Student Editors Vote 20-5 To Reject Board's Offer To Bring Columbia Law Review Back Online

Update:  Columbia Law Review Is Back Online:

On Thursday afternoon, the board of directors reinstated the website, including Eghbariah’s article. A link at the bottom of the CLR homepage went to a statement from the board about Eghbariah’s article.

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  Intercept, Columbia Law Review Remains Offline After Students Reject Disclaimer Undermining Palestine Article:

After the Columbia Law Review’s board of directors responded to the publication of an article about Palestine by taking the prestigious journal completely offline, the students who run CLR voted on Wednesday to reject an offer in a letter from the directors to reinstate the website.

The Columbia Law School students who run CLR were considering a proposal to append a note to the Palestine article disclaiming what the directors, in an unsigned letter to students, described as “secrecy and deviation from the Review’s usual processes.” In the letter proposing the text, the board of directors said it wanted to see the journal put back online.

The student editors rejected the deal for a disclaimer by a 20-5 vote, according to a student and documentation reviewed by The Intercept.

“I think that this whole year, and particularly this last semester, has been about students recognizing, stepping into their power,” said Sohum Pal, a CLR articles editor. “And I’m very glad that the law students at the law review are doing the same.” ...

After voting, the students sent an email to board member Gillian Metzger, a Columbia law professor, saying that if the board continues to hinder the publication of Eghbariah’s piece, the staff of CLR will stop all work on the journal. ...

Though the site remains down, some of the CLR students declared their vote a victory.

“I just feel really grateful and proud of my colleagues for sort of taking a meaningful and principled stance tonight,” said Pal, the articles editor. “I tend to be pretty cautious, but I think I also try to be really optimistic. And one thing that we’ve been saying to each other, during this last day, has been that, like, optimism requires a little grain of delusion, and I think that it really feels very meaningful right now, to be sort of deluded enough that to think that you can win and then to do it.”

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Columbia Law Review Refused To Take Down Article On Palestine, So Board Of Directors Took Down Its Website (June 4, 2024)
• More On The Columbia Law Review Controversy (June 6, 2024)