Over 30 Anonymous Federal Law Clerks Issue Statement Decrying Biden Administration's Complicity In Genocide In Gaza

Balls & Strikes, Statement By Federal Law Clerks Regarding the War In Gaza­:

Editor’s Note: The following statement was written by current federal law clerks regarding the ongoing war in Gaza. Balls & Strikes has verified their identities, but is publishing the statement anonymously for the reasons the signatories detail below. To date, 34 clerks have signed the statement. ...

Judicial ethics rules prohibit both judges and their law clerks from engaging in “political activity,” a broadly-defined term that in practice incorporates most forms of public advocacy. With respect to the war in Gaza, many of us were explicitly instructed by our judges not to participate in a range of activities from providing legal services, to attending protests, to liking related Instagram stories on our private accounts. Some of us were even advised against discussing the conflict in our family group chats over concern that our words could be perceived as representing the opinion of the court for which we work.

Violations of these rules could result in immediate termination of our clerkships—a potentially career-ending ramification. We have thus been forced to spend the last several months as only passive observers of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Yet many judges have not been deterred from leveraging their powerful positions and life tenure to weigh in on this issue.

For example, in a recent statement, 13 federal judges vowed not to hire Columbia University graduates as law clerks unless the school imposes “serious consequences” on students who participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations. The judges further urged the university to expel, terminate, and identify these students so that “future employers can avoid hiring them.” 

Individual judges have publicly expressed similar sentiments. ...

In that spirit, we, too, would like to bear witness: to the ongoing genocide in Gaza; to our government’s complicity in that genocide; and to the bravery of those resisting state-sanctioned violence to call for a free Palestine—from campus solidarity encampments to the Gaza Strip. Although the rules of the judiciary prevent us from publicly advocating at this time, we write this letter as a small gesture of our love and solidarity.

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