4 days ago
US judge warns that law clerk hiring boycotts may cross ethical lines
May 30 (Reuters) - Law clerk hiring boycotts, like the type launched by 13 conservative federal judges last year in protest of Columbia University's handling of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations on its campus, may "cross an important line," a top federal appeals court judge concluded.
Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Steven Colloton reached that conclusion, opens new tab even as he dismissed a judicial misconduct complaint filed with the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit Judicial Council against one of those 13 judges, U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor in Bismarck, North Dakota.
A five-member panel of the 8th Circuit Judicial Council on Thursday voted to deny a petition to review Colloton's now-public decision.
Traynor like the other judges who participated in the boycott was appointed by Republican President Donald Trump during his first term. Colloton said that when Traynor signed the letter, there was no ethical guidance suggesting that such a hiring boycott was forbidden.
Traynor was not identified by name in the decision, but he is the only of the 13 judges at issue within the 8th Circuit's jurisdiction. The person who filed the complaint was also not named. Traynor declined to comment.
Similar misconduct complaints have been dismissed against the other 12, with chief judges in other circuits concluding that the hiring boycott announced in a May 2024 letter did not constitute misconduct, Colloton noted.
Given those circumstances, Colloton said it would be unfair to hold that Traynor's participation in the boycott constituted misconduct under the Code of Conduct for U.S. judges without him having fair notice in advance that it was forbidden.
But Colloton, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, expressed concern about such boycotts, saying they "have the potential to embroil the judiciary in extrajudicial public controversies and to lower public confidence in the courts among reasonable people."
"There is thus a substantial question whether judges cross an important line when they go beyond expressing their personal views in an effort to persuade and begin using their power as government officials to pressure private institutions to conform to the judges' preferences," Colloton wrote.
He said the issue was one that may be appropriate for study by members of the U.S. Judicial Conference body tasked with revising and interpreting the Code of Conduct.
In their letter last year, the Trump-appointed judges had called Columbia an "incubator of bigotry" and argued for "serious consequences" for anyone who participated in the campus demonstrations over Israel's war in Gaza that roiled Columbia's campus.
They said Columbia had "become ground zero for the explosion of student disruptions, antisemitism, and hatred for diverse viewpoints on campuses across the nation" and had "disqualified itself from educating the future leaders of our country."
As a result, the judges had said they would not hire anyone who attended Columbia as an undergraduate or law student, beginning with students who began their studies at the university in fall 2023.
The letter's other signatories included U.S. Circuit Judges James Ho of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Elizabeth Branch of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who participated in similar boycotts of clerks from Yale and Stanford over disruptions of conservative speakers on their campuses.
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