol had been served. Then she backtracked again—admitting that, actually, she had served alcohol. At this point, the dean told the professor that she was having reservations about putting her in charge of teaching a small group in the fall. Chua responded that she’d never wanted to teach the class anyway, and said that she was withdrawing from the assignment. The dean told the faculty that she accepted Chua’s offer to do so.

This is a different story from the one that Chua told in her open letter. (She told me that the dean’s characterization of the call is “a hundred per cent false,” adding that she had “denied from the very beginning that there were any dinner parties with federal judges and students. As I was racking my brain, I said that a few students had come over, but not for socializing but because they were upset. I never changed my story.”) As a member of the court of public opinion, it’s hard to know how to rule on the case of Dinner Party-gate. One can go deeper down the rabbit hole, which involves analyzing photographs of letters that Chua has posted to Twitter, and arguing about the meaning of the word “foreseeable” and the definition of a “dinner party.” But, as a faculty member told me, “I think the vast majority of our faculty—except for a handful of my colleagues who are older professors—are fully behind Heather. Amy broke the rules about having students over and serving alcohol, especially during COVID. She admitted it to the dean. She pleaded guilty. And she withdrew from teaching the course. It should be over.”

From certain vantage points, everyone in this story looks unsympathetic: the law-school students tattling on their classmates; the women’s group policing the behavior of female faculty; the inscrutable dean; the disgraced Rubenfeld. The most difficult riddle of all, of course, is Amy Chua. There seem to be so many versions of her: the immigrant striver, the iconoclastic writer, the sharp-elbowed networker, the warm and nurturing mentor, and the Hillary Clinton-like spouse—both a victim of and a possible co-conspirator in her husband’s alleged improprieties. And yet, whatever she is, it’s working, to some extent. This past semester, post-Dinner Party-gate, ninety-eight per cent of students who submitted an evaluation for her class recommended the course. (A student told me that this was the highest approval rating of any class she took this past semester.) Chua told me, “You look at the students who are upset with me, and then all of the students who wrote in positively. You’ll see that, in some ways, they’re talking about the same features.” The behavior at the heart of her troubles—a loose sense of boundaries, and an apparent lack of impulse control—strikes some people as charming and humanizing, and others as repellent.

I was struck by the contrast between Chua the Tiger Mother and Chua the professor. In the book, Chua describes herself as harsh and authoritarian. But with the students she’s chosen as mentees, she seems to be very different: supportive and encouraging—almost an ideal mother. (Chua’s daughters have pointed this out, too.) The less flattering accounts of Chua’s drinking and gossiping with students reminded me of a very American parenting stereotype: the “cool mom,” as exemplified by Amy Poehler’s character in “Mean Girls.” In that film, the character attempts to ingratiate herself with the friends of her teen-age daughter by crossing boundaries. She tells them, “I’m not like a regular mom. I’m a cool mom.” She asks them, “What is the hot gossip?” and offers them alcohol. It doesn’t end well. In response, her daughter shuns her, saying, “Mom, could you go fix your hair?”

I asked Chua if she’d ever heard of the film, or the “cool mom” stereotype. She hadn’t. But, she said, “I think maybe you’re on to something. And I know it’s not a positive thing you’re suggesting, but I’m just kind of owning up to it. . . . I mean, I was the nerd with glasses growing up. Completely outsider. I wasn’t bullied, but I was just a studious person, with an accent for most of my childhood. And so, maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s fun to be, like, ‘Wow. The students like me.’ ”

Lizzie Widdicombe is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

More:Yale UniversityColleges#MeTooBrett KavanaughSexual AssaultYale Law School

From <https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/what-is-going-on-at-yale-law-school>

2021apr8 substack | Tiger Mother Amy Chua Roars Back At Yale Law School

The prominent professor has been stripped of certain teaching duties after allegations of misconduct — allegations she forcefully denies.

David Lat Apr 8, 2021 | substack

Professor Amy Chua (courtesy of Amy Chua).

Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, you can reach me by email at davidlat@substack.com, and you can subscribe by clicking on the button below.

Last night, the Yale Daily News published an explosive report about Professor Amy Chua of Yale Law School — yes, that Amy Chua, the famous author of a controversial, bestselling parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. From the Daily News:

Amy Chua will no longer be leading a first-year small group at the Yale Law School next year after students raised allegations that she is still hosting private dinner parties at the home she shares with her husband, suspended law professor Jed Rubenfeld, despite having agreed in 2019 to cease all out-of-class hours interactions with students.

Teaching a small-group class, a required 1L course of around 15 first-year students led by a single professor, is a responsibility at YLS, but also a privilege. The teachers tapped for the task tend to be prominent, popular, and pedagogically skilled — all adjectives that would apply to Chua, the drama surrounding her notwithstanding. Here’s more from the Yale Daily News:

Chua previously agreed to stop drinking and socializing with her students outside of class and office hours in response to allegations of misconduct, according to a December 2019 letter obtained by the News from Law School Dean Heather Gerken to affected parties. But law students met with Law School administrators on March 26 and brought forward documented allegations reviewed by the News that Chua has continued hosting private dinner parties with current Law School students and prominent members of the legal community. Three days later, Chua was removed from the list of professors who will lead small groups….

For additional background on the allegations against Chua — as well as prior allegations against her husband, Professor Jed Rubenfeld, which resulted in his suspension from the faculty for two years — see the YDN piece, as well as this Above the Law story by Joe Patrice. To their critics, Chua and Rubenfeld are legal academia’s answer to Bonnie and Clyde.

(Or maybe Tom and Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby, since Chua and Rubenfeld are rich, attractive, and don’t carry guns. They have many positive qualities; since news of Chua’s punishment broke, students and faculty have flooded the YLS administration with praise for her as a teacher, mentor, scholar, colleague, and friend. But like the Buchanans, if Chua and Rubenfeld have a flaw, it might be a certain kind of carelessness.) [UPDATE (8:25 p.m.): Some commenters on Twitter have pointed out that the sexual harassment allegations against Rubenfeld amount to far more than “carelessness.” To be clear, I’m not referring to “carelessness” as in negligence; I’m referring to the “carelessness” exhibited by Tom and Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s full quote here. (I’ve deleted two sentences from this paragraph that contributed to this confusion.)]

What does Professor Chua have to say for herself? In a bombshell missive of her own, an open letter to her fellow faculty members, the Tiger Mother roars back at Yale Law School and Dean Gerken. Chua reveals that the Yale Daily News found out about her removal from the small-group lineup before she did — she learned of her punishment when YDN reporter Julia Brown called her up on a Sunday for comment — and then describes a subsequent Zoom meeting she had with Gerken and Professor Michael Wishnie, counselor to Dean Gerken:

On the 5:15 Sunday Zoom call, I was treated absolutely degradingly, like a criminal. Heather confirmed what the reporter had told me: she had in fact decided that I was to be removed from the Small Group roster for next year, and (she said) she had been planning to tell me on Monday. But instead of explaining how this information had made it the Daily News before being communicated to me, or why I’d been suddenly stripped of teaching a Small Group, or how on earth the Daily News could possibly have confidential personnel information about me (that had to have been originally disclosed by someone in the Administration), Heather said it was time for me to “be candid.” Mike said nothing the whole time, and just took notes. Besides Heather saying repeatedly, “This is the time for you to be candid, Amy,” she asked me over and over, “Did you have a federal judge to your house with students?”

For her part, Chua denies having a federal judge over to her house with students:

I honestly had no idea what she was talking about, and I felt that I was in an inquisition. I was distraught and totally confused. I kept asking what was going on. A federal judge over to my house with students?! No, no, no, I told her. The suggestion is not only 100% false but (during COVID) ludicrous.

As some of you might recall, Chua was hospitalized for three weeks in 2018 after a massive internal infection. The idea of someone with her health history throwing ragers during the pandemic would be… surprising.

Now, Chua acknowledges — and doesn’t apologize for — having had some students over to her house during this time:

As I wrack my brain to try to imagine what “dinner parties” with students they could possibly be referring to, I can only think of a few possibilities—all of which I not only stand by, but am proud of.

As many of you know, there were a number of serious crises for our students in the last few months…. In the midst of these events, a few students in extreme distress reached out to me, feeling that they had no one else to turn to, many of them feeling that the law school administration was not supporting them. Because we could not meet in the law school building, we met at my house, and I did my best to support them and console them.

She denies, however, that any of these meetings were “dinner parties,” and she denies that her husband Jed was present for any of them.

Setting aside the accuracy of the allegations against her, Chua makes some points about due process:

1. Confidential information about my [2019] agreement with Heather has been disclosed to students or the press. Though the report of this agreement by the Daily News is inaccurate, there are enough correct details to leave no doubt that confidential information, known only to the Dean’s office, has somehow been disclosed. This breach is a gross violation of the standards that apply to all deans and all administrators at this University, and quite possibly a violation of law as well.

2. To this day, ten days after I was removed from next year’s Small Group roster, I still have received no explanation whatsoever from the Dean’s Office about why this decision was made. I asked Heather, and she refused to answer. My emails to her are not even replied to. Instead I have been left to read allegations in the Yale Daily News….

3. The information that the Dean had decided to bar me from teaching a Small Group (again, an assignment I didn’t want), which should also have been confidential, was evidently communicated to students before the School even told me about it. This also means that the decision to remove me from the Small Group roster was made before I had even learned that any allegations had been made against me, so that I had no chance at all to defend myself against whatever the allegations were.

Invoking her long track record of mentoring students, especially ones from less privileged backgrounds, Chua closes her letter as follows:

I stand by my record of service to this school, and I could not be prouder of the help and support I’ve tried to give our students. For what it’s worth, dozens of current and graduated students submitted emails protesting the School’s decision and attesting to the positive impact I’ve had in their lives, the majority of them (I believe) from students from minority or marginalized communities. Many of these emails make the point that I am being targeted by “a small group of students” who have never taken a class from me and who oppose “controversial” opinions I’ve expressed….

If you’ve read this far, thank you and sorry for taking so much of your time. Let me add that I am not seeking reinstatement to the Small Group roster. I do think, however, there should be an investigation into how these breaches of confidentiality occurred, with serious punishment for anyone found to be responsible.

What does Dean Heather Gerken have to say about the situation? Through Debra Kroszner, Yale Law School’s spokesperson, Dean Gerken issued this statement in response to my inquiry:

While we cannot comment on the existence of investigations or complaints, the Law School and the University thoroughly investigate complaints regarding violations of University rules and the University adjudicates them whenever it is appropriate to do so.

Faculty misconduct has no place at Yale Law School. It violates our core commitments and undermines all the good that comes from an environment where faculty respect and support students. The Law School has a set of clearly articulated norms governing student-faculty interactions and is committed to enforcing them.

As for the breaches of confidentiality that Chua alleges, Kroszner had this to say: “Yale Law School does not comment on, or even acknowledge the existence of, faculty disciplinary cases, and it strictly maintains the confidentiality of faculty employment files.”

Here’s one possibility that crossed my mind. In general, when a student files a complaint against a faculty member, that student — or “complainant,” to use the more technical term — is informed of the resolution of the complaint, including steps taken to address the problem. It’s possible that some of the information obtained by the Yale Daily News about the 2019 agreement between Dean Gerken and Professor Chua came from students who filed complaints, as opposed to Dean Gerken or another member of the administration. I find it hard to believe that Dean Gerken or another administrator leaked any of this news to the media. What motive would she have for doing so, since it doesn’t exactly put YLS in the best light?

Looking ahead, here’s what I’m wondering: can this marriage, i.e., the marriage between Chuafeld and Yale Law School, be saved? For many years, it was a mutually beneficial partnership. But in the wake of the disciplinary actions taken first against Jed Rubenfeld and now against Amy Chua, can things ever be the same?

Also, on a more fundamental level, does this match still make sense? Chuafeld became famous (or infamous) for saying controversial things — boasting that Chinese mothers are superior, claiming that there are reasons some cultural groups succeed while others do not, and (allegedly) recommending that law students dress in a certain way for clerkship interviews. But Yale Law School in 2021 — a school that definitely leans left, which to its critics might even be “woke” — might not be the best environment for people who purport to be tart-tongued truth-tellers.

As you can tell from her many years of service to the Yale Law School community, Amy Chua has a deep love for YLS. But if the Tiger Mother decides at some point to take her talents to another zoo, don’t be too surprised.

UPDATE (6:55 p.m.): Some Twitter commentary on the controversy:

Megyn Kelly @megynkelly

Now they’re trying to cancel @amychua for absolutely nothing. Make no mistake: this is retribution for her support of Bret Kavanaugh, & it is disgusting. If @YaleLawSch has any backbone, it will stand up for one of its most beloved teachers & tell the damn whiners to sit down. https://t.co/2vwLGWmI9w

Abigail Shrier @AbigailShrier

The witch-hunt & attempted cancellation of @amychua is a giant unforced error by @YaleLawSch. Professor Chua is a stalwart advocate of women & minority students & the single best professor I had. This hurts students far more than it will Chua. https://t.co/Q4DX0d3kKK

9:18 PM ∙ Apr 8, 2021

894Likes156Retweets

Daniel Roberts @readDanwrite

How do elite institutions like Yale Law continually botch the way they handle disciplining their own professors? in this case, someone who has been on the faculty 20 years finds out about her own removal via the college paper?? davidlat.substack.com/p/tiger-mother… @DavidLat

davidlat.substack.comTiger Mother Amy Chua Roars Back At Yale Law SchoolThe prominent professor has been stripped of certain teaching duties after allegations of misconduct — allegations she forcefully denies.

10:40 PM ∙ Apr 8, 2021

UPDATE (10:30 p.m.): In the penultimate paragraph, in response to another comment on Twitter, I have changed the reference to “tart-tongued truth-tellers” to “people who purport to be tart-tongued truth-tellers” (because I do not intend to personally endorse any particular position of Chuafeld as the “truth”).

From <https://davidlat.substack.com/p/tiger-mother-amy-chua-roars-back>

April 8, 2021

Dear Colleagues:

I hope you are all well and getting vaccinated. I know it’s been a challenging year and we all badly need some hope and optimism right now, but I’m afraid I’m writing about some recent unpleasant and disturbing events, including a story about me that came out last night in the Yale Daily News.  

At a bare minimum, whatever else you may think, every member of this faculty should be concerned that confidential personnel information about me has been disclosed.  If a letter in my personnel file can be leaked to students, anyone’s can be.  If the Administration is selectively leaking personnel files—whether to students, graduates, or the press—for its own reasons or purposes, whatever they may be, everyone should be alarmed.  

I respectfully request an outside investigation into the disclosure of confidential and private personnel information about me, as described below.

On Sunday, March 28, to my utter shock, I received an email from a Yale Daily News reporter named Julia Brown, who informed me that she was “working on an article about how you will not be leading a small group at the law school next year” and that “there will likely be a formal announcement about it on Monday.”  This was the first I’d heard of this.  (By the way, I had desperately not wanted to teach a small group, but Ian implored me for three months to take this on, and I finally agreed to do so back in January.)  The reporter’s email implied that the decision had been made on the basis of allegations that I had been recently “hosting parties” at my house— ridiculous allegations I had never heard before from anyone.  Finally, the email contained a shocking number of confidential details about an agreement I reached with Heather back in 2019, which the Daily News was apparently preparing to publish. 

In my dismay, I wrote an intemperate email to Heather:

Heather, I am so upset by this! This is totally false and I feel like I'm being bullied! How did they get all this information? And why am the last person to find out about the small group, which I didn’t want to teach anyway!?  What should I say to this reporter? Will the school stand by me??  

Heather and I agreed to a Zoom meeting at 5:15 that same evening, Sunday the 28th.  Because Ian was away, she said, Mike Wishnie would be on the call instead.

On the 5:15 Sunday Zoom call, I was treated absolutely degradingly, like a criminal. 

Heather confirmed what the reporter had told me: she had in fact decided that I was to be removed

P.O. BOX 208215, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT 06520-8215 • TELEPHONE 203 432-8715 • FACSIMILE 203 432-4570

COURIER ADDRESS 127 WALL STREET, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT 

06511 • EMAIL AMY.CHUA@YALE.EDU

April 8, 2021

Page 2

from the Small Group roster for next year, and (she said) she had been planning to tell me on Monday.  But instead of explaining how this information had made it the Daily News before being communicated to me, or why I’d been suddenly stripped of teaching a Small Group, or how on earth the Daily News could possibly have confidential personnel information about me (that had to have been originally disclosed by someone in the Administration), Heather said it was time for me to “be candid.”  Mike said nothing the whole time, and just took notes.  Besides Heather saying repeatedly, “This is the time for you to be candid, Amy,” she asked me over and over, “Did you have a federal judge to your house with students?”  

I honestly had no idea what she was talking about, and I felt that I was in an inquisition.  I was distraught and totally confused.  I kept asking what was going on.  A federal judge over to my house with students?!  No, no, no, I told her.  The suggestion is not only 100% false but (during COVID) ludicrous.  

As you may have seen, the terrible story in the Yale Daily News came out last night. I’m  speechless.  It is so out of sync with the truth I don’t know where to begin.

At the outset, let me state that I do not believe that I have violated anything in my agreement with Heather (which was confidential and also mischaracterized by the Yale Daily News).

Let me also just say that by asking me to teach a Small Group—in fact twisting my arm to do it!—the School was obviously expecting me to socialize with students, so the notion that I was under some kind of ban is hard to understand.

As I wrack my brain to try to imagine what “dinner parties” with students they could possibly be referring to, I can only think of a few possibilities—all of which I not only stand by, but am proud of.  As many of you know, there were a number of serious crises for our students in the last few months, including a student sending racist and terrifying violent messages to other students (and then disappearing), accusations of racism at the Law Journal, and most recently the outburst of anti-Asian violence that’s been in the news.  In the midst of these events, a few students in extreme distress reached out to me, feeling that they had no one else to turn to, many of them feeling that the law school administration was not supporting them.  Because we could not meet in the law school building, we met at my house, and I did my best to support them and console them.  One of the students had received death threats; another student was sobbing because of violence directed at her mother.  Jed was not present.  On my own time, I’ve responded to students’ cries for help and tried my hardest to mentor and comfort students in times of crisis when they feel hopeless and alone—and for this, it appears, I’m being punished and publicly humiliated without anything remotely resembling due process.

What I find most disturbing, however, and what I think every member of this faculty should find disturbing, is the following.

1. Confidential information about my agreement with Heather has been disclosed to students or the press.  Though the report of this agreement by the Daily News is inaccurate, there are enough correct details to leave no doubt that confidential information, known only to the Dean’s office, has somehow been disclosed.  This breach is a gross violation of the standards that April 8, 2021

Page 3

apply to all deans and all administrators at this University, and quite possibly a violation of law as well.

1. To this day, ten days after I was removed from next year’s Small Group roster, I still have received no explanation whatsoever from the Dean’s Office about why this decision was made.  I asked Heather, and she refused to answer.  My emails to her are not even replied to.  Instead I have been left to read allegations in the Yale Daily News.  On this score, the statement issued by the Dean to the Daily News is especially troubling because it is carefully worded to insinuate that the decision was made on the basis of allegations of misconduct—of which I was never informed.

1. The information that the Dean had decided to bar me from teaching a Small Group (again, an assignment I didn’t want), which should also have been confidential, was evidently communicated to students before the School even told me about it.  This also means that the decision to remove me from the Small Group roster was made before I had even learned that any allegations had been made against me, so that I had no chance at all to defend myself against whatever the allegations were.

I stand by my record of service to this school, and I could not be prouder of the help and support I’ve tried to give our students.  For what it’s worth, dozens of current and graduated students submitted emails protesting the School’s decision and attesting to the positive impact I’ve had in their lives, the majority of them (I believe) from students from minority or marginalized communities.  Many of these emails make the point that I am being targeted by “a small group of students” who have never taken a class from me and who oppose “controversial” opinions I’ve expressed.  Many of these emails also single out my work with students from underrepresented communities and express concern that the effect of this decision will be “racist and classist,” with a disparate impact on students of color and students from poorer backgrounds.

If you’ve read this far, thank you and sorry for taking so much of your time.  Let me add that I am not seeking reinstatement to the Small Group roster.  I do think, however, there should be an investigation into how these breaches of confidentiality occurred, with serious punishment for anyone found to be responsible.

Law professor Amy Chua loses small group following allegations of parties, misconduct

Julia Brown 9:58 pm, Apr 07, 2021

Staff Reporter Yale Daily

Sara Tabin, Contributing Photographer

Update, April 8: After the publication of this story, Chua sent a letter to her colleagues at the Law School denying allegations of “dinner parties” and denying that she had violated her 2019 agreement. She further criticized the Law School’s handling of her small group leadership status and called for an “outside investigation into the disclosure of confidential and private personnel information.“

Here is the original story:

Law professor Amy Chua will no longer be leading a first-year small group at the Yale Law School next year after students raised allegations that she is still hosting private dinner parties at the home she shares with her husband, suspended law professor Jed Rubenfeld, despite having agreed in 2019 to cease all out-of-class hours interactions with students.

Chua did not respond to multiple requests for comment on her 2019 agreement and punishment, the allegations or losing her small group.

Chua previously agreed to stop drinking and socializing with her students outside of class and office hours in response to allegations of misconduct, according to a December 2019 letter obtained by the News from Law School Dean Heather Gerken to affected parties. But law students met with Law School administrators on March 26 and brought forward documented allegations reviewed by the News that Chua has continued hosting private dinner parties with current Law School students and prominent members of the legal community. Three days later, Chua was removed from the list of professors who will lead small groups, which are intimate groups of around 15 first-year law students led by a professor at the Law School, for the 2021-22 academic year.

“While we cannot comment on the existence of investigations or complaints, the Law School and the University thoroughly investigate complaints regarding violations of University rules and the University adjudicates them whenever it is appropriate to do so,” Gerken wrote in a statement to the News. “Faculty misconduct has no place at Yale Law School. It violates our core commitments and undermines all the good that comes from an environment where faculty respect and support students. The Law School has a set of clearly articulated norms governing student-faculty interactions and is committed to enforcing them.”

The News spoke with seven Law School students and alumni, all of whom were granted anonymity due to fear of professional retribution, about Chua’s alleged misconduct and the terms of her punishment. They all emphasized the immense power and influence that Chua holds in the legal community and at Yale, including her prior service on a clerkship committee that helps law students secure their first jobs in the field.

Eleven students independently reached out to the News highlighting their positive experiences with Chua, particularly noting her efforts to support her students and encourage a diversity of opinion in classroom discussion.

Allegations of misconduct

Chua and Rubenfeld first came under public scrutiny in September 2018 when they reportedly told female law students that they needed to look and dress a certain way to attain clerkships for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90.

Rubenfeld is currently serving a two-year suspension from the Law School following a University Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct investigation into allegations of verbal harassment, unwanted touching and attempted kissing in the classroom and at his home. Students have since called for Rubenfeld’s permanent removal and demanded greater transparency about the findings of the sexual misconduct investigation into him, but University President Peter Salovey has not released any specifics about Rubenfeld’s case.

A report published in October by students from two groups at the Law School — Yale Law Women and the YLS Title IX Working Group — details a timeline of the case against Rubenfeld, which begins in September 2008 with a report of the “monthly soirees” held at Chua and Rubenfeld’s household. The report also reveals that Rubenfeld’s small group was reassigned in the fall of 2015 after an “informal investigation” from the Law School into his behavior in the classroom and at his house.

Gerken’s 2019 letter reveals that Law School alumni have brought forward allegations that Chua drank heavily with YLS students and remarked inappropriately on both students and faculty.

One recent Law School graduate told the News that she witnessed Chua and Rubenfeld “deliberate” on students’ appearances, private relationships and other topics during dinner parties that she attended at their house.

“Having been on the receiving end of that behavior, I know personally that it is not always welcome, and that it is not all in good fun,” the recent graduate wrote to the News. “They purport to be provocateurs, but in fact they’re just bullies. But, if you want Chua’s help — and she often touts how much she can help marginalized students — then you play by her rules.”

In a 2019 letter from Chua to affected parties obtained by the News, Chua wrote to express her “deep regret for anything [she] said and did in [her] interactions with students that might have impacted any students negatively,” acknowledging that she “can be unguarded or unfiltered.”

Chua’s private punishment

Gerken outlined the terms of Chua’s punishment in her 2019 letter to Chua.

In the letter, Gerken explains that Chua would not teach any required courses — which include small groups — for the 2020-21 academic year and would not resume teaching required courses until the Law School is “assured that the kind of misconduct alleged will not occur.” Chua also agreed to a “substantial” financial penalty, the amount and nature of which remains unclear.

The letter also explained that “under [Gerken’s] deanship,” Chua would not serve on the clerkship committee, which helps Law School students secure judicial clerkships. Chua told the Guardian in August that she voluntarily gave up this role and that it was a “pleasure to step back” because she “never wanted to be on the committee.”

Additionally, Chua also agreed “on her own initiative” to stop drinking with her students and socializing with them outside of class and office hours, according to the letter.

The Law School declined to comment on the terms of Chua’s punishment.

A broken agreement: The small group controversy

After not having led a small group since reaching the 2019 agreement, Chua was publicly renamed a leader of a first-year small group on March 22, according to an email obtained by the News outlining the application process for next year’s Coker Fellows — third-year law students assigned to each small group.

The small group is a defining part of the first-year experience at the Law School, with students in the same group attending all the same classes in their first semester and relying on the professor for initial mentorship, academic advice and professional connections. Students form strong relationships with their small group leader and often interact with the professor outside of regular class and office hours, according to law students that spoke with the News.

On March 26, multiple law students met with Law School administrators to discuss Chua’s appointment to lead a small group. The students alleged in the meeting that Chua has continued inviting current Law School students to her and Rubenfeld’s house for dinner parties — despite having agreed in 2019, according to Gerken’s letter, to cease drinking and socializing with students in all out-of-class settings.

After the meeting, a student submitted to Law School administrators a written affidavit detailing allegations that Chua hosted law students at her household for dinner on multiple occasions this semester, as well as documented communication between themself and other law school students who acknowledged having gone to Chua’s household. The News has reviewed these communications and has confirmed their receipt by Law School administrators, who declined to comment on the communications or allegations and referred the News to Gerken’s statement. 

The following Monday, on March 29, the Law School publicly reversed Chua’s appointment when they removed her name from the list of small group leaders on the Law School academic affairs website and subsequently added law professor James Forman Jr. LAW ’92. Forman did not respond to a request for comment.

Upon hearing that Chua had lost her small group, at least eight law students have sent emails to Gerken and other Law School administrators voicing their support for Chua, according to emails forwarded to the News.

Gerken has encouraged students who have experienced misconduct to reach out to Associate Dean Ellen Cosgrove, who oversees the offices of student affairs and career development and is the Law School Title IX coordinator.

Julia Brown | julia.k.brown@yale.edu

JULIA BROWN

Julia Brown served as University Editor on the Managing Board of 2023. Previously, she covered the University's graduate and professional schools as a staff reporter. She graduated cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in Economics & Mathematics.

From <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/04/07/law-professor-amy-chua-loses-small-group-following-allegations-of-parties-misconduct/#:~:text=Law%20professor%20Amy%20Chua%20loses%20small%20group%20following%20allegations%20of%20parties%2C%20misconduct,-Julia%20Brown%209&text=Update%2C%20April%208%3A%20After%20the,had%20violated%20her%202019%20agreement.>

2020nov09 Yale Daily| Salovey breaks silence on Rubenfeld report, but students remain unsatisfied

Julia Brown & Rose Horowitch 12:40 am, Nov 09, 2020

Staff Reporters  Yale Daily News

University President Peter Salovey has responded to a case study on the sexual misconduct allegations against tenured law professor Jed Rubenfeld.

Rubenfeld was suspended for two years following a 2018 University Wide Committee investigation into allegations of verbal harassment, unwanted touching and attempted kissing in the classroom and at his home. He “categorically and unequivocally” denies these allegations, Rubenfeld wrote in an email to the News.

Last month, students from the Yale Law School Title IX Working Group and Yale Law Women sent Salovey a report outlining how Rubenfeld’s case has demonstrated flaws in Yale’s policies around allegations of sexual misconduct. They demanded that the University make Rubenfeld’s suspension permanent, release the findings of its investigation to the extent legally possible and make critical changes to the UWC adjudication process. 

In a Nov. 3 email obtained by the News, Salovey responded to the leaders of the two groups. He addressed broader concerns around the University’s management of misconduct allegations, but did not offer any specifics about Rubenfeld’s case. Salovey’s email largely focused on explaining why Yale’s policies would remain the same, instead of implementing the suggestions outlined in the groups’ report. 

“It is disappointing that President Salovey took so long to send a response that neither meaningfully addresses the serious concerns we raised in our report nor indicates that Yale is working to fix a flawed system and actually protect students from predators on campus,” Yale Law Women chair Margaret House LAW ’22 wrote in an email to the News. “We are committed to continuing this work to make the process fairer and to continue advocating for justice for survivors.”

When asked for comment, University spokesperson Karen Peart referred the News to Salovey’s letter to the student groups and outlined the resources available to complainants.

Transparency in the Rubenfeld investigation

Rubenfeld faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct going back to April 2008, including claims that he attempted to kiss and touch students without consent.

“I believe it took courage for these students to come forward, and it came at a personal cost to them,” Rubenfeld wrote to the News. “I respect them for that, even if I deeply disagree with their claims.”

According to the student groups’ report, the University’s handling of misconduct allegations has been unnecessarily secretive. For example, Yale did not announce Rubenfeld’s suspension –– news of that came instead from an Aug. 26 New York Magazine article. 

The report requested that Yale release a “community impact statement” if a UWC investigation leads to disciplinary action. The statement would detail how the punishment protects the Yale community and how the panel decided on what information about the investigation to release. But according to Salovey, Yale informs the community about individual cases “when disclosure is deemed necessary to safeguard the campus environment or to support ongoing activities within a department or school.”

“I agree that there are merits to transparency as you point out in your report,” Salovey wrote in his email. “That said, the University also places a high priority on maintaining confidentiality in these cases. We continue to believe that parties in sexual misconduct cases would be discouraged from bringing their complaints forward if they understood that their matters would become public through University disclosure.”

Three students from the groups –– House, Yale Law Women advancement chair Sarah Baldinger LAW ’22 and former co-chair of the Title IX Working Group Mollie Berkowitz LAW ’21 –– spoke to the News in response to Salovey’s email. Their responses do not represent official stances for either student group. 

“The University should support accusers by releasing the findings of the [Rubenfeld] investigation,” Baldinger wrote in an email to the News. “Jed Rubenfeld has commented on the record about the investigation to reporters at publications like New York Magazine and the ABA Journal. When Rubenfeld is the only person who is allowed to speak publicly about the investigation, he gets to control the narrative and minimize the severity of the claims against him.”

According to Rubenfeld, these confidentiality rules apply to him as well, and there are “many things [he] can’t say.” Rubenfeld did tell the News that “completely false” information has been circulating about his case, disputing media reports that say he faced accusations of unwanted sexual touching. The University has not disclosed the specific allegations he faced.

But Rubenfeld has said in previous news stories that he has made comments he now regrets.

“Like a lot of professors from my generation,” Rubenfeld wrote to the News, “I said some things I now regret –– comments I wouldn’t make any more, stories I wouldn’t tell, and I of course will not repeat these mistakes in [the] future.”

After Rubenfeld’s two-year suspension, he will be able to return to teaching on campus. He is barred from teaching small groups or required courses and will be restricted in social gatherings with students.

The Yale Law Women and Title IX Working Group report urged Yale to permanently remove Rubenfeld from campus. The groups argued that Rubenfeld may harass students when he returns to campus, but the students aware of his earlier actions will have graduated, hampering institutional memory. 

Salovey did not offer any information regarding Rubenfeld’s return to campus in his response to the report. He also did not indicate that the University would release any findings from its investigation into Rubenfeld. 

The fight for pro bono representation

The groups also asked that the University provide free legal representation to all parties involved with University-Wide Committee, or UWC, proceedings. These proceedings, per new Title IX rules promulgated by the Trump administration, could include cross-examinations of those bringing forward allegations. 

As UWC hearings more and more resemble trials, Yale students who can afford private lawyers have already used them, the report said. It explained that, by not providing all students with pro bono representation, students from less privileged backgrounds are at a disadvantage when navigating the UWC process.

“Jed Rubenfeld has tremendous financial resources and unmatched connections within the legal profession,” the report reads. “An individual student with no professional guidance is likely to be outmaneuvered by a skilled lawyer and possibly deterred from pursuing their legal claims in the first place.”

On Sept. 1, the two student groups emailed UWC Chair professor Mark Solomon and University Title IX Coordinator Stephanie Spangler about this request. The two responded on Oct. 9 that they were informed that the University would not “provide or pay for” such legal representation, according to an email obtained by the News. 

Salovey’s recent email echoed Solomon and Spangler’s response from last month. He wrote that the University “carefully” considered the question of whether to provide complainants with lawyers. The University, Salovey wrote, decided that bringing lawyers into a “community-derived and community-focused” process would not be more equitable. Instead, Yale opted to maintain the existing system of having advisers from Yale’s Title IX Office — only some of whom have legal training — support students involved in Title IX investigations.

To evaluate whether this system works, the UWC has agreed to a review after a “reasonable” period of time, Salovey added. When asked how long until the UWC reviews its policies, Peart said it would happen “after the University has had experience using them.”

“On the attorney resource question, Salovey really misses the mark,” Berkowitz wrote in an email to the News. “Because they are not lawyers, the UWC’s advisors can’t help students meaningfully understand the potential legal consequences of their decisions around the UWC process and the conversations they have with the students they advise are not protected by attorney-client privilege.”

Berkowitz and Baldinger told the News that Salovey’s argument against adding lawyers to the UWC process fails to consider how lawyers are already involved –– but only to students who can afford their own lawyers or secure their own pro bono representation. As such, Berkowitz said Salovey’s refusal to provide counsel to those who can’t otherwise afford it “exacerbates existing inequities” at the University. 

The report’s other requests

Salovey also responded to the groups’ request that the University alert claimants if there are multiple accusations against the person they accuse. Yale needs a technology that allows people to make anonymous, sealed allegations and be alerted if another person accuses the same offender, the report reads. Students may be more likely to speak out against a professor if they know others had a similar experience, the report argued.

Yale’s Title IX Office already keeps a confidential central record of all complaints, Salovey wrote. If there are multiple accusations against the same person, Title IX coordinators may alert the UWC. Yale also conducts “climate reviews” to identify when someone’s behavior may have affected multiple people, Peart added. 

“We feel that the existing processes offer effective means for bringing forward multiple complaints,” Peart wrote in an email to the News.

Salovey said that he also agrees with the report’s stance that the UWC should take into account public safety when making decisions. He wrote that the UWC considers the safety and wellbeing of “all those who may be affected” by the committee’s findings, including members of the community who were not parties to the complaint, as well as the community at large.

Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken has encouraged students who have experienced misconduct to reach out to Associate Dean Ellen Cosgrove, who is the law school’s Title IX coordinator and oversees the offices of student affairs.

Julia Brown | julia.k.brown@yale.edu

Rose Horowitch | rose.horowitch@yale.edu 

JULIA BROWN

Julia Brown served as University Editor on the Managing Board of 2023. Previously, she covered the University's graduate and professional schools as a staff reporter. She graduated cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in Economics & Mathematics.

ROSE HOROWITCH

Rose Horowitch covers Woodbridge Hall. She previously covered sustainability and the University's COVID-19 response. She is a sophomore in Davenport College majoring in history.

From <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2020/11/09/salovey-breaks-silence-on-rubenfeld-case-study-but-students-remain-unsatisfied/>

2020sep03 Yale Daily Following Rubenfeld investigation, law professors and students demand transparency

John Besche 10:13 pm, Sep 03, 2020 Yale Daily

From <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2020/09/03/following-rubenfeld-investigation-law-professors-and-students-demand-transparency/>

Weeks after the University suspended Yale Law School professor Jed Rubenfeld due to allegations of harassment, students and professors are demanding that Yale conduct its sexual misconduct investigations in a more transparent way.

Publicity surrounding investigations into Rubenfeld’s conduct first appeared in 2018. In the years since, students said they never heard from administrators about proceedings surrounding Rubenfeld, who continued teaching throughout the investigation. Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken released a message to the broader Law School community last week, stating that while she is unable to comment on the existence of misconduct allegations, all matters of misconduct are dealt with “thoroughly.” Yale did not announce the suspension, and many members of the Law School community found out about the ruling through a New York Magazine article. At least two students and a coalition of 27 tenured professors — including Davenport Head of College John Witt ’94 LAW ’99 GRD ’00 and former Law School Dean Robert Post LAW ’77 — have addressed sexual misconduct at YLS via “The Wall,” a Law School community group email list.

“Student complaints of abuse and harassment always deserve to be heard and, if substantiated, require consequences,” the professors wrote in the letter. “[It] takes extraordinary courage, and trust, to file a complaint against a faculty member, and we express our support for students and others who show the courage to participate in the process.”

Students also wrote to the Yale Law School community and demanded that the University institute changes to make its investigations more transparent. Dianne Lake ’16 LAW ’21 emailed the Law School community on the day the Rubenfeld story broke and said that she was “deeply disappointed” that word of the investigation’s outcome did not come from the Law School administration. Lake added that the Law School must preserve its institutional memory, as most of its current students will have graduated by the time Rubenfeld returns at the end of his two-year suspension. She prefaced her her note with a statement of solidarity with victims of harassment who risked retaliation by coming forward.

“I urge you too to continue to reckon with and preserve this knowledge and continue to hold this institution accountable,” Lake said.

In an email to The Wall, Mollie Berkowitz LAW ’21 thanked the tenured professors for their letter. She also expressed discontent with the Yale Law School administration for its lack of transparency.

“I am extremely disappointed that neither Dean Gerken nor any members of the University administration, as far as I am aware, have made any explicit, clear statements to defend the integrity of the  process in light of [professor] Rubenfeld’s claim that he did not know the identities of those who made allegations against him,” Berkowitz wrote.

Berkowitz and Lake declined requests for comment.

Yale Law School Chief Communications Officer  Jan Conroy referred the News to University spokesperson Karen Peart, who wrote to the News on Thursday affirming Yale’s commitment to confidentiality in misconduct cases.

“Yale is committed to protecting confidentiality and preserving the integrity of its process for adjudicating cases of sexual misconduct,” Peart wrote. “For that reason, Yale does not confirm or deny the existence of such cases.”

Peart declined to comment on the University’s specific investigation of Rubenfeld.

One signatory to the tenured professors’ letter said Yale must rethink its protocols.

“I think the administration is doing everything in its power, but it does abide by University regulations, I think these privacy restrictions are certainly designed to protect complainants, and that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be protecting perpetrators,” law professor George Priest ’69 said. “Change the rules, Yale University and Yale Law School ought to be on the vanguard of changing these rules to protect victims and not perpetrators.”

Yale Law School will limit Rubenfeld’s interactions with students when he returns in 2022.

John Besche | john.besche@yale.edu

From <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2020/09/03/following-rubenfeld-investigation-law-professors-and-students-demand-transparency/>

2020Aug26 NYT | Yale Law Professor Is Suspended After Sexual Harassment Inquiry

Jed Rubenfeld, a high-profile professor who helped students obtain sought-after clerkships, denied he had harassed anyone.

By Mihir Zaveri New York Times

Aug. 26, 2020

Jed Rubenfeld, a prominent professor at Yale Law School, was widely known as someone who could jump-start students’ careers by helping them secure coveted clerkships with federal judges.

But this week, another narrative about Mr. Rubenfeld’s behavior toward students burst into public view as university officials said that Yale had suspended him from the faculty for two years and would restrict his interactions with students upon his return to the campus in New Haven, Conn.

The suspension followed a university investigation into allegations that Mr. Rubenfeld, a faculty member for 30 years, had sexually harassed female students, both verbally and by attempting to kiss or touch them without their consent, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry.

Image Jed RubenfeldCredit...Peter Kramer/NBCUniversal, via Getty Images

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Rubenfeld, 61, denied that he had harassed anyone, or kissed or touched anyone without consent. But he acknowledged making comments to students over the years that he regretted, and said inquiries into allegations against him had begun in 2018.

“I have been teaching for 30 years,” he said. “I have made jokes and comments that I would not make today and I wish I had not made. This may have made students uncomfortable. I respect students for coming forward if it did.”

He added: “But I never sexually harassed anybody. That’s a completely different thing.”

The news of the suspension was reported by New York magazine on Wednesday morning.

Former Yale Law School students have said that Mr. Rubenfeld, and his wife, Amy Chua, are seen as having a distinctive ability to land clerkships for favored students. Ms. Chua is also a law professor at Yale and is perhaps best known for her 2011 memoir, “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

Kathryn Pogin, who graduated from the law school this year and had a class with Mr. Rubenfeld, called Mr. Rubenfeld and Ms. Chua a “power couple.”

“They’re both very charismatic and well-connected,” said Ms. Pogin, who now studies philosophy at Northwestern University.

Ms. Chua declined to comment on Mr. Rubenfeld’s suspension. But she denied having “special connections” with judges.

“Many judges trust me because I am willing to put in the time to mentor and get to know my students, especially minorities and students from state schools and marginalized backgrounds that judges would normally not hire,” she said.

Yale is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the country. Student activists, however, have increasingly said in recent years that it has turned a blind eye to the behavior of its alumni and faculty. Their criticism grew in 2018, when Brett M. Kavanaugh, who graduated from the school in 1990, was nominated to the Supreme Court and allegations of sexual misconduct were leveled against him.

The news of Mr. Rubenfeld’s suspension was contained in a message sent to some faculty members earlier this week. His faculty web page was no longer accessible on Yale’s website on Wednesday, and emails sent to his Yale account did not go through.

Yale declined to comment on the suspension, but a message sent on Wednesday to the law school community from Heather K. Gerken, the dean of Yale Law School, acknowledged “press reports” regarding “faculty misconduct.”

“While we cannot comment on the existence of investigations or complaints, the law school and the university thoroughly investigate all complaints regarding violations of university rules and the university adjudicates them whenever it is appropriate to do so,” she said. “The law school has a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which all of our students can live and learn in a community of mutual respect.”

The people with knowledge of the inquiries, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said Ms. Gerken had pushed for a fair, thorough investigation into the allegations against Mr. Rubenfeld.

The professor himself had been outspoken about issues of sexual consent and how universities deal with rape investigations. In an op-ed published in The New York Times in 2014, he wrote that rape investigations were “unreliable and error-prone” and that “mistaken findings of guilt are a real possibility.” He also criticized definitions of consent, writing that “sex with someone under the influence is not automatically rape.”

In the interview on Wednesday, Mr. Rubenfeld said the op-ed drew heated criticism. “Ever since then, I began to be targeted with false allegations against me,” he added.

He declined to say whether he was being paid by the university during his suspension.

Ms. Pogin, the Yale graduate, said she was “pleasantly surprised” by the suspension.

“Meaningful accountability of tenured professors for sexual misconduct at Yale has historically been rare,” she said. “Given how long the university took with this investigation, many of us thought Yale was stalling until our class graduated, and so would no longer be there to protest if nothing happened.”

From <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/nyregion/jed-rubenfeld-yale.html>

2020aug26 NYMAG | Yale Law Professor Jed Rubenfeld Has Been Suspended for Sexual Harassment

Yale Law Professor Jed Rubenfeld Suspended for Sexual Harassment

34Comments

the law Aug. 26, 2020

ByIrin Carmon

On Monday morning, members of the Yale Law School faculty received a terse message from their provost informing them that Professor Jed Rubenfeld “will leave his position as a member of the YLS faculty for a two-year period, effective immediately,” and that upon his return, Rubenfeld would be barred from teaching “small group or required courses. He will be restricted in social gatherings with students.” As of Tuesday morning, he was no longer listed on the Yale Law faculty site.

Three people familiar with the investigation that led to Rubenfeld’s suspension said it stemmed from the university finding a pattern of sexual harassment of several students. The allegations, which spanned decades, included verbal harassment, unwanted touching, and attempted kissing, both in the classroom and at parties at Rubenfeld’s home.

In a phone conversation Tuesday, Rubenfeld told me, “I absolutely, unequivocally, 100 percent deny that I ever sexually harassed anyone, whether verbally or otherwise. Yes, I’ve said stupid things that I regret over the course of my 30 years as professor, and no professor who’s taught as long as I have that I know doesn’t have things that they regret that they said.”

He added, “Ironically, I have written about the unreliability of the campus Title IX procedures. I never expected to go through one of them myself.”

In 2014, for example, Rubenfeld wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that said that the university that puts in place affirmative-consent standards “encourages people to think of themselves as sexual assault victims when there was no assault” and that it is “illogical” to claim “intercourse with someone ‘under the influence’ of alcohol is always rape.”

Rubenfeld said Tuesday, “I think subsequent to me having written some controversial articles about sexual assault, that I became a target of people making false allegations against me.” Who was making these false allegations, exactly? “I don’t know,” Rubenfeld said, “because of confidentiality. Identities were not revealed to me.”

That’s not true, according to Yale’s stated policies — and one of the complainants. “License to write about sexual harassment is not license to sexually harass,” she told me. “I reported because I was sexually harassed. Now he’s being dishonest about even this aspect of the Title IX process. For example, as Yale’s policy requires, I identified myself to him. I had to, and I did so at considerable risk given his influence in the legal community.”

A spokesperson for Yale declined to comment. In a message to “members of the Yale Law School Community” on Wednesday morning, Dean Heather Gerken wrote, “While we cannot comment on the existence of investigations or complaints, the Law School and the University thoroughly investigate all complaints regarding violations of University rules and the University adjudicates them whenever it is appropriate to do so.” She added, “As Dean, I take this responsibility extraordinarily seriously.”

Multiple women told me that a whisper network about Rubenfeld operated on campus, and that as law-school students, they were warned by peers to be careful around him. One said she was told by a male alum, “You’ve not scraped the bottom of the barrel when it comes to Rubenfeld’s behavior. Stay away.”

Rubenfeld is married to fellow Yale Law professor Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and both wield power in the high-stakes race for judicial clerkships. In the summer of 2018, it was Chua who took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to vouch for then–Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor for young lawyers, particularly women.” (That was before allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh were made public.) The op-ed noted that the couple’s daughter had been about to clerk for Kavanaugh on the appeals court, and a year later, the Supreme Court acknowledged Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld would clerk for Justice Kavanaugh on the Court instead.

The Guardian first reported on the existence of the investigation into Rubenfeld’s conduct in the fall of 2018. He told the paper that he hadn’t been informed of the specifics but that he had been “advised that the allegations were not of the kind that would jeopardize my position as a long-tenured member of the faculty.” Female students also said that Rubenfeld and Chua discussed with students hoping to work for Kavanaugh the importance of their physical appearance. Chua denied telling students that Kavanaugh preferred attractive female clerks or coaching them on how to dress in “outgoing” fashion for interviews, though a Slate story subsequently reported it had “confirmed the Guardian’s reporting with students who were present at the time.”

From <https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/yale-professor-jed-rubenfeld-suspended-for-sexual-harassment.html>

2019jun11 nydaily | Daughter of ‘Tiger Mom’ Amy Chua, who wrote praiseworthy op-ed on Brett Kavanaugh, will work for him this summer

By Ella Torres  New York Daily News

Published: Jun 11, 2019

Amy Chua, left, wrote a praiseworthy piece about Brett Kavanaugh. Nearly a year later, her daughter is working for him. (Associated Press / Associated Press)

The daughter of Yale Law School professor Amy Chua, who was famously dubbed “tiger mom,” will work for Justice Brett Kavanaugh this summer after her mom sang his praises.

Yale Law graduate Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld will serve as a law clerk for Kavanaugh for a year, beginning this summer, according to the Associated Press.

Her new position comes nearly a year after Chua penned an op-ed commending Kavanaugh as a “a fierce champion of [his female clerks’] careers.” The subhead of the piece was titled “I can’t think of a better judge for my own daughter’s clerkship.”

“These days the press is full of stories about powerful men exploiting or abusing female employees,” Chua, who said she knew Kavanaugh after serving on the Yale panel that sought to place graduates in prestigious federal clerkships, wrote in July 2018.

“That makes it even more striking to hear Judge Kavanaugh’s female clerks speak of his decency.”

In this file photo taken on September 05, 2018 Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies during the second day of his US Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to be an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (SAUL LOEB / AFP/Getty Images)

The op-ed was published three months before professor Christine Blasey Ford came forward with sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh dating back decades ago. Kavanaugh denied the allegations.

Still, Chua faced criticism for the piece, with many pointing out its seemingly self-serving nature.

Chua-Rubenfeld responded to the backlash on Twitter, noting that she was in “college ROTC, went to law school on Army Ed Delay, and am joining the Active Duty JAG Corps right after my circuit clerkship (wherever that will be!)”

She said she would not be applying for a Supreme Court clerkship “anytime soon.”

Chua garnered national attention as the “tiger mom” after she wrote a book called “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” which described her tough Chinese-style parenting.

From <https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-amy-chua-daughter-working-for-brett-kavanaugh-20190611-ryuquwfsnveovg57ag3if4shfa-story.html>

2019jun11 | vogue | Tiger Mom Amy Chua Defended Kavanaugh—Less Than a Year Later, Her Daughter Got a Clerkship With Him

By Michelle Ruiz | vogue

June 11, 2019

Photo: Getty Images

For fans of Operation Varsity Blues comes another twisted tale of privilege. Amy Chua, Tiger Mom author, wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed last July extolling the virtues of then Supreme Court judicial nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor to women.”

Less than a year later, Kavanaugh has hired Chua’s daughter Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld (above, right) as a Supreme Court clerk set to begin this October.

Of course there’s more: Chua is a law professor at Yale, where Kavanaugh graduated from both undergraduate and law school (a double Yalie, if you will);

• Chua’s daughter Sophia graduated from Yale in 2018. (Deep sigh for all of the hard-working students out there who lack connections.)

• As the elder Chua announced in the WSJ op-ed just days after President Trump nominated Kavanaugh—and weeks before Christine Blasey Ford came forward to accuse him of assaulting her in high school—she’d gotten to know Kavanaugh “while serving on Yale Law School’s Clerkships Committee for most of the past 10 years” and vouched for his character.

As Chua also shared last year, Sophia was, at the time, already scheduled to start an appellate clerkship with Kavanaugh, so Chua was not—of course not, you cynics!—writing a glowing op-ed about him in a national newspaper for her or her daughter’s own potential, personal gain. In fact, her mother wrote, Sophia only stood to suffer from Kavanaugh’s nomination to the high court because it meant “if the judge is confirmed, my daughter will probably be looking for a different clerkship.”

 But she added, “for my own daughter, there is no judge I would trust more than Brett Kavanaugh to be, in one former clerk’s words, ‘a teacher, advocate, and friend.’” What a stunning coincidence that Sophia is now, in fact, once more clerking for this very judge, despite tweeting that she wouldn’t be “applying to SCOTUS anytime soon.”

In any case Chua’s op-ed has not aged well, after Ford’s historic testimony as well as accusations against Chua’s husband, Jed Rubenfeld, another Yale professor who helps place law clerks and who is under investigation for reported inappropriate conduct with students. Law students also told the Guardian that Chua told them that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s clerks “looked like models,” a claim she denied.

“These days the press is full of stories about powerful men exploiting or abusing female employees,” Chua wrote last year. “That makes it even more striking to hear Judge Kavanaugh’s female clerks speak of his decency and his role as a fierce champion of their careers.”

© 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Vogue may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices

CN Fashion & Beauty

Select international site

From <https://www.vogue.com/article/tiger-mom-amy-chua-kavanaugh-daughter-clerkship>

2018oct05 Slate | Investigation at Yale Law School

An inquiry into the actions of a prominent professor reveals why it’s so hard to report inappropriate behavior at the top law school in the country.

By Dahlia Lithwickand Susan Matthews

Oct 05, 2018 | SLATE

One afternoon late in her first year at Yale Law School, Linda sat down to create a contemporaneous record of a conversation she’d had the night before. She’d met with one of her professors, Jed Rubenfeld, in his office after hours at his suggestion, following repeated attempts to see him in the afternoon about a paper she was working on for him. Rubenfeld had made her uncomfortable throughout the year, commenting on her appearance and asking her about his. While friends had told her she had reason to feel creeped out by his behavior, Linda wondered whether she was being too sensitive and agreed to the 8 p.m. meeting. She really needed to make progress on the paper, after all. But given the queasy feeling she already had, she asked her partner to pick her up that night, and to come looking for her if he hadn’t heard from her after a reasonable amount of time.

Per Linda’s record, written the next day and shared with us recently, her conversation with Rubenfeld that evening quickly veered away from her paper. The professor asked her, “Why aren’t you married?” When Linda tried to steer the conversation to safe ground—mentioning how young she was and inquiring about his own marriage to fellow Yale Law School professor Amy Chua—Rubenfeld brought the focus back to her. He asked if she’d been the smartest girl in her high school, then if she’d been the prettiest. When she again deflected, he asked if her smarts had made things tough with the guys in school. The conversation meandered from there and never returned to her paper. Eventually, Rubenfeld said they should get going. By the time they left, Linda’s partner had come to look for her.

Linda, who today is a recent YLS alum, spent the rest of that academic year agonizing over what to do about her uncomfortable interactions with Rubenfeld, and experiencing more of them. One in particular sticks out: The Saturday night after exams wrapped up, Rubenfeld called her cellphone—the first time he had ever done that, she says. He said they’d never gotten a chance to talk about that paper and asked if she was free to do that now. Linda said she was busy preparing to leave New Haven and couldn’t meet, but said she was happy to talk on the phone. They had what Linda describes as a 30-second conversation about the paper before Rubenfeld quickly ended the call, saying he’d see her in September.

That summer, Linda spoke to Yale Law School’s Title IX coordinator. (Linda is a pseudonym, and to preserve her anonymity, we have chosen not to name the Title IX coordinator at the time, as it would identify her class year.) Her goal was twofold: She wanted to start a paper trail about Rubenfeld’s behavior, and she was looking for advice on what her options were for engaging the school’s Title IX process, the government-mandated means of investigating and stopping gender-based discrimination. According to Linda, the Title IX coordinator at the time told her at the very beginning of the call that if Linda named the professor during their conversation and the allegations were sufficiently serious, the coordinator would have to file a formal report. Once that process began, the coordinator said, Linda’s anonymity could not be guaranteed.

This was several years before #MeToo, and the prevailing wisdom at the time was that women should just lean in and push through when things got weird.

This put Linda in an enormously tough position. Schools need to protect the accused as well as the accusers, so it makes sense that Yale would ask women, or anyone alleging misbehavior, to attach their names to allegations. But it also makes sense that attaching her name would be incredibly difficult for Linda: Rubenfeld hadn’t just advised her on a paper. He also taught one of her courses, and he’d been her “small group” professor during the fall semester. (At Yale, each first-year law student is assigned to a 16- or 17-person small group. Those students take all of their courses together, including one course with just their group that’s led by one professor.) Until that April late-night meeting, Linda had generally considered Rubenfeld her advocate. She was counting on him to be one of her references on her clerkship applications, which she needed to submit soon after returning to campus in the fall. She worried that if she made a report or even told the Title IX coordinator his name, it could get back to Rubenfeld and she’d lose his support. This could undermine her chance to earn a prestigious clerkship with a federal judge—which would then make it harder for her to continue to pursue competitive opportunities, like the holy grail for Yale Law School students: a clerkship on the Supreme Court.

Linda was left with two terrible options: She could protect her clerkship prospects by subjecting herself to more unwelcome flirtation, or she could ask Yale to investigate Rubenfeld. The potential drawbacks to reporting seemed to greatly outweigh the upsides. This was several years before #MeToo, and the prevailing wisdom at the time was that women should just lean in and push through when things got weird. Linda questioned whether reporting her professor would make any difference at all.

So, she decided not to give the Title IX coordinator Rubenfeld’s name. Instead, she thought about how she would interact with him once she was back on campus. That fall, she devoted a good chunk of mental energy to protecting herself and her recommendation, keeping her distance from Rubenfeld while going out of her way not to offend him. By the end of the first semester of her second year, she’d gotten her clerkship—with Rubenfeld’s endorsement.

But in November of her third year, after seeing Rubenfeld exhibit some of the same behaviors toward first-year students that had made her uncomfortable in her own first year, including getting drunk with students and asking odd, sexually tinged questions in class (for instance, asking his small group class if anyone present had been raped), Linda became convinced she needed to try again. She reached out to the new Title IX coordinator at YLS. (At YLS, faculty members rotate through the role, though a YLS administrator simultaneously serves as an additional Title IX coordinator for the law school on a longer tenure.) Linda didn’t lodge a formal complaint—she believed by this point in her YLS career, there were professors who would take her seriously and work to resolve the issue without the formal process, and she still had hopes of applying to clerk on the Supreme Court, which meant she needed to stay in good standing with her professor recommenders. But she did reveal which professor she was talking about, after the Title IX coordinator, having heard the nature of her complaints, assured her that her anonymity could be maintained even if she named him. The Title IX coordinator was then able to conduct an informal investigation that spring, speaking to students who had been in Rubenfeld’s classes, and agreed not to file a formal report, honoring Linda’s request for anonymity.

The informal investigation happened over the course of the spring semester and wrapped up right around the time Linda graduated. Rubenfeld had been set to teach a small group in the fall and had hired his teaching assistants for it, but at the last minute, he ended up not teaching the class. He still taught his larger classes. The following year, Rubenfeld had his small group back. (We asked Yale why Rubenfeld didn’t teach a small group that fall, but the school declined to comment.)

Jennifer entered Yale Law School soon after Linda graduated and was assigned to Rubenfeld’s small group. Her description of Rubenfeld echoes what we’ve heard from several former and current YLS students we talked to for this story. “He’s a complicated person. I think he cares about his students—he wants to be an effective teacher,” Jennifer said. “But he’s also a provocateur. He lives and exists on the line.”

Rubenfeld tends to ask very personal questions in class. For example, he started the very first class of Jennifer’s small group asking if any of the students didn’t date people of certain racial backgrounds. Several current students told us that Rubenfeld had gotten drunk at small group gatherings and that when he did, his behavior would become more provocative. Many of his students told us that these sorts of interactions made them uncomfortable.

At the annual Harvard-Yale game party hosted by Rubenfeld and Chua, to which the entire small group was invited, he brought Jennifer into a conversation he was having with older students and asked whether she noticed anything different about him. Jennifer had no idea how to answer the question—why was he asking her about his physical appearance? She tentatively asked if he was growing out his beard (the most innocuous thing she could think of) before he revealed that he’d gotten a spray tan. She quickly left the conversation to rejoin others from her small group, but he eventually came over and engaged everyone in a conversation about the spray tan, saying that Jennifer had mocked him for it. The conversation continued until another student asked if they could move on to a different topic. The next time the small group gathered in class, Rubenfeld started his lesson by noting that Jennifer had subjected him to “professorial harassment” at the party by commenting on his appearance. She was mortified. Not content to let it go, he mentioned the interaction again in the next class.

“Everyone saw he was chiding me, noticing me,” Jennifer says. She worried that her classmates would think that she was encouraging it. (Several members of her small group told us that they also found these in-class comments deeply uncomfortable and that it was clear Rubenfeld was pursuing the topic in a strangely flirtatious manner.) “It was awful,” she told us. “I was frozen.”

The picture we got from these conversations is not one of straightforward abuse but rather a fraught and uncomfortable situation full of insinuation and pushed boundaries that can make learning difficult.

Rubenfeld’s behavior made Jennifer so uncomfortable that she considered skipping the end-of-semester small group party. Instead, she arrived very late, hoping to avoid him. When she got there, Rubenfeld immediately called attention to her arrival. Later, as others mingled around them, he leaned in close to her, repeating her name before saying, “What am I going to do with you?” Shocked and embarrassed, she tried to brush off the question, saying, “Cold call me in class?” But Rubenfeld leaned in further and said “…tickle you?” Jennifer replied, “I think that would be a terrible idea,” and walked away. (Rubenfeld did not reply to our repeated, detailed attempts to reach him about Linda’s and Jennifer’s allegations or any other parts of this story.)

Jennifer found a friend at the party and explained what had happened. The next afternoon, she created a new email account and wrote an anonymous email to the law school’s Title IX coordinator asking for information about what her options were for filing a complaint against a professor. (Jennifer is also a pseudonym, and to preserve her anonymity, we have again chosen not to name the Title IX coordinator at the time.) Specifically, she wanted to know: If she named the professor and said he had harassed her, would that professor automatically be notified of the allegation? At that point, she felt unsure of how to proceed but had made up her mind to do something.

In the course of reporting this story and corroborating Linda’s and Jennifer’s accounts, we spoke to more than a dozen recent Yale law students and graduates about the environment at Yale Law School. None of the students were willing to be named in this story, for fear of reprisal by Yale faculty, for fear of hurting their clerkship chances, or, for those who already are or were law clerks, for fear of embarrassing the prestigious judges they work or have worked for. We also spoke to several faculty members who confirmed the intensity of the competition and stakes around clerkships at the law school and noted that YLS was somewhat limited in its ability to resolve complaints of harassment, given that formal complaints are adjudicated at the university level. These students, alumni, and faculty all had slightly different reads on exactly how out of line Rubenfeld’s alleged behavior was (and some faculty members had no firsthand knowledge of it at all). Some described Rubenfeld as flirtatious and line-crossing; others called his behavior harassment. The picture we got from these conversations is not one of straightforward abuse but rather a fraught and uncomfortable situation full of insinuation and pushed boundaries that can make learning difficult and has the potential to push women out of the pipeline for the most prestigious and competitive areas of the law. This type of behavior, which is frequently dismissed as “borderline” or “creepy” and not worth making a formal fuss over, can have very real consequences. The two main obstacles that made it difficult for Linda and Jennifer to report this behavior were a Title IX process that seems incapable of tracking multiple complaints against a single faculty member and this particular faculty member’s connection to a clerkship process that makes students enormously reliant on pleasing certain professors.

Yale’s Title IX system, like most university Title IX systems, is not easy to navigate. The Title IX office formally operates at the university level, and then each school has an assigned coordinator. If a student brings a complaint to any Title IX coordinator at the school (but not university) level, it can be investigated “informally” by that coordinator, in a process that is largely intended to be ameliorative. For example, at the informal level, the Title IX coordinator might brainstorm solutions so that a student would no longer need to interact with a certain faculty member. In the informal process, it is possible for the students’ anonymity to be maintained, as long as the alleged conduct does not violate Yale policy (if it did, the Title IX coordinator would be obligated to make a formal report). This process can also yield a recommendation of discipline to the dean of the particular school but not formal discipline itself. If a Title IX coordinator thinks there is enough concerning evidence to warrant a formal complaint, the Title IX coordinator can bring the complaint on behalf of the student, but the student’s identity is guaranteed to be revealed in the course of that process.

If a student (or Title IX coordinator) files a formal Title IX complaint with the university’s Title IX office, the accused will be notified of the complaint, a fact-finder is dispatched to determine the circumstances of the situation, and eventually a trial-style hearing is scheduled and heard by the University-Wide Committee. As listed on the UWC’s own website, in reviewing such a case, the UWC can only consider previous formal investigations that resulted in discipline. What that means is that if Jennifer had pursued a formal complaint against Rubenfeld, Linda’s previous complaints would not have been considered in the UWC adjudication process. The Title IX system makes it difficult for the school to recommend discipline based on a pattern of behavior unless several women are willing to lodge individual formal complaints or sign onto a Title IX officer’s complaint, and in both instances the students would be required to sacrifice their anonymity.

Jennifer’s anonymous email eventually led to conversations with the YLS Title IX coordinator, and those conversations eventually prompted YLS to hire an independent investigator to look into Rubenfeld’s behavior. The investigation, which launched in the spring of 2018, is a very unusual step, according to everyone we spoke to at the school, because it is outside the bounds of either the formal or informal processes. It has allowed Yale Law School to cast a wider net to investigate Rubenfeld’s behavior over a longer period of time and to consider inappropriate behavior beyond just gender-based discrimination and harassment. It is unclear how or why the law school was able to circumvent the Title IX process laid out above, and YLS declined to answer our questions about its decision-making. Representatives from the school did note that it is the university, not the law school, that retains authority over whether Rubenfeld loses his tenured position, should it ever come to that. (Rubenfeld recently said he has been told that his job is not in jeopardy, but the dean of the law school, Heather Gerken, responded with a statement saying that no options were off the table.)

In a statement provided to Slate, Gerken wrote the following:

Allegations of faculty misconduct are of deep concern to me and to the School. It is our responsibility to ensure that our students live and learn in a community of mutual respect. As Dean, I take this responsibility extraordinarily seriously. I strongly encourage any members of our community who have been affected by misconduct to contact my office directly. The community has my word that all allegations are investigated as fairly, thoroughly, and expeditiously as possible.

This is a moment of reflection for this institution where we are called upon to live up to our best values. We are listening to that call, working in partnership with our students and alumni.

The Rubenfeld investigation had been an open secret on the Yale campus since it started in the spring, but its existence was officially reported by the Guardian for the first time on Sept. 20. It was a side note in a story about Rubenfeld and his wife and YLS colleague, Amy Chua, telling their students that current Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh liked his female clerks to have “a certain look.” (It was also reported that the pair had warned certain students away from clerking for former 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge Alex Kozinski, because he sexually harassed women. Kozinski stepped down from the bench in December after credible allegations of sexual harassment were levied against him.) Chua, who is one of the professors who helps students get clerkships, has refuted the Guardian’s claims about her telling students to look a certain way for Kavanaugh as “100 percent false,” but we have confirmed the Guardian’s reporting with students who were present at the time. As for Rubenfeld, he told the Guardian:

In June, Yale University informed me that it would conduct what it terms an “informal review” of certain allegations, but that to preserve anonymity, I was not entitled to know any specifics. As a result, I do not know what I am alleged to have said or done. I was further advised that the allegations were not of the kind that would jeopardize my position as a long-tenured member of the faculty.

For some years, I have contended with personal attacks and false allegations in reaction to my writing on difficult and controversial but important topics in the law. I have reason to suspect I am now facing more of the same. While I believe strongly that universities must conduct appropriate reviews of any allegations of misconduct, I am also deeply concerned about the intensifying challenges to the most basic values of due process and free, respectful academic expression and exchange at Yale and around the country.

Nevertheless, I stand ready to engage with this process in the hope that it can be expeditiously concluded.

After the Guardian story broke, Above the Law published a letter (which it ran without attribution) that it says went out to YLS alumni over the summer, providing some details about the independent investigator and encouraging alumni to “reach out to her if they have something to share.” The letter claims that the investigator is interested in hearing about, among other things, instances of “retaliation against students who do not show sufficient loyalty.” This concern over retaliation was something we heard about from several of our sources, it is connected to Chua’s role on the Yale Law clerkship committee, and it is another layer of what made reporting Rubenfeld’s behavior so difficult for students.

Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld appear on the Today show in 2014.Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images.

A Supreme Court clerkship is an all-but-certain pathway to the upper echelons of power. It vaults former clerks into the best, highest-paying jobs at the finest law firms, and it opens doors to the most prestigious academic institutions. Neil Gorsuch, Elena Kagan, and John Roberts all clerked at the court on which they sit today. Brett Kavanaugh, a Yale Law School alum, clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy. While law students are sold on the idea that the few dozen clerks who apprentice at the Supreme Court each year are bar none the smartest and most meritorious young lawyers alive, the children of sitting justices and prominent appellate judges somehow end up in that select group every year. Among the recent crop of Supreme Court clerks is a Kozinski, an Alito clerked for Kavanaugh, and Rubenfeld and Chua’s daughter, a current Yale law student, has signed on to clerk for Kavanaugh wherever he ends up.* And it’s not just Supreme Court clerkships that students covet. Clerkships with so-called feeder judges—the federal appellate judges (almost all white men) who routinely place their law clerks on the high court—are also highly competitive.

Yale Law School isn’t just the top-ranked law school in the country. It’s also the best possible launching pad for aspiring clerks. Roughly 50 percent of YLS students from the classes of 2013 to 2017 got clerkships of some kind. This is a truly remarkable number—most law schools’ clerking rates barely crack into double digits, while even Harvard’s (19 percent) and Stanford’s (26 percent) don’t come close to that of Yale (though Harvard’s total enrollment is much larger than Yale’s).

For students who don’t arrive at Yale with fancy last names, getting a position working for a federal judge can be as much about networking as it is about academic performance. “A clerkship … isn’t something you apply to as much as it’s something that happens to you,” one student told us. Clerkships are brokered through relationships, with influential professors holding enormous sway over the process due to their access to both the Supreme Court justices and the “feeder” judges. At Yale, students’ reliance on faculty relationships and recommendations is exacerbated by the school’s policy of not giving grades to first-year students. The first semester is graded as pass/fail, while the second is pass, fail, or honors. (This is also the case at Harvard and Stanford, but most other law schools assign grades.) While this grade-free ethos is supposed to decrease pressure on new students, the reality is that it leaves judges with a limited academic record with which to assess prospective candidates, so they have to depend even more heavily on faculty recommendations. This means students work hard to curry favor with the handful of faculty known to be influential in the clerkship process. Chua is one of those professors.

Nearly every student we spoke to for this story noted that Chua has done extraordinary work placing women and minorities in prestigious clerkships that for decades only went to white men. She is widely heralded for going out of her way to be inclusive, organizing dinners at her house for student groups and giving students straight answers to questions about the otherwise opaque clerkship process. This meant that many students, particularly first-year students, approached Chua for advice, even when they didn’t have any classes with her.

And yet this influence seems to have had a downside, at least from the perspective of several of the students we spoke to. One student said that what makes applying for clerkships at Yale so fraught is “the extent to which the entire system was orbiting around just one person.” (There are other faculty members who also have a lot of influence on clerkship placements, but Chua is the most visible.) Many students told us that they felt they had to maintain a good relationship with Chua and Rubenfeld, so as not to screw up their chances. Multiple students described scenarios in which getting in with Rubenfeld, via work or teaching assistance or research, was understood to be a way to get onto Chua’s shortlist too. And this dynamic, they believe, worked in both directions.

In November 2014, Rubenfeld published an op-ed in the New York Times titled “Mishandling Rape.” That piece, a critique of universities’ efforts to adjudicate sexual assault claims internally, contended that schools had broadened the definition of rape to such a degree as to “trivialize” sexual assault. Embedded in the piece was the argument that intoxication isn’t always a barrier to consent. “In fact, sex with someone under the influence is not automatically rape,” Rubenfeld wrote.

Some students knew the piece was coming before it was published—Rubenfeld had talked about it, and his ideas around drinking and sex, while drinking with students—but as soon as it appeared in the Times, it created a stir on campus. A small group of students drafted an open letter condemning the op-ed, which was posted on a school listserv. Students began adding their names to the open letter and later some organized a town hall to express their disapproval, which Rubenfeld attended. “It seemed like students were responding to more than just the content of the op-ed,” one student told us of the aftermath. “There was a sense that [Rubenfeld] was a creep and without other channels to express that, I think people brought their anger to that town hall.”

Both Linda and Jennifer say they came forward in the hopes that there won’t be a Jennifer or Linda next year, or the year after.

According to multiple sources who were on campus at the time, Chua did not react well to the criticism of her husband’s op-ed. At a drinks event attended by several students in the wake of the town hall, Chua said she would “call every justice on the Supreme Court” to ensure that one of the student organizers behind the open letter did not get a clerkship, according to two students who were there. It’s unclear if Chua was just venting or if she was serious (in a statement to Slate, she vehemently denied making that comment or taking any such action), but it still made an impression with some students on campus, creating a sense that crossing Chua or Rubenfeld could be detrimental to their careers.

Chua is currently on medical leave this semester—she was hospitalized over the summer with a serious illness and is still recovering. In response to our questions about this incident, she emailed: “After my husband’s op-ed came out, I did my best to stay out of the fray and refrain from making any comment on the issue.” She also noted that she wrote letters of recommendation and “passionately advocated” for students who signed the letter about the op-ed when they were applying to clerkships and that many students did get the clerkships they wanted.

One thing that struck us while reporting this story is that many people we talked to seemed to take as a given that Rubenfeld crossed lines with students, that the relationship between Rubenfeld and Chua created a toxic atmosphere around clerkships, and that the university process for dealing with such things hasn’t been working.

Several Yale faculty members we spoke with said that, while there are problems around the clerkship process, students who drink with “worldly and urbane” professors like Chua and Rubenfeld are going in with their eyes open, and assume their own risks. Others told us that the administration is currently doing what it can to improve a flawed Title IX system and that if more students and former students come forward and report, the stigma of doing so will decline. Many students and recent alumni spoke highly of Gerken, the current dean of Yale Law School, and her attempts to resolve some of these systemic issues. Starting this year, for instance, Yale Law students will participate in a reformed clerkship process. The system was created in collaboration with federal judges and many other law schools, and dictates that law students will not be allowed to apply to clerkships until the conclusion of their second year, by which point they have received real grades and have had more time to establish relationships with faculty. (This change in the clerkship process has been attempted before, eventually dissolving as judges started to pre-empt the system to try to secure the best clerks earlier and earlier.) Gerken has also worked to bolster the Title IX process, sources said. (The first independent Title IX investigator was hired under her watch.) There are also ongoing efforts to make information about the Title IX reporting system a more formal part of the school’s curriculum, and students working on this issue said Gerken has been supportive of that work.

The result of the current investigation and Rubenfeld’s future at the school is still unknown. Yale Law School has made it plain to us that it wants students and alumni to come forward with their relevant experiences, and we believe that. Linda expressed hope at the prospect of the independent investigator gaining a broader understanding of the scope of the allegations against Rubenfeld but noted that “if the law school truly had been committed to ensuring equal opportunities for female students, it would have done this years ago.” Both Linda and Jennifer say they came forward in the hopes that there won’t be a Jennifer or Linda next year, or the year after. They’re frustrated that they will likely still need to participate in a high-profile, trial-style UWC hearing after the independent investigation concludes, something they fear would harm their professional future. “I came forward because I believed that professor Rubenfeld’s conduct was wrong and, left unchecked, would continue to visit personal, professional, and educational harm,” Jennifer told us. “That decision wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was knowing that, even if other women filed complaints as well, the process would operate to divide and conquer our claims.”

The Yale Law School student is, after all, smart enough to know how this all works.

If you have further information on this piece, please email susan.matthews@slate.com.

From <https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/jed-rubenfeld-amy-chua-yale-law-school.html>

2018sep21 FACULTY LETTER | open Letter to Senate Judiciary Committee from Yale Law Faculty

Friday, September 21, 2018

https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/open-letter-senate-judiciary-committee-yale-law-faculty

As the Senate Judiciary Committee debates Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, we write as faculty members of Yale Law School, from which Judge Kavanaugh graduated, to urge that the Senate conduct a fair and deliberate confirmation process. With so much at stake for the Supreme Court and the nation, we are concerned about a rush to judgment that threatens both the integrity of the process and the public’s confidence in the Court.

Where, as here, a sexual assault has been alleged against an individual nominated for a lifetime appointment in a position of public trust, a partisan hearing alone cannot be the forum to determine the truth of the matter. Allegations of sexual assault require a neutral factfinder and an investigation that can ascertain facts fairly.  Those at the FBI or others tasked with such an investigation must have adequate time to investigate facts. Fair process requires evidence from all parties with direct knowledge and consultation of experts when evaluating such evidence. In subsequent hearings, all of those who testify, and particularly women testifying about sexual assault, must be treated with respect.

The confirmation process must always be conducted, and appointments made, in a manner that gives Americans reason to trust the Supreme Court.  Some questions are so fundamental to judicial integrity that the Senate cannot rush past them without undermining the public’s confidence in the Court. This is particularly so for an appointment that will yield a deciding vote on women’s rights and myriad other questions of immense consequence in American lives.

Amy Kapczynski

Reva Siegel

Doug NeJaime

Muneer Ahmad

Owen Fiss

Harold Hongju Koh

Robert Post

Abbe Gluck

Judith Resnik

Dennis E. Curtis

Scott Shapiro

Steven Duke

Gideon Yaffe

Paul W. Kahn

Doug Kysar

Bruce Ackerman

John Fabian Witt

Claire Priest

J.L. Pottenger, Jr. 

Stephen Wizner

Cristina Rodríguez

W. Michael Reisman

Fiona Doherty

Alvin K. Klevorick

Oona Hathaway

Jack Balkin

David Singh Grewal

Mike Wishnie

Issa Kohler-Hausmann

James Silk

James Forman, Jr.

Taisu Zhang

Monica Bell

Miriam Gohara

Carol Rose

Anika Singh Lemar

Zachary Liscow

Marisol Orihuela

Daniel Markovits

Vicki Schultz

Lea Brilmayer

Yair Listokin

Tom Tyler

Ian Ayres

Tracey Meares

Jean Koh Peters

Susan Rose-Ackerman

Anne Alstott

Teresa M. Miguel-Stearns

Robert W. Gordon

From <https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/open-letter-senate-judiciary-committee-yale-law-faculty>

2018Sep21 Yale Daily | YLS professors said Kavanaugh picked attractive clerks

Adelaide Feibel 2:20 am, Sep 21, 2018 Yale Daily

Staff Reporter

Married Yale Law School professors Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld are under intense scrutiny after The Guardian reported on Thursday that the two faculty members separately told female law students interviewing with Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90 that the Supreme Court nominee prefers female clerks who are good-looking and attractively dressed.

Last year, Chua privately told a group of law school students that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female clerks “looked like models,” according to The Guardian’s account, which was based on interviews with anonymous law students. She recommended that female clerks dress in an “outgoing way,” The Guardian reported.

The Guardian also reported that Rubenfeld is the subject of an internal Yale Law School investigation focusing on his conduct toward female students, among other issues. Later on Thursday, the legal news website Above the Law reported that the law school has hired Title IX investigator Jenn Davis to look into Rubenfeld’s conduct, including allegations that he inappropriately commented on female students’ appearances and drove with his students while drunk. The law blog attributed that information to an email circulated to law school alumni this summer but did not specify who sent it.

Chua and Rubenfeld did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday. Chua cancelled her classes at the beginning of the semester after being hospitalized with a serious, undisclosed illness. But in email statements to The Guardian, neither professor denied telling students that Kavanaugh preferred attractive female clerks.

Yale Law School spokeswoman Janet Conroy said that this was the first time the law school has heard claims about such advice being given to students.

“We will look into these claims promptly, taking into account the fact that Professor Chua is currently unreachable due to serious illness,” Conroy wrote in a statement to the News. “If true, this advice is clearly unacceptable.”

Conroy added that the law school did not send out the email cited by Above the Law, which did not respond to inquiries about the origin of the email.

Dean of Yale Law School Heather Gerken wrote in an email to the law school community on Thursday that the allegations reported in The Guardian “are of enormous concern to me and to the School.”

“The Law School has a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which all of our students can live and learn in a community of mutual respect, free of harassment of any kind. I take this responsibility extraordinarily seriously,” Gerken wrote. “Faculty misconduct has no place at Yale Law School. You have my word that we will take appropriate action on any complaints.”

Kavanaugh has come under fire in the past week after California psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford came forward with the bombshell allegation that he forcibly held her down and attempted to sexually assault her when they were in high school in the 1980s.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination two months ago, many of the judge’s clerks and former law school professors have enthusiastically vouched for him. While some faculty members and alumni have criticized the nomination and Yale’s enthusiastic response to it, the likes of Chua and Akhil Amar ’80 LAW ’84 have defended Kavanaugh as a supporter of women and an impartial interpreter of the Constitution.

Chua is a vocal supporter of Kavanaugh; in July, she penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal calling Kavanaugh a “mentor to women.” Her daughter accepted a clerkship with the judge last year.

“If the judge is confirmed, my daughter will probably be looking for a different clerkship. But for my own daughter, there is no judge I would trust more than Brett Kavanaugh to be, in one former clerk’s words, ‘a teacher, advocate, and friend,’” Chua wrote.

Law professor George Priest ’69 told the News he had no knowledge of the allegations that Chua and Rubenfeld advised women to dress like models before interviews with Kavanaugh. Priest said he knew Kavanaugh as a student and has served as a reference for him.

“I am skeptical that appearance made any difference in whom he chose as clerks,” Priest said.

A former Yale Law School student and female law clerk for Kavanaugh, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of receiving hate mail and threats, said she does not know what “misguided advice” some students have received about how to best prepare for clerkships.

The former clerk defended Kavanaugh, saying he chooses clerks based on their qualifications and intellect. The integrity of Kavanaugh’s clerk selection process manifests in the fact that 39 out of Kavanaugh’s 48 clerks have gone on to clerk at the Supreme Court, she said.

“To suggest anything to the contrary is irresponsible and offensive,” she added.

Asked to comment on the internal investigation into Rubenfeld, Conroy told the News that she can neither confirm nor deny any complaints or investigations. In her communitywide email, Gerken said she could not comment on individual misconduct cases.

But in a statement to The Guardian, Rubenfeld wrote that Yale informed him in June that the University was conducting an “informal review” of allegations against him. Rubenfeld said he was not given any specifics to preserve the anonymity of the complainants. He said he was informed that the allegations were not the type that would “jeopardize [his] position as a long-tenured member of the faculty.”

Gerken wrote in her communitywide email that the law school and the University “thoroughly investigate” all misconduct complaints and “take no options off the table.”

“Neither the law school nor the University prejudge the outcomes of investigations. Any statement to the contrary are inaccurate,” Gerken wrote.

A free-speech warrior, Rubenfeld told The Guardian he suspected that these allegations are just another “personal attack” in response to his writing on “difficult and controversial but important topics in the law.”

“While I believe strongly that universities must conduct appropriate reviews of any allegations of misconduct, I am also deeply concerned about the intensifying challenges to the most basic values of due process and free, respectful academic expression and exchange at Yale and around the country,” Rubenfeld said.

Chua is best known for her 2011 book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” which advocates a highly demanding approach to parenting. In 2014, the couple co-wrote “The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America” to mixed reviews.

During his time at the law school, Kavanaugh was a notes editor for the Yale Law Journal.

Adelaide Feibel | adelaide.feibel@yale.edu

Clarification, Sept. 21: A previous version of this story omitted the fact that Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken wrote in her community wide email that the Law School and the University do not prejudge investigation outcomes. The story has been updated to reflect this fact. 

 ADELAIDE FEIBEL

From <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/09/21/yls-professors-said-kavanaugh-picked-attractive-clerks/>

'No accident' Brett Kavanaugh's female law clerks 'looked like models', Yale professor told students

Guardian learns Amy Chua said she would advise students on their physical looks to help win post in Kavanaugh’s chambers

• Kavanaugh’s confirmation battle locked in stalemate as accuser goes silent

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington and Jessica Glenza in New York

Thu 20 Sep 2018 10.16 EDTLast modified on Fri 21 Sep 2018 05.20 EDT

A top professor at Yale Law School who strongly endorsed supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor to women” privately told a group of law students last year that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female law clerks all “looked like models” and would provide advice to students about their physical appearance if they wanted to work for him, the Guardian has learned.

Amy Chua, a Yale professor who wrote a bestselling book on parenting called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, was known for instructing female law students who were preparing for interviews with Kavanaugh on ways they could dress to exude a “model-like” femininity to help them win a post in Kavanaugh’s chambers, according to sources.

Sign up for the US morning briefing. We’ll email you the first briefing on Monday, 24 September.

Kavanaugh is facing intense scrutiny in Washington following an allegation made by Christine Blasey Ford that he forcibly held her down and groped her while they were in high school. He has denied the allegation. The accusation has mired Kavanaugh’s confirmation in controversy, drawing parallels to allegations of sexual harassment against Justice Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill in the 1990s.

Yale provided Kavanaugh with many of the judge’s clerks over the years, and Chua played an outsized role in vetting the clerks who worked for him. But the process made some students deeply uncomfortable.

One source said that in at least one case, a law student was so put off by Chua’s advice about how she needed to look, and its implications, that she decided not to pursue a clerkship with Kavanaugh, a powerful member of the judiciary who had a formal role in vetting clerks who served in the US supreme court.

In one case, Jed Rubenfeld, also an influential professor at Yale and who is married to Chua, told a prospective clerk that Kavanaugh liked a certain “look”.

“He told me, ‘You should know that Judge Kavanaugh hires women with a certain look,’” one woman told the Guardian. “He did not say what the look was and I did not ask.”

Sources who spoke to the Guardian about their experiences with Chua and Rubenfeld would only speak under the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution and damage to their future careers. Some elements of this story were first published by the Huffington Post.

[Rubenfeld] told me, 'Kavanaugh hires women with a certain look'. He did not say what the look was and I did not ask

Anonymous source

Chua advised the same student Rubenfeld spoke to that she ought to dress in an “outgoing” way for her interview with Kavanaugh, and that the student should send Chua pictures of herself in different outfits before going to interview. The student did not send the photos.

There is no allegation that the female students who worked for Kavanaugh were chosen because of their physical appearance or that they were not qualified.

However, the remarks from Chua and Rubenfeld raise questions about why the couple believed it was important to emphasize the students’ physical appearance when discussing jobs with Kavanaugh. The couple were not known to do that in connection with other judges, sources said.

“It is possible that they were making observations but not following edicts from him,” said one student who received such instructions. “I have no reason to believe he was saying, ‘Send me the pretty ones’, but rather that he was reporting back and saying, ‘I really like so and so,’ and the way he described them led them to form certain conclusions.”

Kavanaugh is close to Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose retirement from the supreme court left an opening, and Kavanaugh was one of three judges who vetted clerks to serve in Kennedy’s chambers. His role as a so-called “feeder” judge made his clerkships among the most coveted posts for law students across the country, but especially at his alma mater, Yale.

According to one source, Chua invited a group of students that she mentored to a bar last year to catch up and discuss their plans for clerkships. The conversation turned to a high-profile #MeToo case that was emerging in the news at the time involving a well-known public figure.

The group began to talk about whether the federal judiciary would ever face similar scrutiny, and, according to a source, Chua said she did not believe it would. She told the students she had known about allegedly abusive and harassing behavior by another judge, Alex Kozinski, who was head of the ninth circuit and was forced to retire from the bench last year after more than a dozen women accused him of harassment.

Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld pictured in 2014.Photograph: Mike McGregor/The Guardian

The conversation then turned to Kozinski’s protege and good friend Kavanaugh, who one source said was a familiar name even though he had not yet been nominated to the high court. Chua allegedly told the students that it was “no accident” that Kavanaugh’s female clerks “looked like models”. Student reacted with surprise, and quickly pointed out that Chua’s own daughter was due to clerk for Kavanaugh.

A source said that Chua quickly responded, saying that her own daughter would not put up with any inappropriate behaviour.

Chua has cancelled her classes at Yale this semester and, according to her office, has been hospitalised and is not taking calls. Rubenfeld sent an email to the Yale Law School community that said his wife had been ill and in hospital and had a long period of recuperation ahead of her.

The Guardian has learned that Rubenfeld is currently the subject of an internal investigation at Yale. The investigation is focused on Rubenfeld’s conduct, particularly with female law students. Students have also raised related concerns to Yale authorities about Chua’s powerful influence in the clerkships process. The investigation was initiated before Kavanaugh was nominated by Donald Trump to serve on the high court.

Rubenfeld said in a statement to the Guardian: “In June, Yale University informed me that it would conduct what it terms an ‘informal review’ of certain allegations, but that to preserve anonymity, I was not entitled to know any specifics. As a result, I do not know what I am alleged to have said or done. I was further advised that the allegations were not of the kind that would jeopardize my position as a long-tenured member of the faculty.

This is the first we have heard claims that Chua coached students to look ‘like models’. We will look into these claims

Yale law school

“For some years, I have contended with personal attacks and false allegations in reaction to my writing on difficult and controversial but important topics in the law. I have reason to suspect I am now facing more of the same. While I believe strongly that universities must conduct appropriate reviews of any allegations of misconduct, I am also deeply concerned about the intensifying challenges to the most basic values of due process and free, respectful academic expression and exchange at Yale and around the country.

“Nevertheless, I stand ready to engage with this process in the hope that it can be expeditiously concluded.”

In a statement, Yale Law School said it could not confirm or deny the existence of an internal investigation.

A Yale Law School official said in an emailed statement: “This is the first we have heard claims that Professor Chua coached students to look ‘like models’. We will look into these claims promptly, taking into account the fact that Professor Chua is currently unreachable due to serious illness. If true, this advice is clearly unacceptable.”

The official added: “I can assure you that we take allegations of faculty misconduct very seriously.”

Brett Kavanaugh: will sexual misconduct claims derail his appointment?

Read more

Chua and her husband are towering figures at Yale and were described by one student as being the centre of gravity at the elite law school, connecting students to jobs and clerkships, and rewarding loyalty.

The couple wrote a controversial book together in 2014 called The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America. It said that a mix of feeling superior with some insecurity were two traits that led to success. It also emphasised the need for “impulse control”.

The couple have hired a well-known crisis communications expert but he did not respond to specific questions from the Guardian about Chua’s remarks or the internal investigation.

In an emailed statement, Chua told the Guardian: “For the more than 10 years I’ve known him, Judge Kavanaugh’s first and only litmus test in hiring has been excellence. He hires only the most qualified clerks, and they have been diverse as well as exceptionally talented and capable.

“There is good reason so many of them have gone on to supreme court clerkships; he only hires those who are extraordinarily qualified. As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal, he has also been an exceptional mentor to his female clerks and a champion of their careers. Among my proudest moments as a parent was the day I learned our daughter would join those ranks.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Guardian was assisted in its reporting by Elie Mystal, the executive editor of the Above the Law blog. If you have tips on this story please contact the reporter Stephanie.Kirchgaessner@theguardian.com

From <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/20/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-yale-amy-chua>

2018sep06 abovethelaw | Controversial Yale Law School Professor Hospitalized, Out For The Semester

The Tiger Mom has been hospitalized.

By Kathryn Rubino  

September 6, 2018 | abovethelaw

Amy Chua

Unfortunate news out of Yale Law School, where controversial law professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua, has been hospitalized and will not return to the classroom this semester.

Though we don’t have any details on the nature of what led to her hospitalization, something happened to her after classes had already begun for the year. Indeed, Chua had been teaching a section of contracts.

In order to deal with these suddenly teacher-less 1Ls, the law school has decided to combine Chua’s section of contracts with that of professor Ian Ayres. According to an email sent by Professor Ayres (and available in full on the next page), the now larger class will move into a new classroom and meet at a different time than Professor Ayres’s section had previously. Professor Ayres also noted that the oral argument requirement of his class will now be dropped. See, there always is a silver lining.

Professor Ayres’s email also makes it clear that the situation is very much in flux, and the school is trying to respond quickly to an emerging situation:

If you have any conflicts are [sic] questions about any of this, please call my cell XXX-XXXX. I’m trying to do this in away that minimizes costs to you as the school tries to react responsibly to Professor Chua‘s illness.

Best wishes to Professor Chua for a speedy recovery.

From <https://abovethelaw.com/2018/09/controversial-yale-law-school-professor-hospitalized-out-for-the-semester/>

2018oct09 Harvard Crimson | Post-Kavanaugh, Harvard Law Dean Ponders ‘Painful and Divisive Chapter’ of American History

Harvard Law School dean John F. Manning By Krystal K. Phu

By Aidan F. Ryan, Crimson Staff Writer

October 9, 2018

Breaking weeks of near-silence on newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 sent a five-paragraph email to school affiliates Monday calling the past few weeks an “extraordinarily painful and divisive chapter” of American history.

“I care deeply about our students,” Manning wrote in the email. But he repeated his refusal to take a public position on the judge’s confirmation.

“When I speak out as dean, I am understood to be taking a position on behalf of our Law School,” he wrote. “But Harvard Law School is a large, diverse community that does not speak with one voice, and I cannot speak for all of you.”

Manning also acknowledged that the confirmation process raised numerous questions about the “role and direction” of the Supreme Court as well as how society addresses issues of sexual assault and harassment.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation Saturday came after at least three women publicly accused the Trump-nominated judge of sexual misconduct — and after an emotional and nationally televised hearing in which Kavanaugh accused Democrats of producing the allegations as part of a plot to block his nomination. In the wake of that hearing, some legislators and legal experts said they were concerned that Kavanaugh is too partisan to sit on the nation’s highest court.

“As we work to define, and seek answers to, those questions, I hope we can all agree on this: Harvard Law School is and must be a place of deep inquiry, a place of intellectual and personal bravery, and—at its best—a place where we listen generously to one another as we commit ourselves to addressing the serious and important questions that are before us,” Manning wrote.

The email to Law School affiliates did not mention Kavanaugh’s time teaching at Harvard, where he has served as a visiting lecturer for more than a decade. It also did not mention the recent push by some students and alumni to remove Kavanaugh from his teaching position.

The Law School announced last week that Kavanaugh would not return to teach his course, titled the “Supreme Court Since 2005,” in January 2019. University President Lawrence S. Bacow later said Kavanaugh chose to leave his teaching position at Harvard Law School of his own volition.

Palo Alto psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford was the first woman to step forward with allegations that Kavanaugh had committed sexual assault, telling the Washington Post that the justice tried to rape her at a party both attended in D.C. in the 1980s. Ford repeated these allegations in vivid detail during the nationally televised hearing Sept. 27.

Deborah Ramirez — a former classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale College — came forward with her own allegations of sexaul assault soon after Ford went public. Ramirez told the New Yorker Kavanaugh pushed his penis in her face at a party both attended while freshmen in college. A third woman, Julie Swetnick, later issued a sworn statement asserting that she saw Kavanaugh engage in “inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women during the early 1980s.”

Kavanaugh repeatedly and strongly denied all of these allegations.

With the exception of an email he sent to students on Sept. 28 insisting he could not “comment on personnel matters” — in reference to calls for Kavanaugh's teaching position to be terminated — Manning has remained silent on Kavanaugh since the three women stepped forward.

By contrast, Heather K. Gerken, the dean of Yale Law School, has been outspoken regarding the allegations of sexual misconduct. In a brief statement posted to a Yale website on Sept. 28, Gerken joined the American Bar Association in calling for an investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh, who is an alumnus of both Yale College and Yale Law School.

Manning closed out his Monday missive by writing he feels “grateful to the many members of our community who have shared with me what they are experiencing in these challenging times.”

“If you or someone close to you is hurting or struggling, we are here to support you,” he wrote.

The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on Saturday in a close 50-48 vote.

—Staff writer Aidan F. Ryan can be reached at aidan.ryan@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @AidanRyanNH.

From <https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/9/manning-email-following-kavanaugh-confirmation/>

2018sep26 nyt | Yale Law School Boasted About Kavanaugh; Now Comes ‘a Moment of Reckoning’

By David W. Chen

Sept. 26, 2018 New York Times

From <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/nyregion/yale-touted-kavanaugh-now-comes-a-moment-of-reckoning.html>

Students at Yale Law School held a sit-in on Monday to protest the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.Credit...Rebecca Lurye/Hartford Courant, via Associated Press

• Sept. 26, 2018

Students and faculty members from Yale Law School packed the campus’s largest church on Tuesday for a hastily arranged town hall, where they spoke about the sexual assault allegations swirling around the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, a 1990 graduate of the school.

[Update: Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday about her allegations against Judge Kavanaugh. Follow our live coverage.]

That was after a campus sit-in that prompted the cancellation of many classes, and protests in Washington, D.C., where two of their colleagues were arrested, and a blistering email that a group of students sent out to their classmates and faculty that said that the Kavanaugh nomination had exposed “our entire school’s culture of legal elitism and fixation on proximity to power.”

It was an abrupt shift on campus. In the days after Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination in June, the school’s website boasted that, if confirmed, he would be the fourth sitting member of the Supreme Court who had gone to Yale. The school’s dean, Heather K. Gerken, called him “a longtime friend to many of us in the Yale Law School community.” Other professors praised him.

Now, in the wake of recent troubling allegations linked to the school, the authors of the email said many students felt even more “alienated, disillusioned, and frustrated with the ambivalence and moral abdication of this institution, its faculty, and its administration.”

Image

After accusations of sexual misconduct emerged against Judge Kavanaugh, posters went up around the law school.Credit...Jessica Hill for The New York Times

The furor over the nomination was “a moment of reckoning for all of us.”

Yale Law School, long regarded as one of the best in the country, has always stood out as an intimate, largely liberal bastion with a nonpareil track record in propelling graduates to prestigious court clerkships and white-shoe law firms. And the pinnacle of accomplishment, arguably, is a seat on the Supreme Court, where a Justice Kavanaugh would join the Yale alumni Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Sonia Sotomayor.

[Struggling to keep up with the Kavanaugh news? Catch up with our guide.]

But these days, Yale is experiencing an unusually intense bout of existential hand-wringing, buffeted by the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, the paroxysms of the #MeToo movement, and a more diverse, politicized student body uncomfortable with the privilege of an Ivy League pedigree, even as it actively pursues it. The school, student activists now say, has been overly obsessed with burnishing credentials, turning a blind eye to concerns about the behavior of its alumni and faculty.

What has compounded the tensions, students and faculty say, is the confluence of other sex and status controversies swirling around the school. Last week, the Guardian reported that Amy Chua, one of the school’s star professors, had told female students they needed to have a “certain look” in order to clerk for Judge Kavanaugh, a charge she has denied.

Her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, also a star professor, said he is under investigation by Yale, though he said he did not know why and the school would not comment. And critics have said the school should have known about Alex Kozinski, a prominent federal judge who abruptly resigned last year after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, for whom Yale students often clerked.

The school’s administration said that its initial reaction to Judge Kavanaugh’s choice was in keeping with its response to other high-profile nominations involving alumni, including that of Justice Sotomayor, a liberal on the court, and that it was meant to be nonpartisan. Among faculty members who praised him was Professor Akhil Reed Amar, a liberal constitutional scholar, who later wrote a New York Times opinion article arguing in favor of the appointment. (Mr. Amar has subsequently said that he had second thoughts in the wake of the sexual assault allegations.)

At the time, there was a muted reaction from the faculty on campus, though a group of students and alumni signed an open letter denouncing what they perceived as the school’s endorsement, arguing against Judge Kavanaugh, a conservative, on political grounds, saying that he “is a threat to the most vulnerable.”

Video

transcript

transcript

The Sexual Assault Allegations Against Kavanaugh

There are multiple women who have accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Here are their allegations and his responses.

President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, is facing sexual assault allegations by multiple women. Here are the accusations and how Kavanaugh has responded. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford said Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party in high school. According to her, he was drunk when he pushed her into a bedroom, started grinding his body against hers and tried to undress her. She said he tried to muffle her screams by covering her mouth with his hand. In an interview with Fox News, Kavanaugh responded. “I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone, not in in high school, not ever.” The second accuser is Deborah Ramirez. She and Kavanaugh were both students at Yale when, she said, he exposed himself to her. Ramirez said he held his penis near her face during a drinking game in a dorm room. When she pushed him away, she said, she accidentally touched it and saw Kavanaugh laughing and pulling up his pants. Kavanaugh reacted to the allegations, saying: “I never did any such thing. Never did any such thing.” The third accuser is Julie Swetnik. She said she met Kavanaugh on several occasions at house parties between 1981 and 1983. At these parties, Swetnik said, she saw a drunk Kavanaugh participate in a range of aggressive behaviors toward women: from pressing and grinding his body on them to trying to remove their clothes. She also alleges that Kavanaugh was there when what she described as “gang” rapes took place. Swetnik says she was raped by a group of men at one of these parties in 1982. Swetnik is also the first accuser to give an on-camera interview to the media. She spoke to Showtime on Sept. 26: “This is something that occurred a long time ago and it’s not that I just thought about it. It’s been on my mind ever since the occurrences.” In a statement released by the White House, Kavanaugh called the accusations “ridiculous” and “from ‘The Twilight Zone’” and said it never happened. A fourth anonymous accusation was made in a letter sent to Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado. The author of the letter says her daughter saw a drunk Kavanaugh aggressively push a woman he was dating against a wall outside a bar in 1998. Kavanaugh’s response: “This is crazytown. It’s a smear campaign.”

There are multiple women who have accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Here are their allegations and his responses.CreditCredit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

Alyssa Peterson, a third-year law student, was among those who signed it. The law school, she said, “has a lot of internal reckoning to do.”

But as the fall semester began and the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh, first lodged by Christine Blasey Ford, and then by a member of his Yale undergraduate class, Deborah Ramirez, emerged, the anger at the school boiled over. Many invoked comparisons to Justice Thomas’s confirmation hearings in 1991, when another Yale Law graduate, Anita Hill, accused him of sexual harassment. Justice Thomas is also conservative in his views.

When asked about students’ concerns, Dean Gerken said in a statement that “this conversation has been a long time coming.”

She continued: “Our students are calling upon the best values of this institution, and we are listening carefully. This is a moment of reflection for this institution, and we will do our best to answer our students’ call and work in partnership to make sure we live up to those values.”

[Make sense of the people, issues and ideas shaping the 2018 elections with our new politics newsletter.]

The momentum has shifted so much that law students at Yale who describe themselves as conservatives and who signed a petition supporting Judge Kavanaugh say that they dare not speak out publicly, for fear of being ostracized.

Image

Students from Yale Law School joined demonstrators against Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination in the rotunda of the Russell Senate building on Capitol Hill in Washington on Monday.Credit...Erin Schaff for The New York Times

“It would just be a total land mine explosion to speak about this publicly,” a second-year student said, speaking anonymously because of fear of what he said was a “culture of intimidation.” “If you don’t believe Dr. Ford, then you are sexist. You’re just an evil person.”

At the center of the debate has been the issue of clerkships, prestigious appointments to work with judges that burnish a young lawyer’s resume and can help propel them to the legal profession’s heights. Clerkships have become even more prized by prospective law students in recent years, especially after the legal profession was jolted by the financial crisis of 2008, said Asha Rangappa, a former associate dean and graduate of the law school, who is now a senior lecturer and director of admissions at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.

Judge Kavanaugh was among those who had clerked for Judge Kozinski, and Judge Kavanaugh has said that he did not notice anything amiss.

Last week as Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination was caught up in the sexual assault allegations, some students became upset at comments by Douglas Kysar, a deputy dean. Mr. Kysar said Yale had known for years about boorish behavior by Judge Kozinski, a federal appellate judge in California. The students, however, interpreted his comments to mean Yale had known about sexual harassment complaints. Mr. Kysar later said that “I always wish I had done more.”

That strained credulity with one student, Dana Bolger, who tweeted: “Do More Now.”

The school has also worked to widen the pool of those who become clerks, and Ms. Chua, who is also the author of the parenting book,“The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” has been one of the most effective mentors for women and students of color, Ms. Rangappa said.

The Guardian, quoting anonymous students, said that Ms. Chua told students it was “no accident” that Judge Kavanaugh’s female clerks “looked like models” and advised female students about their physical appearance, in essence condoning the practice.

Ms. Chua, who is not teaching this semester as she recovers from what she said was major surgery, forcefully denied the account in a statement: “Everything that is being said about the advice I give to students applying to Brett Kavanaugh — or any judge — is outrageous, 100 percent false, and the exact opposite of everything I have stood for and said for the last 15 years.”

Some notable alumni took to Twitter to defend her. J.D. Vance, the author of the best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy,” praised her record as a mentor and said that “if you want poor kids and other nontraditional students to succeed at Yale, you should reward her and then clone her.”

Almost simultaneously, Ms. Chua’s husband and fellow law professor, Mr. Rubenfeld, said that he was being investigated by the school. In a statement, Mr. Rubenfeld said that “I do not know what I am alleged to have said or done.”

Yale would not comment on the investigation but an email letter that was circulated among Yale Law School alumni in recent weeks said that it was for his conduct with female students, though no specific accusations have been made.

Last week, students plastered the campus with posters and organized both the protests on Monday and the town hall on Tuesday, which was open to only law school students and faculty.

Harold Hongju Koh, a professor and former dean of the law school, said that the recent tumult was of a magnitude that he had witnessed only a handful of times since he began teaching at Yale in 1985.

“It’s a tense time in the country,” he said. “It’s a tense time at the university. But I think it’s very healthy and necessary. Elite institutions get so satisfied. Who are we? What do we stand for? Are we being true to our values? It’s a constant struggle for defining the identity of the institution as times change.”

Tyler Pager in New York and Amy Cheng in New Haven contributed reporting

A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 27, 2018, Section A, Page 20 of the New York edition with the headline: At Yale, Students Demand a ‘Reckoning’ Amid Kavanaugh Allegations. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

From <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/nyregion/yale-touted-kavanaugh-now-comes-a-moment-of-reckoning.html>

2018sep20 NBC | Yale Law dean: Reports that professor groomed female clerks for Kavanaugh 'of enormous concern'

By Adam Edelman and Kasie Hunt 20 September 2018 | NBC

The dean of Yale Law School on Thursday responded to reports that a prominent professor at the school had advised students seeking judicial clerkships with Brett Kavanaugh on their physical looks, saying the reported allegations of faculty misconduct are "of enormous concern" and calling on anyone affected to come forward.

According to reports in The Guardian, the Huffington Post and Above the Law, Amy Chua, a professor at the law school, would advise students on their physical appearance if they wanted to seek a clerkship for Kavanaugh. Specifically, Chua would help potential applicants to have a "model-like" appearance.

In a letter Thursday to the law school community, Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken wrote that she wanted to "address the press reports today regarding allegations of faculty misconduct" and that "the allegations being reported are of enormous concern to me and to the School."

A spokeswoman for Yale Law School confirmed to NBC News that the letter was written in response to the news stories published Wednesday and Thursday.

"While we cannot comment on individual complaints or investigations, the Law School and the University thoroughly investigate all complaints regarding violations of University rules and take no options off the table," Gerken wrote.

"I strongly encourage any members of our community who have been affected by misconduct to take advantage of Yale University's resources for reporting incidents and receiving support," the letter continued. "The Law School has a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which all of our students can live and learn in a community of mutual respect, free of harassment of any kind."

Yale has not specified what the misconduct might be.

Kavanaugh, currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, is President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court.

Chua vehemently denied the claims in a statement Saturday, calling them "outrageous, 100% false, and the exact opposite of everything I have stood for and said for the last 15 years." Instead, the law professor said she always emphasized to students that they should "prep insanely hard" and "dress professionally — not too casually — and to avoid inappropriate clothing."

"I always try my best to be frank and transparent, and to hold students to the highest professional standard, and every year for the last decade I have been invited by affinity groups like Yale Law Women, the Black Law Students Association, and Outlaws to host clerkship advice sessions," Chua said. "My record as a clerkship mentor, especially for women and minorities, is among the things I'm most proud of in my life."

According to reports, Jed Rubenfeld, who is also a professor at Law School and Chua's husband, also once told a student seeking a clerkship that Kavanaugh "hires women with a certain look."

"He did not say what the look was and I did not ask," the student said, according to The Guardian.

In a statement to NBC News, the Yale Law School spokeswoman acknowledged that the statement from Gerken was a result of the reports about "faculty conduct by two members of our faculty."

Kavanaugh has faced mounting questions in the days since Christine Blasey Ford, accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school. Kavanaugh has denied the accusation.

Chua, who is perhaps best known for being the author of a 2011 book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," wrote a July op-ed for The Wall Street Journal titled "Kavanaugh Is a Mentor To Women."

In it, she wrote that she'd helped place 10 Yale Law School students — eight of them women — as clerks with Kavanaugh, including her own daughter, whose clerkship had been set to begin in August. "I can't think of a better judge for my own daughter's clerkship," she wrote.

The White House had no immediate comment on the Yale dean's letter.

In an emailed statement to NBC News, Chua said: "For the more than 10 years I've known him, Judge Kavanaugh’s first and only litmus test in hiring has been excellence. He hires only the most qualified clerks, and they have been diverse as well as exceptionally talented and capable.

"There is good reason so many of them have gone on to Supreme Court clerkships; he only hires those who are extraordinarily qualified. As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal, he has also been an exceptional mentor to his female clerks and a champion of their careers. Among my proudest moments as a parent was the day I learned our daughter would join those ranks."

From <https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/yale-law-dean-reports-professor-groomed-female-clerks-kavanaugh-enormous-n911571>

2018july18 WSJ | Chua brown-noses Kavanaugh!

Kavanaugh Is a Mentor To Women

I can’t think of a better judge for my own daughter’s clerkship

Opinion by Amy Chua wsj.com 12 July 2018

Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence will appropriately be dissected in the months ahead. I’d like to speak to a less well-known side of the Supreme Court nominee: his role as a mentor for young lawyers, particularly women. The qualities he exhibits with his clerks may provide important evidence about the kind of justice he would be.

I’ve gotten to know this side of Judge Kavanaugh while serving on Yale Law School’s Clerkships Committee for most of the past 10 years. It also affects me personally: Last year my daughter accepted an appellate clerkship from Judge Kavanaugh, which was set to begin next month.

A judicial clerkship is typically a one-year stint after law school. Federal appellate judges usually have three to four clerks at a time. Clerks help the judge to prepare for argument, analyze cases and write opinions.

Many judges use ideological tests in hiring clerks. Judge Kavanaugh could not be more different. While his top consideration when hiring is excellence—top-of-the-class grades, intellectual rigor—he actively seeks out clerks from across the ideological spectrum who will question and disagree with him. He wants to hear other perspectives before deciding a case. Above all, he believes in the law and wants to figure out, without prejudging, what it requires.

Judge Kavanaugh’s clerks are racially and ethnically diverse. Since joining the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2006, a quarter of his clerks have been members of a minority group. More than half, 25 out of 48, have been women. In 2014, all four were women—a first for any judge on the D.C. Circuit.

In the past decade, I have helped place 10 Yale Law School students with Judge Kavanaugh, eight of them women. I recently emailed them to ask about their clerkship experiences. They all responded almost instantaneously. They cited his legendary work ethic (“He expected us to work really hard, but there was always one person working harder than us—the Judge”), his commitment to excellence (“he wants every opinion that comes out of his chambers to be perfect; it is not uncommon to go through 30-50 drafts”), his humility (“He can take a great joke just as easily as he can land one”), and his decency (“I’ve never seen him be rude to anyone in the building”).

To a person, they described his extraordinary mentorship. “When I accepted his offer to clerk,” one woman wrote, “I had no idea I was signing up for a lifelong mentor who feels an enduring sense of responsibility for each of his clerks.” Another said: “I can’t imagine making a career decision without his advice.” And another: “He’s been an incredible mentor to me despite the fact that I’m a left-of-center woman. He always takes into account my goals rather than giving generic advice.”

These days the press is full of stories about powerful men exploiting or abusing female employees. That makes it even more striking to hear Judge Kavanaugh’s female clerks speak of his decency and his role as a fierce champion of their careers.

If the judge is confirmed, my daughter will probably be looking for a different clerkship. But for my own daughter, there is no judge I would trust more than Brett Kavanaugh to be, in one former clerk’s words, “a teacher, advocate, and friend.”

Ms. Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author, most recently, of “Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations.”

Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Opinion: These days the press is full of stories about powerful men exploiting or abusing female employees. That makes it even more striking to hear Judge Kavanaugh’s female clerks speak of his decency and his role as a fierce champion of their careers, writes Amy Chua. WSJ

From <https://www.facebook.com/WSJ/posts/10157931739603128/>

2018Jul11 WAPO | Yale students and alumni blast law school for praising Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s choice for Supreme Court

By Valerie Strauss

July 11, 2018 at 6:06 p.m. EDT

Brett Kavanaugh is a graduate of Yale Law School. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Share

Remove from your saved stories

Save

Scores of Yale University students, alumni and educators have signed a letter blasting the law school for “boasting” of the accomplishments of Brett M. Kavanaugh — who earned his law degree there in 1990 — shortly after President Trump publicly nominated him to join the U.S. Supreme Court.

The letter refers to a press release issued Monday by the Yale Law School noting the nomination and quoting several people who praise Kavanaugh, a conservative jurist who critics say will turn the Supreme Court sharply to the right and who has said that sitting presidents should not be prosecuted or investigated criminally or civilly. The Yale press release said in part:

“I have known Brett Kavanaugh for many years,” said Dean Heather K. Gerken. “I can personally attest that, in addition to his government and judicial service, Judge Kavanaugh has been a longtime friend to many of us in the Yale Law School community. Ever since I joined the faculty, I have admired him for serving as a teacher and mentor to our students and for hiring a diverse set of clerks, in all respects, during his time on the court.”

The open letter to Gerken and other leaders at the Yale Law School (see below) says in part:

Yet the press release’s focus on the nominee’s professionalism, pedigree, and service to Yale Law School obscures the true stakes of his nomination and raises a disturbing question:

Is there nothing more important to Yale Law School than its proximity to power and prestige?

Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination presents an emergency — for democratic life, for our safety and freedom, for the future of our country. His nomination is not an interesting intellectual exercise to be debated amongst classmates and scholars in seminar. Support for Judge Kavanaugh is not apolitical. It is a political choice about the meaning of the Constitution and our vision of democracy, a choice with real consequences for real people. Without a doubt, Judge Kavanaugh is a threat to the most vulnerable. He is a threat to many of us, despite the privilege bestowed by our education, simply because of who we are. . . .

Now is the time for moral courage — which for Yale Law School comes at so little cost. Perhaps you, as an institution and as individuals, will benefit less from Judge Kavanaugh’s ascendant power if you withhold your support. Perhaps Judge Kavanaugh will be less likely to hire your favorite students. But people will die if he is confirmed. We hope you agree your sacrifice would be worth it. Please use your authority and platform to expose the stakes of this moment and the threat that Judge Kavanaugh poses.

Asked to respond to the letter, the Yale Law School provided this statement:

Yale Law School is a nonpartisan institution. We routinely acknowledge high-profile nominations of our alumni. We did exactly the same thing not so long ago when Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’79 received her nomination to the High Court.

 The Sotomayor press release followed a similar pattern to the school’s Kavanaugh press release, quoting several people in praise of her, including the acting dean at the time:

“Yale Law School is delighted to see one of its own distinguished alumni, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Acting Dean Kate Stith, who has known Sotomayor for more than two decades and whose husband, Judge José A. Cabranes, serves with Judge Sotomayor on the Second Circuit. “We admire greatly and take special pride in her accomplishments. We have been fortunate that she has had continuing and deep involvement with the Law School — in conferences, moot courts, and guest appearances in classes — during her years on the bench. We congratulate Judge Sotomayor on this tremendous milestone in a remarkable career.”

Here’s the open letter:

Open Letter from Yale Law Students, Alumni, and Educators Regarding Brett Kavanaugh

*Please sign below. Additional signatories will be added regularly*

July 10, 2018

To Dean Gerken and the Yale Law School leadership,

We write today as Yale Law students, alumni, and educators ashamed of our alma mater. Within an hour of Donald Trump’s announcement that he would nominate Brett Kavanaugh, YLS ’90, to the Supreme Court, the law school published a press release boasting of its alumnus’s accomplishment. The school’s post included quotes from Yale Law School professors about Judge Kavanaugh’s intellect, influence and mentorship of their students.

Since his campaign launched, Trump has repeatedly promised to appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Overturning that decision would endanger the lives of countless people who need or may need abortions — including many who sign this letter. Trump’s nomination of Judge Kavanaugh is a reliable way to fulfill his oath. Just a few months ago, Judge Kavanaugh ruled to deny a detained immigrant minor her constitutional right to abortion. Decades-old Supreme Court precedent makes clear that the government may not place an undue burden on a pregnant person’s access to abortion. But Judge Kavanaugh clearly did not feel constrained by precedent: what could be a greater obstacle than a cage? The minor had never wavered in her decision to seek an abortion and had received a judicial bypass from a state judge who found that she was competent to make the decision. Yet Kavanaugh condescendingly and disingenuously held that she must wait weeks until she was in a “better place” to make a choice about her own bodily autonomy — at which point she might not be able to have a legal abortion. Further, Kavanaugh argued that to require immigration authorities to stop blocking her from accessing this right would force the government into complicity.

The judge employed similar spurious reasoning in a 2015 dissent arguing that the ACA’s contraceptive mandate violated the rights of religious organizations, even though those organizations were granted an accommodation that allowed them to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage. Kavanaugh’s opinions give us grave concern that he will consistently prioritize the beliefs of third-parties over the rights of the oppressed — not only when it comes to abortion and contraception, but also regarding other forms of medical care (including care for transgender patients), family privacy, and sexual liberty. Litigants harness this same logic when arguing that institutions have a religious right to discriminate against LGBT people — an issue the Court is certain to take up in the years to come.

Judge Kavanaugh would also act as a rubber stamp for President Trump’s fraud and abuse. Despite working with independent counsel Ken Starr to prosecute Bill Clinton, Judge Kavanaugh has since called upon Congress to exempt sitting presidents from civil suits, criminal investigations, and criminal prosecutions. He has also noted that “a serious constitutional question exists regarding whether a president can be criminally indicted and tried while in office.” This reversal does not reflect high-minded consideration but rather naked partisanship. At a time when the President and his associates are under investigation for various serious crimes, including colluding with the Russian government and obstructing justice, Judge Kavanaugh’s extreme deference to the Executive poses a direct threat to our democracy.

As part of his assault on the administrative state — based not in law, as he claims, but on policy preference — Judge Kavanaugh has undermined attempts to protect the environment and regulate predatory lenders and for-profit colleges. He has called now-defunct Net Neutrality regulations violations of the First Amendment. If elevated, the judge would pose an existential threat to the government’s ability to regulate for the common good and further twist the First Amendment beyond recognition, using it as a sword to advance his personal political preferences. His appointment would usher in a new era of Lochner, with “black-robed rulers overriding citizens’ choices.”

Judge Kavanaugh has consistently protected the interests of powerful institutions and disregarded the rights of vulnerable individuals. On the D.C. Circuit he denied a student with disabilities access to the remedial education he was promised after he emerged from juvenile detention. In a 2008 dissent, Judge Kavanaugh argued undocumented workers are not protected by labor laws. In 2016, Judge Kavanaugh ruled that employers can require employees to waive their right to picket. In a concurrence, he argued that the National Security Agency’s sweeping call surveillance program was consistent with the Fourth Amendment. As an attorney, he advocated for prayer at open public school events in brazen contravention of our country’s separation of church and state.

The list goes on. We see in these rulings an intellectually and morally bankrupt ideologue intent on rolling back our rights and the rights of our clients. Judge Kavanaugh’s resume is certainly marked by prestige, groomed for exactly this nomination. But degrees and clerkships should not be the only, or even the primary, credential for a Supreme Court appointment. A commitment to law and justice is.

Now is the time for moral courage — which for Yale Law School comes at so little cost. Perhaps you, as an institution and as individuals, will benefit less from Judge Kavanaugh’s ascendant power if you withhold your support. Perhaps Judge Kavanaugh will be less likely to hire your favorite students. But people will die if he is confirmed. We hope you agree your sacrifice would be worth it. Please use your authority and platform to expose the stakes of this moment and the threat that Judge Kavanaugh poses.

Signed,

Dana Bolger, YLS ’19

Alexandra Brodsky, YLS ’16

Alyssa Peterson, YLS ’19

Emma Roth, YLS ’17

Bertolain Elysee, YLS ’19

Kathryn Pogin, YLS ’20

Valeria Pelet del Toro, YLS ’19

Jonathan Cohen, YLS ’20

Olivia Graffeo-Cohen (Horton), YLS ’17

Isra Syed, YLS ’19

Veena Subramanian, YLS ’19

Jon Petkun, YLS ’19

Ricky Zacharias, YLS ’19

Laura McCready, YLS ’18

Molly Katherine Anderson, YLS ’19

Rebecca Chan, YLS ’18

Camila Vega, YLS ’18

Faren Tang, YLS ’18

Kath Xu, YLS ’20

Meghan Brooks, YLS ’19

Miriam Becker-Cohen, YLS ’18

Wally Hilke, YLS ’18

Jason Berkenfeld, YLS ’17

Brian Highsmith, YLS ’17

Emma Thurber Stone, YLS ’19

William Stone, YLS ’17

D’Laney Gielow, YLS ’18

Cassie Crockett, YLS ’17

Rachel Tuchman, YLS ’17

Nora Niedzielski-Eichner, YLS ’18

Seguin Strohmeier, YLS ’16

Dorothy Tegeler, YLS ’16

Gregg Gonsalves, Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Law and Co-Director of Global Health Justice Partnership

Swapna Reddy, YLS ’16

Maya Menlo, YLS ’18

Will Bloom, YLS ’17

Erika Nyborg-Burch, YLS ’16

Scott Stern, YLS ’20

Jenny Tumas, YLS ’20

Zachary Herz, YLS ’14

Jessica Purcell, YLS ’17

Monika Kothari, YLS ’16

Amber Qureshi, YLS ’19

Joe Muller, YLS ’19

Julia Coppelman, YLS ’20

Rachel Shur, YLS ’17

Laith Aqel, YLS ’20

Megan Wachspress, YLS ’15

John Gonzalez, YLS ’20

Poonam Daryani, Global Health Justice Partnership Clinical Fellow

Joseph Meyers, YLS ’18

Samuel Davis, YLS ’20

Charles Du, ’17

Elise Wander, YLS ’19

Aseem Mehta, YLS ’20

Zain Rizvi, YLS ’17

Erica Turret YLS ’20

Cal Soto, YLS ’14

Sameer Jaywant, YLS ’18

Carl Jiang, YLS ’20

James Bhandary-Alexander, Visiting Clinical Lecturer-in-Law

Sesenu Woldemariam, YLS ’19

Jacob Bennett, YLS ’19

Ted Lee, YLS ’18

Helen Diagama, YLS ’17

Catherine Crooke, YLS ’19

Derek Mraz, YLS ’19

Alda Yuan, YLS ’18

Megha Ram, YLS ’18

Dianne Lake, YLS ’20

Ruth Lazenby, YLS ’19

Becca Steinberg, YLS ’20

Bina Peltzm YLS ’19

Nicole Brambila, YLS ’19

Stephanie Garlock, YLS ’20

Ali Gifford, YLS ’18

Susan Lin, YLS ’04

Corey Guilmette, YLS ’16

Kai Fees, YLS ’18

Elsa Mota, YLS ’20

Alyssa Yamamoto, YLS ’18

Josh Lee, YLS ’05

Adan Martinez, YLS ’17

Charlotte Schwartz, YLS ’19

Natalia Friedlander, YLS ’18

Juliana Moraes Liu, YLS ’20

Yasin Hegazy, YLS ’19

Zach Fields, YLS ’20

Sonya Schoenberger, YLS ’20

Patrick Baker, YLS ’18

Mark Birhanu, YLS ’19

Callie Wilson, YLS ’18

Samantha Peltz, YLS ’20

John Lewis, YLS ’14

Clare Kane Yale ’14 YLS ’19

Jorge Bonilla, YLS ’19

Hannah Hussey, YLS ’20

Jease Marks, YLS ’18

Ally Arias, YLS ’19

Gregory D. Phillips, YLS ’83

Amit Jain, YLS ’18

Bethany Hill, YLS ’18

Joanne Lee, YLS ’18

Zachary Manfredi ’17

Healy Ko, YLS ’19

Monica Cai, YLS ’20

Leanne Gale, YLS ’20

Rachel Kogan, YLS ’19

Ted Wojcik, YLS ’15

Sarah Ganty, YLS ’18

Ryan Cooper, YLS ’15

Jonathan Gray, YLS ’18

Shannon Manley, YLS ’20

Constance Zhang, YLS ’18

Rebecca Gendelman, YLS ’19

Mary Yanik, YLS ’14

Julie Krishnaswami, Associate Law Librarian, Lillian Goldman Law Library

Owen Monkemeier YLS ’19

Max Reinhardt, YLS ’20

Alda Yuan, YLS ’18

Molly Weston Williamson YLS ’13

David Singh Grewal, YLS ’02, Professor of Law

Sheela Ramesh, YLS ’14

Samantha Schnell, YLS ’19

Laika Abdulali, YLS ’18

Matt Lifson, YLS ’19

Alon Gur, YLS ’16

Rhoda Hassan YLS ’19

Jesse Williams, YLS ’20

Elizabeth Villarreal, YLS ’19

Noah Zatz, YLS ’99

Antonio Grayson ’21

Taylor Henley, YLS ’17

Andrew Walchuk, YLS ’17

Pauline Syrnik, YLS ’19

Kathy Lu, YLS ’18

Eric Baudry, YLS ’19

Matthew Noah Smith, Lecturer in Law 2007

Anil Kalhan YLS ’99

Kathryn Abrams, YLS ’84

Petey Menz, YLS ’20

Gabe Lewin, YLS ’20

Sanjukta Paul, YLS ’03

Joel Sati, YLS ’22

Andrew Chin, YLS ’98

Henry Weaver, YLS ’18

Michael Yarbrough, YLS ’09

Charles U. Farley, YLS ’04

Michael Wright, YLS ’15

Daniel Hornung, YLS ’20

Brian Sweeney, YLS ’15

Chandini Jha YLS ’21

Solomon Ariwoola, YLS ’20

Julie Wilensky, YLS ’07

Gowri Ramachandran, YLS ’03

Daniel Friedman, YLS ’14

Ashraf Ahmed, YLS ’19

Alice Clapman, YLS ’03

Alexander Stephens, YLS ’02

Rebecca Matsumura, YLS ’15

Aarti Khanolkar Wilson, YLS ’07

Rishi Gupta, YLS ’04

Jennifer Hunter, YLS ’03

Kaitlin Welborn, YLS ’15

Tal Eisenzweig, YLS ’17

Jonathan Zasloff YLS ’93

Michael Stone, YLS ’79

Thomas Geraghty YLS ’95

Valentina Garzon, YLS ’19

Carrie La Seur, YLS ’02

Megan Wulff, YLS ’13

Matthew W. Alsdorf, YLS ’04

Arash Ghiassi, YLS ’18

Jessica Sager, YLS ’99

Amos Friedland, YLS ’08

Katherine Carter, YLS ’14

Andrea Parente, YLS ’19

Deborah Marcuse, YLS ’08

Emily Rock, YLS ’14

Tal Klement, YLS ’01

Tom Jawetz, YLS ’03

Maria Pulzetti ’06

Sophia Wang, YLS ’17

Stephen Ruckman, YLS ’08

Deborah Gaines, YC ’82

Daniel K. Phillips, YLS ’20

Heather Khan, YLS ’04

Tara J. Melish, YLS ’00

Damon Hemmerdinger ’98

Benjamin Brady, YLS ’00

Kimberly West-Faulcon YLS ’95

Anna Levine YLS ’03

David Jaros, YLS ’01

Kate Gibson YLS ’14

Lynette Lim, YLS ’20

Asher Smith, YLS ’14

David M. Driesen, YLS ’89

Alexi Shaw, YLS ’17

Felisha Miles, YLS ’21

Kyle Barry, YLS ’07

Jonah Goldberg, YLS ’15

Marvin C. Brown IV, YLS ’16

Sam Brill, YLS ’18

Marissa Roy, YLS ’17

Kayla Morin, YLS ’20

Matt Kellner, YLS ’21

Katie Chamblee-Ryan, YLS ’12

Kate Mogulescu, YLS ’03

Touraj Parang, YLS ’99

Emily Jane O’Dell, YLS Resident Fellow in Islamic Law

David Menschel YLS ’02

Elizabeth Pierson, YLS ’18

Vanita Kalra, YLS ’06

Susanna D. Evarts, YLS ’18

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, YLS ’08

Ro Khanna, YLS ’01

Nathan J. Robinson, YLS ’14

Patrick Woolsey, YLS ’19

Rachel Dempsey YLS ’15

Felicia Medina, YLS ’06

Nicole Hallett, YLS ’08

Rebecca Bernhardt, YLS ’97

Bob Johnson, YLS ’07

Michael Tayag, YLS ’21

Nila Bala, YLS ’12

Inderpal Grewal, Professor, Yale University

My Khanh Ngo, YLS ’17

Darryl Li, YLS ’09

Christopher Lapinig, YLS ’13

Grant Damon-Feng, YLS ’14

Emily Teplin Fox, YLS ’07

Raquiba Huq, YLS ’07

Limor Mann, YLS ’05

Abigail Rich, YLS ’16

Lance Martinez, YLS ’96

Daniel Margolis, YLS ’04

J. Stephen Clark, YLS ’95

Jessica Gordon, YLS ’09

Stephen B. Cohen, YLS ’71

Zach Strassburger, YLS ’12

Aisha Saad, YLS ’18

Josh McLaurin, YLS ’14

Joel Ramirez, YLS ’17

Betty Hung, YLS ’97

Rebecca Weston, YLS ’91

Anjali Srinivasan, YLS ’11

Blake Emerson, YLS ’16

Alan H. Kleinman YLS ’77

Bryn Williams, YLS ’14

Elliot Forhan, YLS ’13

Abigail Pershing, YLS ’20

Steph Cha, YLS ’10

Ann Manov, YLS ’21

Nancy Yun Tang, YLS ’19

Shahana Basu YLS ’99

Noorain Khan, YLS ’11

Sriram MK, YLS ’06

Kristine Beckerle, YLS ’15

Saumya Manohar, YLS ’08

Robbie Silverman, YLS ’10

Joshua Tate, YLS ’02

Charanya Krishnaswami, YLS ’13

David Lebow, YLS ’16

Erin Conroy ’04

Rhonda Wasserman YLS ’83

Jillian Hewitt YLS ’15

Sofia Nelson, YLS ’13

Lauren Oleykowski, YLS ’11

Theresa Lee, YLS ’10

James J. Williamson YLS ’13

Mark W. Wickersham, YLS ’96

Michael O. Molina, YLS ’02

Cyd Oppenheimer, YLS ’04

Kate Magaram, YLS ’09

Jesse Tripathi, YLS ’21

Anna Arons YLS ’15

Joe Nania, YLS ’19

Molly Petchenik, YLS ’21

Ceara Donnelley, YLS ’09

Peter Chen, YLS ’13

Elizabeth Compa YLS ’11

Harriet Robinson Gowanlock YLS ’86

MacKenzie Pantoja, YLS ’21

Paul Sonn, YLS ’92

Andrew DeGuglielmo, YLS ’21

Susan Hazeldean YLS ’01

Johanna Kalb YLS ’06

Issa Kohler-Hausmann, YLS ’08 Associate Professor of Law Yale

Angela Thompson, YLS ’07

Katherine Demby, YLS ’16

Allen Hernandez, YLS ’21

Nikko Price, YLS ’20

Mark Malaspina, YLS ’97

Pamela Davis, YLS ’93

Bassam Gergi, YLS ’17

Margaret Betts, YLS ’03

Allison Tait, YLS ’11

Julianne Prescop, YLS ’09

Claire Benoit, YLS ’21

Sara Cervantes, YLS ’20

Zareena Grewal, Assoc Prof, Yale University

Caitlin Miner-Le Grand, YLS ’13

Cara Reichard, YLS ’20

Allie Alperovich, YLS ’03

Amanda Gutierrez, YLS ’12

David Segal, visiting fellow YLS ISP ’14

Katie Mesner-Hage, YLS ’13

Gabriel J. Chin, YLS LL.M. ’95

Sri Kuehnlenz, YLS ’13

Helen Li, YLS ’17

Jesselyn Brown Radack, YLS ’95

Sean C. Foley, YLS ’21

Pirzada Ahmad, YLS ’21

Laura Saldivia, YLS JSD ’15

Wesley Kennedy, YLS ’84

Jennifer Sung, YLS ’04

Emma Sokoloff-Rubin, YLS ’18

Alexander Taubes, YLS ’15

Josh Rosenthal, YLS ’13

Andrew P. Propps, YLS ’09

Kim Clayton Hershman, YLS ’92

Adrian Gonzalez, YLS ’19

Laura Kokotailo, YLS ’20

Jonathan Smith, YLS ’12

Reed Schuler, YLS ’13

Seth Wayne, YLS ’11

L. D. Wood-Hull, YLS ’95

Georgie Boge Geraghty ’96

Olivia Luna, YLS ’15

Sam Frizell, YLS ’20

Kirill Penteshin, YLS ’09

Kate Levien, YLS ’21

Matt Nguyen, YLS ’19

Zachary Turgeon, YLS ’21

Devin Race, YLS ’19

Markus L. Penzel, YLS ’85

Mollie Berkowitz, YLS ’21

Anjali Dalal, YLS ’10

Rudy Pantoja, YLS ’20

Sarah Eppler-Epstein, YLS ’21

Jessica Weisel, YLS ’94

Matiangai Sirleaf, YLS ’08

Elizabeth Kaplan, YLS ’89

Neera Tanden, YLS ’96

Jill Morrison, YLS ’95

Chris Kemmitt, YLS ’05

Alyssa Briody, YLS ’13

David Ward, YLS ’98

Amy Stake, YLS ’12

Zach Summers, YLS ’07

Hope Babcock, YLS ’66

Valerie Marcus, YLS ’87

Spiros Vavougios, YLS LL.M ’18

Shannon Siragusa, YLS ’00

Ray Brescia, YLS ’92

Andrew Woolf, YLS ’05

Zygmunt Plater, YLS ’68

Allegra McLeod, YLS ’06

Valarie Kaur, YLS ’12

Meredith Hightower YLS ’94

Christopher Hines, YLS ’12

Hillary Vedvig, YLS ’17

Dan Mullkoff, YLS ’10

Sparky Abraham, YLS ’14

Eileen Goldsmith, YLS ’00

Thomas Buser-Clancy, YLS ’11

Joy Horowitz, YLS ’82

Laura Smolowe, YLS ’06

Samuel Kuhn, YLS ’21

Karun Tilak, YLS ’14

Nate Gadd, YLS ’15

Joy Horowitz, YLS ’82

Ellen Shadur, YLS ’85

Derrick Rice, YLS ’21

Becca Heller, YLS ’10

Jamie O’Connell YLS ’02

Lorraine Van Kirk, YLS ’12

Sabrina Smith, YLS ’94