Free Speech, Wokeness, And Cancel Culture In The Legal Profession

David Lat (Original Jurisdiction), Free Speech, Wokeness, And Cancel Culture In The Legal Profession:

Last week, I made my way up to Yale University for an event sponsored by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program, “Is Free Speech Dead On Campus?” It featured Judges James Ho (5th Cir.) and Lisa Branch (11th Cir.) in conversation with Professor Akhil Amar of Yale Law School, followed by a wide-ranging discussion with the (standing room only) audience.

Inspired by that event, I invited Judges Branch and Ho to participate in a written Q&A with me. They kindly accepted my invitation, allowing them to share and expand upon some of their points, and our discussion appears below. I thank them for their time, their insights, and their commitment to the cause of free speech. …

DBL: [W]hy are you taking all this time, away from your judicial duties and your families, to travel across the country talking about free speech?

JCH: I do zealously guard my family time. So if cancel culture was just a college thing—if it were something you endure a few years and then leave behind after you graduate, like bad cafeteria food and cramped dorm rooms—I wouldn’t have gone to Yale last week.

But there’s a troubling new development in the legal profession. I see more and more lawyers, especially young lawyers, with their careers threatened for nothing more than having certain viewpoints—typically conservative and Christian viewpoints.

Cancel culture has become a cancer on our culture. Students see how folks behave on campus—not just other students, but professors and university administrators. They learn all the wrong lessons from it. We launch them into the world. And guess what happens next? They treat employers, co-workers, and colleagues the same way. What happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus.

Powerful law firm leaders and tenured law professors from top law schools are now telling reporters—typically off the record—that they’re scared of the associates and the law students. Just look at what happened last week. The same week we spoke at Yale about free speech and cancel culture, you reported on the latest explosion of intolerance at major law firms.

I’ve always enjoyed counseling young (and not so young) lawyers on their legal careers. But lately, too many people have come to me because they’re concerned, not about career development, but about career destruction.

This is not America. This is not the Constitution. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution. And that oath is not limited to judicial opinions.

ELB: I agree with Jim on all fronts. It is true that our busy schedules make travel difficult; however, I always make time for important occasions. And standing up for free speech is pretty near the top of the list.

If we don’t make this stand, who will? With life tenure comes a measure of security. Perhaps we are the last line of defense. As federal judges, we swore an oath to the Constitution. Of course we are giving speeches about it.

Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of the founding principles that make our nation great. Our people are exceptional, but we are not perfect. Sometimes we say things inartfully. It’s how we learn to hone our opinions and perfect our arguments. In the past, we excused missteps; today, we assign malicious intent. Instead, we need to afford people a moment of grace. It’s time for cancel culture to stop and open debate to return.

As judges, we have a special relationship to the law and the legal system. I have seen firsthand how the infection has spread to the legal profession. Law firm partners are struggling to navigate management challenges in our new “woke” culture. As mentors to our law clerks, we want to ensure that their career paths aren’t cut short because of the cancel-culture poison that has infected our profession (and many others). So it makes sense for judges to travel to schools to talk about free speech and ensure young people understand how far our country is straying.

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