A law firm’s job offer to a New York University law student was rescinded on Tuesday for what the firm described as “inflammatory comments” about Hamas’s attack that killed at least 1,200 Israelis.
And at Harvard, student groups began to take back their signatures on a letter that blamed Israel for the violence.
The actions were part of a wave of fallout on campuses for students, who are deeply polarized over the fighting.
At N.Y.U., Ryna Workman, the president of the university’s Student Bar Association, wrote in a message to the group on Tuesday that “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”
“This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary,” Mx. Workman wrote in the Student Bar Association bulletin. “I will not condemn Palestinian resistance.”
The backlash was swift.
By evening, the law firm, Winston & Strawn, said the comments “profoundly conflict” with its values and without naming the student, said it rescinded its offer of employment.
The same day, the dean of the law school, Troy A. McKenzie, repudiated the student’s remarks. “This message was not from N.Y.U. School of Law as an institution and does not speak for the leadership of the law school,” Mr. McKenzie wrote.
Good! Saying “I will not condemn Palestinian resistance” at this specific time is a quite literal endorsement of Hamas. It’s the only “resistance” and it is 100% based on slaughter of innocents (both Israeli and Palestinians).
A really horrible stance to take, with the very much expected consequences.