Long Island law firms are joining a going chorus of attorneys with a message for law schools: Either address the “disturbing” rate of campus antisemitism, or risk a loss of recruiting opportunities for their students.
“We represent some of the largest law firms on Long Island, and stand with many other law firms and businesses in expressing our extreme disappointment in the lack of condemnation by many law school deans and other administrators of anti-Semitic conduct by students and faculty members since the premeditated, barbaric rape and slaughter by Hamas on October 7, 2023 of some 1,400 Israelis, the vast majority of whom were civilian women, babies and children,” the firms wrote in the letter.
“As educational and community leaders, it is your first and foremost obligation to protect all students, to speak out against hate of any kind and to provide an environment in which all students feel safe and can personally and professionally excel,” they added. “The importance of these obligations has become even more critical in light of the current environment and threats against Jewish students and other supporters of Israel.”
Ten Long Island firms signed the letter. They include Abrams Fensterman; Harris Beach; L’Abbate, Balkan, Colavita & Contini; Lewis Johs Avallone Aviles; Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone; Moritt Hock & Hamroff; Rivkin Radler; Ruskin Moscou Faltischek; Westerman Ball Ederer Miller Zucker & Sharfstein; and Campolo, Middleton, & McCormick.
Sent to law schools across New York and New Jersey, the letter takes a stand against hate, said David Heymann, managing partner of Meltzer Lippe, which is headquartered in Mineola.
“It’s not an Israel issue or a Palestinian issue,” Heymann told LIBN. “This is a hate issue,” he said adding that the letter is about protecting democracy.
And if instead of Jews, it were members of the African American community or the LGBTQ+ community being targeted at schools, there would be “outrage,” and “rightfully so,” Heymann pointed out.
“As a son of a father who was on one of the last boats out of Nazi Germany, there was no way I could sit by and watch this happen,” he said. “No student on any campus should feel scared because of their race, religion, sexual orientation or political views – it’s just wrong.”
Heymann spoke with the partners of his firm who supported his idea to write a draft of the letter and to reach out to the larger law firms on Long Island. In total, he, along with Marc Hamroff, the managing partner at Moritt Hock & Hamroff, contacted 17 “friendly competitors,” and began incorporating instrumental feedback from Robert Alessi and John Farrell, both partners at Meltzer Lippe, as well as from the other firms signatory to the letter.
“I commend and I thank profusely my colleagues at the firms who joined in this letter,” Heymann said.
The Long Island law firms aren’t alone in this stance. On Tuesday, the U.S. Education Department said in a letter that there’s “renewed urgency” to fight discrimination against students during the Israel-Hamas war. The DOE letter reminds schools of their legal duty to protect students and intervene to stop harassment that disrupts their education.
“The rise of reports of hate incidents on our college campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict is deeply traumatic for students and should be alarming to all Americans,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Antisemitism, Islamophobia and all other forms of hatred go against everything we stand for as a nation.”
The Nassau County Bar Association last week joined with other bar associations in condemning the Hamas attack on Israel and antisemitism.
Wall Street law firms have led the charge in warning law schools that they won’t recruit from campuses that tolerate antisemitism.
Nixon Peabody, a global law firm with an office in Melville, and Greenberg Traurig, with offices in Bridgehampton and Garden City, said they too had joined a group of global law firms in signing a letter that urges leading US law schools to denounce antisemitic rhetoric, violence, and harassment.
Law schools should foster an environment where students “think intelligently and look at a situation to try to understand the logic of the other side,” Heymann said. “If a professor is not teaching students to look at things that way, I question what kind of lawyer they would become.”
And when they “jump to conclusions,” he added, “it’s very dangerous.”
Meanwhile, the Long Island law firms’ letter addresses freedom of expression, with which some universities may be grappling.
“As lawyers, we assure you that we are fully conversant with and supportive of the critical freedoms of expression that are protected by the First Amendment and myriad state constitutions. However, we have witnessed during the past several weeks a disturbing increase in virulent anti-Israel, anti-Jewish speech on university campuses that goes well beyond the bounds of protected expression and, instead, seeks to incite listeners and readers to imminent violence and other unlawful acts against members of the Jewish community and others who support Israel,” the letter said.
And, they said, “such rhetoric has too often been accompanied by actual acts of mob intimidation that have placed Jewish students and other supporters of Israel in fear of imminent physical bodily harm. In every sense, such ‘speech’ constitutes ‘true threats,’ under controlling Supreme Court jurisprudence. Even if it did not, it is certainly unacceptable in an educational or professional environment.”
The letter went on to say that “nothing in the First Amendment or analogous provisions of state constitutions precludes deans and other administrators of private and public law schools alike from at the very least discharging their duty to condemn unequivocally intimidating, incitant speech directed against Jewish students and other supporters of Israel. For those of you who have done so, we thank you. For those who have not, we respectfully urge you to do so.”
Now Heymann is looking to other leaders to step up.
“It’s important that these universities know that our respective firms are not going to turn a blind eye,” he said. “We expect better.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Adina Genn
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