Federal judge wants clerks to confirm they aren’t part of antisemitic or Islamophobic groups

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Judiciary Federal judge wants clerks to confirm they aren't part of antisemitic or Islamophobic groups

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 10, 2023, 1:42 pm CST

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U.S. District Judge Lee P. Rudofsky of the Eastern District of Arkansas in July 2019 at a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing. Photo by Star Garnet, PD US Courts, via Wikimedia Commons.

A federal judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, is asking his incoming law clerks and interns whether they have done anything—or belonged to groups that did anything—that could be construed as celebrating or condoning the “massacre perpetrated by Hamas in Israel.”

U.S. District Judge Lee P. Rudofsky of the Eastern District of Arkansas is asking that question in an email to the future clerks and interns, according to Reuters, which reviewed the email.

The email also asked the future clerks and interns to confirm that they have not engaged in antisemitism or Islamophobia, have not backed the targeting of civilians, and have not ripped down pictures of hostages held by Hamas.

Rudofsky said he didn’t care, however, about the future employees’ policy views on issues such as a two-state solution, on a ceasefire or on claims to Israel by Palestinians or Jewish people.

Rudofsky, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, told Reuters that the future clerks and interns confirmed that they don’t “have problems of this sort.”

The podcast Advisory Opinions first reported on Rudofsky’s email, which was noted in posts on the Volokh Conspiracy here and here.

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