For many, law school is a safe stepping stone before they get a job. But the threats to liberty that ICE and DHS pose to students complicates that easy relationship. There’s no magical force field that prevents ICE from harming citizens and non-citizens alike; Trump already scoffed at the idea of giving everyone they want to deport due process and ICE set the tone for the year by killing someone on New Year’s Eve. Given the ongoing events, the last thing folks want to see on campus generally or at a career fair specifically is one of the “Raise your voice and I’ll erase your voice” brigade hunting for new recruits. Students at Temple’s Beasley School of Law are demanding that their administration step up to protect them. Temple News has coverage:
Sixty Temple Law students demanded measures to protect Temple Law’s students, staff and faculty from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and to end Department of Homeland Security recruitment events, in a proposal submitted to admin on March 25.
“Following an escalating erosion of due process and other constitutional rights, we believe that it is vital for Temple Law to respond to the aggressive and violent immigration enforcement that is occurring across the country,” the anonymous students, who did not identify as any existing student groups, wrote in the proposal.
The students presented the demands to Interim Dean Kristen Murray during a Coffee and Careers event on March 25.
Temple law students aren’t the only ones pushing their administration to do better: Georgetown, George Washington, and Harvard have pushed their administrations to be on the right side of history as the institutions and career services engage with ICE.
Temple students have already seen some success. A DHS recruitment event back in November was canceled after students spoke out against it. At the level of praxis, the students want the school to “implement a text alert system to notify students about ICE officer sightings on campus” and share guides on how to interact with ICE for faculty and staff, among other things.
It seems that a stop in communication flows from how the students are reaching out to the administration. Students have been emailing anonymously, but the school says that it needs to talk to a student in person, on the phone, or though the verified Temple email system. School policy or an attempt to get student names on the anti anti-terrorism watchlist? Inconclusive, but you can’t be mad at students for trying to protect themselves.
Best of luck to the students, may ICE melt, and Go Birds!
Temple Law Students Demand “ICE Out” Policies [Temple News]
Earlier: Penn Law Students Host Rights Training For ICE Encounters
Law School Arms Students With Anti-ICE Hotline To Protect The Community
Georgetown Law Students Petition To Keep Their School From Becoming An ICE Recruitment Center
Harvard Law Students Push School To Divest From ICE & Law Firms That Support Them
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn’t hurt either. You can reach him by email at christopherrashadwilliams@gmail.com and by Tweet/Bluesky at @WritesForRent.
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