Many NYU law students are indignant and outraged that Chicago-based super-firm Winston & Strawn has withdrawn its offer of employment to Ryna Workman. As president of NYU Law’s Student Bar Association, Workman issued a statement stating that “Israel bears full responsibility” for the long-planned terrorist attacks that left more than 1,300 Israeli citizens dead, including at least 30 Americans.
The law firm had every right and many valid reasons to reconsider its offer to Workman, who had worked at Winston & Strawn as a summer associate. In a statement, the firm said her comments “profoundly conflict” with the firm’s “values.” Yes, that, and there was also a substantial likelihood that having a terrorism-celebrating associate would cost the firm clients as well as risking tension among other firm lawyers. I would add that as a potential client, I would question the judgment of any law firm that would hire someone who showed such a reckless disregard for history, facts, and the impact of inflammatory rhetoric.
Like demented lemmings, other anti-Semites, race-baiters and critical thought-deprived NYU students issued a letter supporting Workman and condemning Winston & Strawn. The firm’s decision is an instance of the “systemic, concentrated violence” Workman has experienced since issuing her anti-Israel screed, the letter claims. That’s novel: deciding not to hire someone is “violence”! The letter’s signatories, including the Black Allied Law Students Association and the Women of Color Collective, declare that NYU is complicit “in the abuses of the Israeli government,” and condemns “the broader NYU administration for not protecting Ryna as a student and important member of our community.” How exactly can any school protect a loud-mouthed student from the consequences of her own foolishness? Oh never mind: people who reason like Ryna and her fans are always victims, and nothing is ever their fault. This is also a good reason not to hire her….or her defenders.
The letter is pretty funny, in a depressing sort of way. It attempts to defend Workman by claiming that she “has been an incredible leader in our community”—let’s muse on all of the other destructive leaders through history who could be justly called “incredible”—-and is so desperate for arguments that it cites her practice of making “Halloween goody bags” for students, a credential for a law firm position if I ever saw one.
The letter continues the hilarity by claiming “people of color and marginalized communities on campus” may no longer be “safe” at NYU in light of Hamas’s attack. Sure. Meanwhile, Workman has doubled down and pledged to “continue to speak out for” Palestinians, whose “resilience” inspires her. Cool. At least she has the courage of her convictions, as warped as they are. Good luck in your future endeavors, Ryna!
Over at Reason, Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s Scalia School of Law, tries to draw the blurry lines between when cancellation is ethical and when it’s not. “Whether a person deserves to be ‘cancelle'” for saying awful things depends on the nature of what they said and the nature of their job,” he begins. I think that in an employment context the distinction should be relatively simple: when what is said is widely publicized and can be presumed to harm the employer, the organization or the organization’s mission, disrupt the workplace, or reasonably cause clients and customers to lose trust in the organization’s judgment, it isn’t a cancellation, but self-preservation.
I do not, however, unlike the professor, believe anyone should be fired for an unpopular opinion, no matter what it is. It is the individual’s conduct that matters. Widely publicizing an inflammatory opinion is conduct.
Ethics Alarms 
I am not too sympathetic here.
I am generally opposed to “illegal immigration,” an admittedly complicated term.
However, a substantial part of my firm’s business involves immigration work (legal and illegal).
Personally, if every “illegal immigrant” were instantly deported tomorrow, I would not be too upset. At the same time, under the law, they have certain due process rights and available relief. (Stupid Magna Carta!)
So, while I don’t do any immigration work, I have no problem being in a firm that assists them in navigating the legal system, just as I have no problem defending criminals or helping heathen protestants violate the Catholic Church’s prohibition on divorce (I hate family law for reasons completely unrelated to faith).
But, because my personal beliefs don’t align with many of the practices of my firm, I try to keep my big fat mouth shut about such things. It would be bad for business.
-Jut
Our legal and ethical traditions do greatly tolerate employers cancelling employees and applicants for their words. There are two reasons why this is so.
– Speech can be evidence of character.
– More importantly, employees are often on the hook for what employees say.
There is of course, a clear difference between a fry cook at a taco stand who was discovered to have told a homophobic joke 13 years ago in middle school, and a communications director of a gay rights organization who went on a homophobic rant on live national television last night. Between these two extreme examples, there is a lot of gray.
I support the firm’s retraction of its employment offer. She has the right to say and do what she wants. It’s a free country but actions have consequences. Here, Ryna issued a statement signed as the NYU SBA president. She didn’t post it on her private Instagram or other social media cites. Her statement, then, has the imprimatur of the NYU SBA as an official statement on the Israel-Palestine issue. Assuming that such a position is not, in fact, the NYU SBA’s position, then Ryna has demonstrated the following:
1. She is ignorant of history, politics, the conflict in that region;
2. She is using the NYU SBA as her personal sounding board and is issuing official statements that have not been approved by the NYU SBA board;
3. She is arrogant and dismissive of the genuinely volatile nature of issues in this current conflict/war and how such comments will be perceived by the general population;
4. By using her capacity as NYU SBA president, it also indicates that she lacks the maturity and intellectual insight that statements such as these may bring the organization she represents into a conflict/issue in which that organization does not want engage. An employer (especially a large firm with an international client base) will have egg on its face when one of its associates goes around making inflammatory comments that might have an impact on the firm, the firm’s clients and/or matters it is handling.
jvb
Just a cultural observation. Long ago, in the sixties, the then-prestigious New York University was referred to by the not-so-polite sobriquet, NYJew. Its erudite professors and student body were predominantly Jewish. Since then it has become the bedrock of anti-Semitism. What happened?
Same with City College of New York, as per Brooklyn College graduate Alan Dershowitz. Completely weird. Of course, Jesse Jackson famously (at least to my mind) referred to New York City as “Hymie Town.”
Aren’t Muslims not that big on people of color, never mind non-Muslims? How “safe” would this woman be in a Muslim country?
I’m sure she’ll get offers from lots of whacked out lefty firms. I bet Marc Elias will hire her!