Top U.S. law firm Davis Polk announced in an internal email that it had rescinded letters of employment for three law students at Harvard and Columbia universities who signed on to organizational statements about Israel, one of the latest responses to open letters from university groups about the Israel-Hamas conflict that have roiled university donors, employers, alumni and students.
“These statements are simply contrary to our firm’s values and we thus concluded that rescinding these offers was appropriate in upholding our responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive work environment for all Davis Polk employees,” said the email, signed by Neil Barr.
Small-business lawyer Joseph Gerstel posted a screenshot of the email Tuesday on LinkedIn. A Davis Polk representative confirmed it as authentic.
Barr went on to write, “At this time, we remain in dialogue with two of these students to ensure that any further color being offered to us by these students is considered.”
The relevant portion of the letter since the summary emits what the law firm is mad about:
Additional violence at this point, seems to me that’s on Israel. You don’t get to use self defense to kill your attacker and then also go kill your attacker’s family and friends, lay waste to their home. A disproportionate response exceeds the scope of the cassus bellum, and thereby becomes unjust itself.
Hamas was found to have bombed the hospital. You want to blame Israel for that? Smh.
I love how people focus on one hospital, where it’s not clear who attacked the hospital, and just ignore the 6000+ other bombs Israel dropped in Gaza. I guess (supposedly) not bombing that one hospital makes Israel the good guys?
Every think piece written about who really bombed the hospital is one not written on the 6000+ other bombs. The same day they bombed a UNRWA school and yet here we still are, taking about the unclear case instead, just as intended.
By Israel and Israeli allies, neat. It’s not like a war within your lifetime has been founded on lies or anything, certainly not lies our allies blindly agreed with. Wait that has happened twice in my lifetime.
“Hamas was found to have bombed the hospital” aka all evidence points to Israel bombing the hospital, including a now deleted tweet from Netanyahu’s aide stating the IDF bombed the hospital, but we’re supposed to believe the ‘analysis’ of the group that constantly lies about their killing civilians.
Riiiiiight.