It is not only Trump: Federal judges also target universities

President Trump’s assault on higher education is unprecedented in scope and influence, but unprecedented in the concept. A group of 13 of the federal trial and the appeal hit him for about a year.

Trump used the exceptional powers of the executive authority to freeze billions of dollars from funding for seven leading universities, calling for changes in curricula and their management. Judges were more selective, as the University of Colombia only targeted, while predicting the same educational offside that Trump later published with revenge.

On May 6, 2024, the rulers sent a letter to the boycott to the President of Colombia at the time, describing the university as “zero ground for the explosion of students, and anti -Semitism and hatred of various views”, where “the disturbances threatened violence, committed the devastating attacks and transportation.”

They announced that they will refrain from employing Colombia graduates as a judicial writing unless the university imposes “severe consequences for students and faculty members who participated in campus disorders”, and employs curricula reforms and conservative faculty members.

On March 7, the Trump administration announced, using a stunning similar language, the cancellation of about $ 400 million in grants and federal contracts due to “the continued failure to work in the face of the constant harassment of Jewish students”, including the failure of radical demonstrators to seize the buildings on the campus. “

Additional cancellation has now been imposed, totaling more than $ 5 billion, at Harvard University, Cornell, Berunston, Benson and Northwestern (where I am a proud law professor).

Parallel is unambiguous. It was the judges who first sought to use control over government and government contracts – by employing the scribes – to pressure compliance with their educational opinions and societal goals.

Trump is a wreckball, without any consideration of previous standards, agreements or practices. We expect the judges to be more wise. We expect them in particular to comply with the rules of behavior for the US judges, prohibiting the benefit of the customer’s dates for the goals outside the judiciary.

Canon 3B (3) of the law states that judges must make employment decisions, including law writers, “just and only on the basis of merit.” In addition, Canon 2B prohibits the exploitation of their position to achieve non -judicial purposes through “lending[ing] The status of the judicial office to enhance the special interests of the judge. “

Colombia province has nothing to do with the advantages of the unknown future applicants, who will not graduate until 2027 or 2028, and are not involved in the misconduct of Gaza demonstrators last year. Instead, it aims to force Colombia to take unlimited disciplinary measures against “defects”, and the unspecified steps to expand “the diversity of the view of the college and through the administration – including the admission office.”

The rules of ethics have no exception to the goals offered. The law writers are public employees, who are provided to judges for assistance in the occurrence of cases. It is not correct for such situations to intervene in front of third parties as temptations to apply for the agenda of the ideological judge, regardless of the extent of virtue.

Unfortunately, the Code of Conduct can only be imposed by federal judges committees, who expect to protect from their colleagues in all the most terrible conditions. Official complaints were submitted against some boycott judges under the Law on behavior and judicial deficit, but they were all rejected.

The last chapter came earlier this month from a committee of three judicial council of the seventh district, sitting in Chicago.

It is clear that the members of the committee are aware of their “very sensitive and confidential” relations between the judge and the writer. Thus, “commensurate with the importance and sensitivity of the situation, the judges have a wide discretionary authority in choosing the writer of law,” apparently apparently with the rules of combating discrimination and combating Nepotism.

The arrangement of the 12 -page committee simply ignores the bright ethical problem inherent in the customer to block the behavior of the entire universities. In other contexts, government jobs were recognized as rewards or sanctions as corruption. However, the committee treats the boycott as if it was just another criterion of work, closer to the average point of a point or membership of the law.

No one noticed, or he was interested, if the judges chose to simply exclude Colombia graduates from looking, but this was not the purpose of publishing their open message. The boycott of the judges was more than just a personal choice exercise. It was an attempt to impose compliance with their declared demands.

In this regard, Canon 2B prohibits judges from using their official position to take advantage of their “private interests”, which is a suitable description of workers’ exploitation to coercion the judge’s curriculum preferences.

The committee ignored this problem in one sentence, saying that the goal of the boycott is to “improve the quality of legal education [which] It relates to the law in general, not the special interests of judges or private interests for others. “

This interpretation re -drafting ideological goals, such as employing more than conservative professors, such as improving the law. Thus the door opens all other types of violations, as long as it is characterized by serving the public interest.

By this logic, the Federal judge can refuse to employ a local university graduates unless the sports department launches the football coach.

However, federal judicial appointment does not include a mobile committee for the treatment of social illness through the boycott boycott. Judges may be submitted to justice to those who choose it. What they should not do is to use the threat of non -employment to extract concessions from third parties.

Trump certainly did not need an example of a judicial boycott to start his campaign to reshape higher education in his image. On the other hand, Federal judges must feel embarrassed by their participation and support for such Proto-Trump tactics.

Stephen Labbet is a professor of honorary memorial at the Faculty of Law at North and Steern University.