In a scene similar to that of the University of Michigan professor who refused to write a letter of recommendation for a student studying abroad in Israel, some law professors at Yale are “expressing reluctance” at doing the same for students seeking clerkships under new US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
For example, Lea Brilmayer, one of 33 Yale professors who signed an anti-Kavanaugh op-ed in the New York Times on October 3, said she’d likely not write such a recommendation … but it “might depend on the circumstances.”
Brilmayer added that her students were unlikely to apply for Kavanaugh clerkships anyway, and noted a recommendation from her, given that she was a signatory on the Times letter, probably wouldn’t be helpful.
The Yale Daily News reports on the feelings of other professors:
In a piece in the Wednesday edition of the News, prominent constitutional law professor Akhil Amar ’80 LAW ’84 pledged not to write recommendation letters for students applying to clerk for Kavanaugh for the next three years in attempts to skirt accusations against him of “elite cronyism or back-scratching.”
Unlike Amar, James Whitman, professor of comparative and foreign law, said he “would not hesitate to write a recommendation” for students seeking clerkships with Kavanaugh or any other judge.
In a similar vein, Joshua Galperin, a research scholar and lecturer at Yale Law School, said that if a student were to ask him for a recommendation for Kavanaugh, he would, “in principle,” write the letter.
“I would remind the student about the accusations against him, but if the student comes to me with eyes wide open, it is not my place to do more than counsel the student,” Galperin said. “If I trust the student enough to recommend her or him in the first place, I also have to trust the student to make good decisions about where to work.”
Kavanaugh is the first SCOTUS justice in history to hire all-female clerks, including recent Yale Law graduate Kim Jackson. Jackson is one of the few African-American clerks in this year’s class.
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