So\u2026 Yale Law professors or a firm accused of a deeply disturbing conflict? Tough choice!<\/p>\n
Yale Law students, student organizations, and recent graduates have signed a letter<\/a> also calling upon the university to stop negotiating against itself by talking settlement with the DOJ. It begins with \u2014 what should be \u2014 the first rule of litigation.<\/p>\n First, there are no findings against Yale Law School.<\/strong> The Department of Justice has not completed its inquiry, has accused the School of no wrongdoing, and has given it nothing to contest. A settlement now would concede claims that have never been made and accept sanction without process. Do not obey in advance.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Yes! Do not talk settlement when the government hasn\u2019t even managed to string together a coherent finding yet. This does not take law students from the school with the lowest acceptance rate in the country<\/a> to figure out. There are third-tier law schools that could give that advice for free. <\/p>\n The DOJ did issue findings against the medical school<\/a> in May \u2014 findings that Yale\u2019s AAUP chapter investigated with help from Sher Tremonte and found \u201cbogus \u2014 cherry-picked, statistically weak<\/a>\u201d \u2014 but nothing against the greater university or any of its other schools. The centerpiece of this DOJ magnum opus was a 2024 admissions slide titled \u201cAdmissions post-SCOTUS.\u201d The slide is otherwise blank. From that blank slide, the DOJ divined that admissions staff must be receiving secret verbal instructions to continue considering race after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs in admissions. Sher Tremonte\u2019s lawyers noted the obvious, which is that the inference \u201cis based on pure speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n Yale President Maurie McInnis issued a statement this morning<\/a> attempting to put out the fire that everyone with a legal education keeps asking her to put out. After admitting that the government has only issued findings regarding the medical school and all other inquiries are \u201cpending,\u201d she wrote:<\/p>\n These investigations concern university compliance with federal law; specifically, a federal statute, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court required colleges and universities across the country, including Yale, to adhere to new legal standards in admissions in its 2023 decision in\u00a0Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard<\/em>. As a university committed to the rule of law, we take that obligation seriously.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is cowardly bullshit. The DOJ is not acting in good faith, and pretending like it is disgraces the university. The only statement Yale\u2019s leadership should put out is \u201cThe DOJ is lobbing frivolous claims in a blatant effort to intimidate the university into compromising its academic freedom and professional educational judgment. Yale has done nothing wrong, and we will vigorously fight these false claims.\u201d <\/p>\n Instead, she wrote this tripe. Anything short of that is just like out doughnuts to stay on the good side of the secret police. <\/p>\n The students, in their letter, flag this:<\/p>\n Second, the record of peer settlements counsels against trust.<\/strong> Recent agreements have bound universities to vague and shifting definitions of prohibited conduct, imposed certification regimes that expose individual administrators and students to personal liability, and installed the federal government as a standing overseer of academic judgment. As scholars Serena Mayeri and Amanda Shanor reviewing those agreements have warned<\/a>, such deals purchase not peace but a conditional reprieve of uncertain duration, revocable whenever the government demands change.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is exactly what happened with UVA when they were represented McGuireWoods. As UVA\u2019s former counsel\u00a0put it<\/a>, the school was \u201csaddled with counsel aligned with the other side.\u201d But in that case, the firm was appointed by the state\u2019s Republican AG. Yale is a private school and doesn\u2019t have to choose a law firm that might have such overlapping interests\u2026 but they chose to be represented by McGuireWoods anyway<\/em>.<\/p>\n That decision tells you everything you need to know about where this matter is going. The university is interested in bootlicking and sought out a law firm that\u2019s successfully licked the same boot. <\/p>\n When McInnis calls the process \u201crequired and reasonable,\u201d it is neither. Let the DOJ bring a claim \u2014 or at least some colorable findings<\/em> \u2014 before offering up the school\u2019s independence in a shakedown.<\/p>\n Senator Richard Blumenthal \u2014 Yale Law \u201973, and Connecticut\u2019s attorney general for two decades before that \u2014 told a recent roundtable<\/a> with Yale students held outside a law school that he\u2019d been told \u201cvery reliably\u201d that the school has made a second settlement proposal after the DOJ already rejected the school\u2019s first gratuitous proposal.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the Lando Effect<\/a> in fast forward. The university is showing its belly and the DOJ is already asking for more. That is not \u201crequired and reasonable.\u201d It\u2019s just embarrassing. \u201cThere\u2019s no excuse for a settlement right now,\u201d Blumenthal said. Yale\u2019s rival Harvard has played hardball and won. Even if Harvard eventually takes a settlement down the road, which it shouldn\u2019t, it would be negotiating from the strength that comes from successfully bloodying the bully\u2019s nose first. Meanwhile every institution that caves to Trump \u2014 Columbia, UVA, a gaggle of Biglaw firms<\/a> \u2014 just get hit again anyway. Appeasing this administration only teaches it that there\u2019s more it can take.<\/p>\n You\u2019d think a professor of history might recognize how this pattern always plays out, but McInnis is a professor of \u201cthe History of Art.\u201d Like, what are we doing here? Just say \u201cArt History\u201d like normal people.<\/p>\n McInnis\u2019s statement notes that \u201cI am seeing speculation and misinformation spreading,\u201d but does not flag what, precisely, is untrue. That Yale volunteered a settlement as the state\u2019s sitting senator says? That the law school is pushing back against the settlement talks? The letter confirms that there are still no findings against any entity but the medical school, so it\u2019s not that. <\/p>\n The students also highlight the particular impact the university\u2019s pusillanimity \u2014 to use the sort of unnecessarily fancy word a Yale alum like Bill Buckley would choose \u2014 will have upon them.<\/p>\n Third, we are the ones who will live under whatever is signed.<\/strong> For us, the students, none of this is abstract. The admissions process now on the bargaining table is the process that assembled the community we learn from every day. Our classmates come to Yale Law School as military veterans, as immigrants, as organizers, as government aid recipients, as the first in their family to attend college\u2014to list but a few<\/a> elements of our peers\u2019 backgrounds. We benefit from their experiences in and beyond the classroom.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Right. The student body that makes Yale an elite institution thrives on its admissions policy and the government just wants to strip out one diversity enhancement to make more room for more mediocre white kids and legacy admissions\u2026 which is also, because of its backward looking nature, overwhelmingly white affirmative action. <\/p>\n The opening instruction of the student letter \u2014 \u201cDo not obey in advance\u201d \u2014 comes from Timothy Snyder, who wrote it as Lesson One of On Tyranny<\/em> while a professor at Yale. A reminder of what Yale can be.<\/p>\n The law students are now saying the same thing. So are the faculty. So are alumni. So are Mayor Justin Elicker and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. Ditto Senator Blumenthal. Count in AAUP co-counsel Marisol Orihuela too, who asked Yale to do the radical thing of making \u201cthe Department of Justice prove its allegations if it even can.\u201d Basically every constituency in the Yale orbit seems to get this except the people doing the negotiating. As alum and rightful FTC Commissioner<\/a> Becca Slaughter put it<\/a> to the Yale Daily News<\/em><\/a>, \u201cit cannot be that I, Becca, normal human, had the wherewithal to challenge something that was wrong and an abuse of power, and Yale \u2014 with its $44 billion endowment \u2014 does not,\u201d Dip a few hundredths of a percent into that $44 billion endowment and hire a law firm to make the DOJ prove its case. They\u2019re the institution that\u2019s short-staffed!<\/a> Yale doesn\u2019t just have the right side of the facts, they\u2019re in the rarified position of having the right side of the resources in a fight against the federal fucking government.<\/p>\n The math is simple. The law is simple. The art history should be simple.<\/p>\n Earlier<\/strong>: Yale Law School Begging Yale University To Find Its Spine Against Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\n The post Yale Law Students Advise Their Own University: Knock Off This \u2018Obey In Advance\u2019 Nonsense<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yale Law School\u2019s leaders are begging the university to stop playing footsie with fascism. Yale Law students agree.<\/p>\n The dean and members of the faculty reportedly made behind-the-scenes overtures<\/a> to university leaders to stop trying to negotiate with the Department of Justice to settle discrimination claims brought against the school as part of a wave of claims against institutions of higher learning designed to bully universities into signing over independence to a handful of MAGAratchiks<\/em>. The law school feels that its world-class legal scholars have valuable insights into safeguarding the rule of law. The university\u2019s leadership so far seems more interested in advice from counsel that already surrendered so badly in University of Virginia\u2019s similar case that the former president and general counsel publicly suggested that the firm \u2014 appointed by the state\u2019s Republican then-AG \u2014 was really working for the government to undermine the school\u2019s legal rights.<\/p>\n So\u2026 Yale Law professors or a firm accused of a deeply disturbing conflict? Tough choice!<\/p>\n Yale Law students, student organizations, and recent graduates have signed a letter<\/a> also calling upon the university to stop negotiating against itself by talking settlement with the DOJ. It begins with \u2014 what should be \u2014 the first rule of litigation.<\/p>\n First, there are no findings against Yale Law School.<\/strong> The Department of Justice has not completed its inquiry, has accused the School of no wrongdoing, and has given it nothing to contest. A settlement now would concede claims that have never been made and accept sanction without process. Do not obey in advance.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Yes! Do not talk settlement when the government hasn\u2019t even managed to string together a coherent finding yet. This does not take law students from the school with the lowest acceptance rate in the country<\/a> to figure out. There are third-tier law schools that could give that advice for free. <\/p>\n The DOJ did issue findings against the medical school<\/a> in May \u2014 findings that Yale\u2019s AAUP chapter investigated with help from Sher Tremonte and found \u201cbogus \u2014 cherry-picked, statistically weak<\/a>\u201d \u2014 but nothing against the greater university or any of its other schools. The centerpiece of this DOJ magnum opus was a 2024 admissions slide titled \u201cAdmissions post-SCOTUS.\u201d The slide is otherwise blank. From that blank slide, the DOJ divined that admissions staff must be receiving secret verbal instructions to continue considering race after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs in admissions. Sher Tremonte\u2019s lawyers noted the obvious, which is that the inference \u201cis based on pure speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n Yale President Maurie McInnis issued a statement this morning<\/a> attempting to put out the fire that everyone with a legal education keeps asking her to put out. After admitting that the government has only issued findings regarding the medical school and all other inquiries are \u201cpending,\u201d she wrote:<\/p>\n These investigations concern university compliance with federal law; specifically, a federal statute, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court required colleges and universities across the country, including Yale, to adhere to new legal standards in admissions in its 2023 decision in\u00a0Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard<\/em>. As a university committed to the rule of law, we take that obligation seriously.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is cowardly bullshit. The DOJ is not acting in good faith, and pretending like it is disgraces the university. The only statement Yale\u2019s leadership should put out is \u201cThe DOJ is lobbing frivolous claims in a blatant effort to intimidate the university into compromising its academic freedom and professional educational judgment. Yale has done nothing wrong, and we will vigorously fight these false claims.\u201d <\/p>\n Instead, she wrote this tripe. Anything short of that is just like out doughnuts to stay on the good side of the secret police. <\/p>\n The students, in their letter, flag this:<\/p>\n Second, the record of peer settlements counsels against trust.<\/strong> Recent agreements have bound universities to vague and shifting definitions of prohibited conduct, imposed certification regimes that expose individual administrators and students to personal liability, and installed the federal government as a standing overseer of academic judgment. As scholars Serena Mayeri and Amanda Shanor reviewing those agreements have warned<\/a>, such deals purchase not peace but a conditional reprieve of uncertain duration, revocable whenever the government demands change.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is exactly what happened with UVA when they were represented McGuireWoods. As UVA\u2019s former counsel\u00a0put it<\/a>, the school was \u201csaddled with counsel aligned with the other side.\u201d But in that case, the firm was appointed by the state\u2019s Republican AG. Yale is a private school and doesn\u2019t have to choose a law firm that might have such overlapping interests\u2026 but they chose to be represented by McGuireWoods anyway<\/em>.<\/p>\n That decision tells you everything you need to know about where this matter is going. The university is interested in bootlicking and sought out a law firm that\u2019s successfully licked the same boot. <\/p>\n When McInnis calls the process \u201crequired and reasonable,\u201d it is neither. Let the DOJ bring a claim \u2014 or at least some colorable findings<\/em> \u2014 before offering up the school\u2019s independence in a shakedown.<\/p>\n Senator Richard Blumenthal \u2014 Yale Law \u201973, and Connecticut\u2019s attorney general for two decades before that \u2014 told a recent roundtable<\/a> with Yale students held outside a law school that he\u2019d been told \u201cvery reliably\u201d that the school has made a second settlement proposal after the DOJ already rejected the school\u2019s first gratuitous proposal.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the Lando Effect<\/a> in fast forward. The university is showing its belly and the DOJ is already asking for more. That is not \u201crequired and reasonable.\u201d It\u2019s just embarrassing. \u201cThere\u2019s no excuse for a settlement right now,\u201d Blumenthal said. Yale\u2019s rival Harvard has played hardball and won. Even if Harvard eventually takes a settlement down the road, which it shouldn\u2019t, it would be negotiating from the strength that comes from successfully bloodying the bully\u2019s nose first. Meanwhile every institution that caves to Trump \u2014 Columbia, UVA, a gaggle of Biglaw firms<\/a> \u2014 just get hit again anyway. Appeasing this administration only teaches it that there\u2019s more it can take.<\/p>\n You\u2019d think a professor of history might recognize how this pattern always plays out, but McInnis is a professor of \u201cthe History of Art.\u201d Like, what are we doing here? Just say \u201cArt History\u201d like normal people.<\/p>\n McInnis\u2019s statement notes that \u201cI am seeing speculation and misinformation spreading,\u201d but does not flag what, precisely, is untrue. That Yale volunteered a settlement as the state\u2019s sitting senator says? That the law school is pushing back against the settlement talks? The letter confirms that there are still no findings against any entity but the medical school, so it\u2019s not that. <\/p>\n The students also highlight the particular impact the university\u2019s pusillanimity \u2014 to use the sort of unnecessarily fancy word a Yale alum like Bill Buckley would choose \u2014 will have upon them.<\/p>\n Third, we are the ones who will live under whatever is signed.<\/strong> For us, the students, none of this is abstract. The admissions process now on the bargaining table is the process that assembled the community we learn from every day. Our classmates come to Yale Law School as military veterans, as immigrants, as organizers, as government aid recipients, as the first in their family to attend college\u2014to list but a few<\/a> elements of our peers\u2019 backgrounds. We benefit from their experiences in and beyond the classroom.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Right. The student body that makes Yale an elite institution thrives on its admissions policy and the government just wants to strip out one diversity enhancement to make more room for more mediocre white kids and legacy admissions\u2026 which is also, because of its backward looking nature, overwhelmingly white affirmative action. <\/p>\n The opening instruction of the student letter \u2014 \u201cDo not obey in advance\u201d \u2014 comes from Timothy Snyder, who wrote it as Lesson One of On Tyranny<\/em> while a professor at Yale. A reminder of what Yale can be.<\/p>\n The law students are now saying the same thing. So are the faculty. So are alumni. So are Mayor Justin Elicker and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. Ditto Senator Blumenthal. Count in AAUP co-counsel Marisol Orihuela too, who asked Yale to do the radical thing of making \u201cthe Department of Justice prove its allegations if it even can.\u201d Basically every constituency in the Yale orbit seems to get this except the people doing the negotiating. As alum and rightful FTC Commissioner<\/a> Becca Slaughter put it<\/a> to the Yale Daily News<\/em><\/a>, \u201cit cannot be that I, Becca, normal human, had the wherewithal to challenge something that was wrong and an abuse of power, and Yale \u2014 with its $44 billion endowment \u2014 does not,\u201d Dip a few hundredths of a percent into that $44 billion endowment and hire a law firm to make the DOJ prove its case. They\u2019re the institution that\u2019s short-staffed!<\/a> Yale doesn\u2019t just have the right side of the facts, they\u2019re in the rarified position of having the right side of the resources in a fight against the federal fucking government.<\/p>\n The math is simple. The law is simple. The art history should be simple.<\/p>\n Earlier<\/strong>: Yale Law School Begging Yale University To Find Its Spine Against Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\n Yale Law School\u2019s leaders are begging the university to stop playing footsie with fascism. Yale Law students agree. The dean and members of the faculty reportedly made behind-the-scenes overtures to university leaders to stop trying to negotiate with the Department of Justice to settle discrimination claims brought against the school as part of a wave […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":156626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Headshot-300x200-7ndX6B.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/04\/Yale-Law-300x188.jpg?resize=300%2C188&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
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\n![\"Headshot\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Headshot-300x200.jpg?resize=188%2C125&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"