Coalition Legal Letter to Licensing Bodies: Penalizing Aspiring Attorneys for Opposing Genocide Violates Anti-Discrimination Laws and Constitutional Protections

CONTACT: Palestine Legal Media | media@palestinelegal.org 

January 15th, 2025 — Palestine Legal and Unlock the Bar, joined by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Climate Defense Project, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Palestinian American Bar Association, sent a letter to the 56 attorney license-granting jurisdictions in the United States, warning that penalizing aspiring attorneys for their advocacy in support of Palestinian rights violates anti-discrimination laws and First Amendment guarantees. The letter urged character and fitness committees to uphold their mission to promote integrity in the legal profession and to reject undue pressure to exclude politically marginalized voices from the practice of law.

The letter comes as many law students who have taken courageous steps to attempt to end the U.S.-backed genocide in Palestine continue to face academic discipline, criminal charges, rescinded job offers, online harassment, and other forms of retaliation. Aspiring attorneys typically must disclose a broad range of information related to academic, employment, and criminal legal records, regardless of the outcome of any charges. The letter outlines applicants’ legal protections under the First and the Fourteenth Amendments and federal anti-discrimination statutes, and reminds reviewers of their ethical responsibility to promote an inclusive legal profession.

Less than a month into Israel's attacks on Gaza in October 2023, three law students had already had job offers rescinded from a firm due to signing a statement that criticized Israel. Since then, countless others have participated in over a year of marches, rallies, and the explosion of student activism that came last spring with the historic encampments that sprung up at campuses across the nation. In response to these diverse forms of Palestinian solidarity, law students have faced censorship and retaliation creating "unpredictable and precarious circumstances for applicants to the Bar, who seemingly have to choose between their conscience and their career," according to the letter. Given this highly politicized and anti-Palestinian atmosphere, the letter urges committees to recognize that "the records that come before them cannot be read plainly on their faces, but must be read with an understanding of the discriminatory era that we find ourselves in."

The history of the character and fitness system is steeped in a history of racist and xenophobic professional fitness metrics. In spite of the historical use of character and fitness benchmarks as a tool of racial exclusion, committees today have the responsibility to ensure that admission practices are not aimed at denying access to applicants based on their identity or activism. Instead, as Senior Staff Attorney at Palestine Legal Meera Shah states, "Criticism, dissent, and the refusal to remain silent in the face of injustice are hallmarks of zealous legal advocacy. Bar licensing committees have a legal and moral duty to uphold these principles and must not weaponize the Character and Fitness process to penalize those speaking out against genocide."

Read Unlock the Bar's press release here.

If you are a law student needing support on your character and fitness application, you can reach out to Unlock the Bar.