Biglaw, Law Schools

Free Pizza For Palestine Is Too Messy For Milbank

$250,000 is not enough money to make Harvard Law do anything.

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Harvard students march to the pizza parlor.

Harvard students march to the pizza parlor.

Harvard Law School does not need your money. Harvard Law School wants your money and it will take your money, but HLS does not do, or not do, something because any one individual gave it some money. I know this is going to sound arrogant, but people give money to Harvard for the privilege of saying that they gave money to Harvard. There is no single donor who can hold the Law School economically hostage.

The law firm Milbank has made a prestige endowment to Harvard Law School. It’s called the “Milbank Tweed Student Conference Fund” and, as you might expect, it supports student activities at the law school. Recently, Milbank reportedly threatened to pull the endowment because a group called “Justice for Palestine” used some of the Milbank money to sponsor a talk titled “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack” last fall. The students used the money to buy pizza and, while promoting the event, said, “This event is brought to you by the generous support of Milbank LLP.”

Under ordinary circumstances, that would be the appropriate thing to do. For instance: “Come to the Dealbreaker/ATL Town Maul tonight, sponsored by SoFi.” (I, for the record, still owe Harvard money and therefore can be bought.)

But Harvard Law School’s Justice for Palestine (JFP) group, writing in the Harvard Law Record, claims that Milbank did not take the shout-out in an ordinary way:

[T]he Dean of Students office—citing a flood of angry phone calls and emails received from Milbank executives and other off-campus parties over the previous 24 hours—asked an organizer of the [Palestine Exception to Free Speech] event to disassociate from Milbank in all past and future Justice for Palestine programming…

Administrators would later reveal that Milbank had gone so far as to demand that JFP’s Milbank funding be rescinded completely. According to [Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow], this was not a demand her administration could honor, so Milbank decided to pull out all of its annual $250,000 in student activity funding as a result of her administration’s “principled stance” in support of our right to speak openly and honestly about Palestine.

That is a bad look for Milbank. Throwing a hissy fit about speech over a panel about free speech is petty and tone deaf. And if anyone at Milbank thought that messing around with $250,000 was enough to make HLS do anything… they greatly overestimated the effect of $250,000 on the law school.

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I could see HLS setting fire to a quarter of a million dollars in the middle of Wasserstein Hall just to see which students were desperate enough to fish cash out of the flames. I cannot see HLS regulating student activity based on the public relations concerns of Milbank Tweed.

There was some concern in the HLS Record article that Milbank’s decision would cripple all student organizations until HLS could find alternative funding. But, come on. You could shake $250K out of the couch cushions in the law library there.

Still, we reached out to Milbank to see why they wanted to “disassociate” from the Justice for Palestine student group and HLS student activities. Milbank didn’t give us a comment, but the firm did refer us to an HLS spokesperson. Which is weird, right? We wanted to know why Milbank wanted something done, not why HLS decided not to do the thing it was never going to do. If the firm wasn’t going to go full Trump, a banal “some of our best friends are Palestinians” statement seemed like the best move.

In any event, we asked HLS if Milbank had pulled its student activity funding, and why. HLS did its best to cover Milbank’s ass here, basically arguing that money is fungible, but I think it’s a tough sell:

Milbank has not terminated its five-year gift or its support for the Law School. Milbank was never involved in decisions about which events to fund or not to fund. The Law School and Milbank are committed to freedom of speech and they do not decide which events to fund based on point of view.

The firm has decided there are other ways its support could be used at HLS to avoid creating any misimpressions that the firm endorses the viewpoints expressed by any particular student organization or journal. The Law School is able to fund student conferences with other resources, and the Law School has continued to maintain the same level of funding to support student activities. We are grateful for the many terrific speakers, conferences, and events led by our thoughtful and creative students, and we look forward to many more to come. We have an exceptionally strong relationship with Milbank, which has acted appropriately and with the highest integrity in all respects. We look forward to continuing that strong relationship in the future, and to discussing with Milbank how best to deploy its gift to further the Law School’s mission.

Student groups seeking funds for conferences and speakers are invited to confer with the Dean of Students office and can receive advice about how to ensure the best quality of programming and to secure funding.

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Milbank has not terminated its student activities fund… Milbank has decided that there are other ways to support the school without funding student activities. Okay. Roger, boss.

Joking aside, Harvard kids shouldn’t get too bent out of shape — soon somebody will pay them very well to make these kinds of distinctions without a difference.

Coming soon on Modern Campus Controversies: Students reupholster the new $250,000 “Milbank Chair” with the Palestinian Flag. Wry protest or anti-Semitic microagression?

HLS Took a Stand for Palestine Programming; Students Must Now Bear the Cost: The Story They Don’t Want You to Hear About What Happened to Milbank Funding [Harvard Law Record]

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