Trump-appointed judge cleared of wrongdoing over Columbia law clerk boycott

By Nate Raymond

April 9 (Reuters) - A federal judicial panel has dismissed a misconduct complaint against one of the 13 judges who last year signed a letter announcing they would boycott hiring law clerks from Columbia University in response to its handling of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations on its campus over Israel's war in Gaza.

The 7th Circuit Judicial Council ruled in Judge Stephen Vaden's favor on Tuesday, the same day the U.S. Court of International Trade judge went before a U.S. Senate panel for a hearing on his nomination by Republican President Donald Trump to serve as deputy secretary of agriculture.

The judicial council said that jurists like Vaden, who Trump appointed to the court in his first term, have "wide discretion" to establish their own screening and selection criteria for law clerks.

That latitude means a judge may refuse to hire law clerks from law schools or universities that in their judgment fail to foster "civility in discourse, respect for freedom of speech, and viewpoint nondiscrimination," the council said.

"Accordingly, the law-clerk hiring boycott is neither inconsistent with the integrity of the judicial office nor likely to diminish public confidence in the judiciary," the council held in a decision signed by Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Diane Sykes.

The ruling in favor of Vaden came after judicial misconduct complaints were dismissed against 11 of the other conservative judges who signed the May letter to Columbia.

Those misconduct complaints were all reviewed by chief judges within the same region or courts as the judges at issue. But Chief U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts transferred the complaint against Vaden from the Court of International Trade to the 7th Circuit under a rule designed to avoid local conflicts.

Vaden was represented by the Christian conservative legal organization First Liberty Institute and Lisa Blatt, a prominent U.S. Supreme Court advocate at Williams & Connolly. Vaden and Blatt did not respond to requests for comment.

Vaden, along with 12 other judges who were all Trump appointees, in their letter called Columbia an "incubator of bigotry" and argued for "serious consequences" for anyone who participated in the campus demonstrations that roiled Columbia's campus in the spring.

They said Columbia had "become ground zero for the explosion of student disruptions, antisemitism, and hatred for diverse viewpoints on campuses across the nation" and had "disqualified itself from educating the future leaders of our country."

As a result, the judges said they would not hire anyone who attended Columbia as an undergraduate or law student, beginning with students who began their studies at the university in fall 2023.

The letter's other signatories included U.S. Circuit Judges James Ho of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Elizabeth Branch of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who participated in similar boycotts of clerks from Yale and Stanford over disruptions of conservative speakers on their campuses.

The misconduct complaint against Vaden was filed in June by an unnamed person who, according to Tuesday's ruling, has been convicted of arson, terrorism and other crimes stemming from his role in firebombing and vandalizing Jewish houses of worship.

The complainant alleged that Vaden violated judicial ethics rules by engaging in partisan political activity and extrajudicial conduct that was likely to cause a lowering of public confidence in the courts.

He said Vaden had disqualified himself from any cases involving members of the Columbia community and should be removed from office.

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