FROM DAVID LAT, AN OPEN LETTER TO YALE LAW DEAN HEATHER GERKEN: “There’s been a problem with the intellectual climate at Yale Law School for several years now. Some of it flows from the fact that progressive students (‘Progressives’) view those who disagree with them—definitely conservatives, and even some moderates—as bad people (‘Bad People’). Progressives are free to think that their opponents are Bad People. They can exclude them from social gatherings. They can make Bad People feel unwelcome in affinity groups (already happening at YLS, with members of certain affinity groups being forced to choose between affinity-group and FedSoc membership). They can make fun of Bad People with satirical fliers.3 But it’s your job, as the Dean of Yale Law School, to tell Progressives that in an academic community based on free expression, there are limits to how much they can act on the view that their opponents are Bad People.4 Progressives can’t shut down duly organized events because they disagree with the speakers. They can’t weaponize anti-discrimination policies to punish the protected speech of their opponents. They can’t make up and spread lies about professors with unpopular views (or the students who dare to associate with those professors). It’s your job, as the Dean of Yale Law School, to remind Progressives of all this—even if they complain, call you ‘complicit,’ or say you’re a Bad Person too.”

Send a copy to Georgetown’s Dean Bill Treanor. Meanwhile I remember when one of my Yale Law professors got a complaint from a student delegation and responded along the lines of “that might bother me, if I cared what students think.” Yale could use less caring about what students think.

And maybe a bit more caring about what federal judges think.