What an idiot.
2023 Georgetown Law School grad Jinan Chehade had been offered a job as an associate at the prominent law firm Foley & Lardner. The firm’s Director of Diversity and Inclusion told her they “valued and supported” her Arab Muslim heritage, and she took that to mean, “Go ahead and publicly support Hamas,murder,rape and hostage-taking, and it’s fine if you also proclaim your hatred of Jews and your inability to interpret world history too.
Chehade worked as a summer clerk at Foley in 2023 and was slated to join the firm as a full-time associate at its Chicago office two months ago. But following last year’s October 7th terrorist attacks attacks on Israel by Hamas, she began speaking out against Israel on her social media accounts and at a public Chicago City Hall meeting. Chehade appeared at the meeting wrapped in a keffiyeh and spoke out against a resolution condemning the Hamas massacre that started the current Gazan war. Though “the Western Zionist-controlled media machine would have you believe” it was an unprovoked attack, she said, the attack was just because it was the “legal right” of Palestinians to strike back for “75 years of occupation” by Israel’s “apartheid regime.”
Yeah, that’s just the kind of message a major law firm wants its lawyers to be sending to the public: bad law, bad history, bad values, bad ethics. Brilliant. When Foley rescinded its job offer, she sued the firm, arguing that the firm’s statement that it “valued and supported” her Arab Muslim heritage constituted a promise that she says she relied upon by accepting a job there and then going on a public anti-Israel, pro-Hamas campaign.
Uh, no. U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ruled that those assurances didn’t amount to an “unambiguous promise” that her job offer would not be rescinded over her pro-Palestinian activism or other conduct that could reflect negatively on the firm. She had no case. Of course she didn’t.
In related news, Bar admission authorities in California announced that they will consider applicants’ participation in campus protests on an ‘individual basis’ as they evaluate candidates’ “moral character” evaluation when determining if they have the requisite character to become licensed attorneys, while taking care to exclude protected political speech or expression, according to a memo. However, a law firm is not required to make that distinction when deciding who to hire.
Good luck to Chehade as she looks for a law firm to join that only seeks pro-terrorist, anti-Jewish clients.
Ethics Alarms 
Just heads up Jack, you’re last paragraph is almost repeated twice.
Ugh. Fixed. That happens when I’m in a rush and moving paragraphs around from rough materials.I had a seminar at 9 am, and didn’t check carefully. Sorry.
Why do people insist upon revealing their employer’s name on social media? I’ve never considered that a good idea. My Facebook page is devoid of any mention of my workplace, period nor do I post or comment about it. If a co-worker tags me in a post that references the workplace, I remove the tag.
It is far too easy for employers (to say nothing of insurance companies, private detective, law enforcement or would-be stalkers) to find out more about you than you want to reveal about yourself by looking at your social media pages.
People like this want to be caught. They want to be celebrated. They want their ego to be fed. They interpret respect for their beliefs to mean that others are required to validate and endorse those beliefs and every action that stems from them.
One could also blame the DEI fad for making people like this think that they will be permitted to act with impunity while others on the wrong side of history will face the adverse consequences.
On top of that, part of my employment agreement is that I may not speak for the company on social media. It might be all right to say I work for X, but I don’t really think so.
In this blog I refer to what I do at times, and also extrapolate some from my experiences with my clients, but naming them or providing the proverbial personally identifiable information (PII) is absolutely not all right and would get me fired. They don’t want me representing my views as those of the company nor do I.
Companies these days are much more aggressive in protecting their brands, and I cannot fault them for that.
She didn’t do that, because she wasn’t hired yet, but she did engage in high profile conduct and speech that a private employer has every reason not to endorse by hiring the individual responsible.
Schadenfreude is delicious on -4 degree morning.
Nicely done.
jvb
Driving around in Italy, I was always a little unsettled driving past vineyards that posted signs saying “Vendite.” I mentally conflated the word for “sales” with “vendetti.” Although I have to wonder whether “settling an account” is the source of both. And this wasn’t even in Sicily.
She seems to have landed on her feet:
https://mlfa.org/welcome-to-jinan-chehade/
jvb
PS: I believe this is her Instagram account:
https://www.instagram.com/jinanchehade/?hl=en
Just one nit to pick. She’s (was?) a 2023 Georgetown JD. Not 2003.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jinan-chehade-b867661b6/
Now THAT was a typo. Fixed.