Students at various elite schools have been competing to see who could endorse Hamas the loudest. One entry came from the president of the NYU Law Student Bar Association, Ryna Workman. Workman is 24 years old and non-binary. She wrote this:

The elected student president of the NYU Law School Bar Association just sent out a message refusing to condemn Hamas's mass slaughter and effectively cheerleading it. pic.twitter.com/mtn3ZUP4Li

— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) October 10, 2023

The breezy statement opens “Hi y’all” and then goes on to blame Israel for the mass murder by Hamas.

This week, I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression towards liberation and self-determination. Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life. This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary. I will not condemn Palestinian resistance. Instead…

I condemn the violence of apartheid. I condemn the violence of settler colonialism. I condemn the violence of military occupation…

So the mass murder was “necessary.” Got it. This is definitely someone we want participating in our justice system in the future. The NY Post spoke to a couple of NYU students who were not thrilled.

“It just struck me as inappropriate, especially considering the death count and the fact that so many Israelis are being held captive,” said a freshman who declined to tell The Post his name.

“You’re free to have an opinion, but to voice it so publicly and so unequivocally without even acknowledging that a literal massacre took place seems, at the very least, insensitive,” he continued.

“There are a lot of students at NYU who I’m sure have family in Israel, and whatever you feel about Israeli injustices towards Palestinians, is now really the time to issue a f–k you to people who are worried sick about their relatives?”

A sophomore who also wished to remain anonymous said it seemed like Workman was “using her [sic] elected leadership position as a soapbox to spew her opinions about things that have absolutely nothing to do with NYU law school.

“Her views certainly don’t represent those of the NYU student body — not mine, anyway. There’s no interpretation of the events that occurred Saturday morning outside of that terrorists carried out a planned attack on civilians and started a war. There’s no justification for it. It’s shameful, and embarrassing that I have to be associated with it.”

NYU released a statement making the obvious point that terrorism is immoral.

The statement issued by the Student Bar Association does not in any way reflect the point of view of NYU. Acts of terrorism are immoral. The indiscriminate killing of civilians and hostage-taking, including children and the elderly, is reprehensible. Blaming victims of terrorism for their own deaths is wrong.

That’s fine but maybe NYU should think about how Ryna Workman, age 24, doesn’t understand that justifying the murder of civilians is bad. How did someone so morally clueless wind up as president of the student bar association? I’m guessing the non-binary thing had something to do with it, but who knows.

Meanwhile, the law firm where Ryna had interned just announced she no longer has a job offer from them.

Law firm Winston & Strawn said on Tuesday that it had rescinded a job offer to a New York University law student who wrote in a student bar association online publication that “Israel bears full responsibility” for Hamas’ deadly attack in Israel…

“Winston stands in solidarity with Israel’s right to exist in peace and condemns Hamas and the violence and destruction it has ignited in the strongest terms possible,” it said.

pic.twitter.com/Wz1M6ufQtx

— Winston & Strawn LLP (@WinstonLaw) October 10, 2023

I’m not familiar with Winston & Strawn but apparently they are a pretty big term corporate law firm. Several people pointed out the fact that Ryna even wanted to work there was odd.

The funniest thing about this is that this person was going to biglaw in the first place. You build this public image bleating about how revolution requires killing civilians or whatever and meanwhile your own life centers around banking $235,000 a year representing corporations. https://t.co/MV2NOCPwcN

— Oliver Traldi (@olivertraldi) October 10, 2023

There's such incongruity between the left-wing edgelord politics popular with so many students at top law schools, and many of those students' intention to go work for big law firms where they will review unsecured revolving loan agreements for Colgate-Palmolive or Merck https://t.co/QY2EoQJ1aM

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 10, 2023

So is this cancel culture? I don’t think so. We’re not talking about a mob demanding a company fire someone for making a stray comment on X. This is quite literally justifying mass murder by terrorists who just killed more than 900 mostly unarmed Jews. That’s a pretty low bar but Ryna couldn’t clear it.

Finally, some good news out of Harvard. A long list of professors have written a letter responding to the student groups who sided with Hamas earlier in the week. In the letter, the professors say the students are “condoning the mass murder of civilians.”

We are faculty at Harvard who are deeply concerned about the events in the Middle East, as well as the safety of our students here on campus…

The leaders of the major democratic countries united in saying that “the terrorist actions of Hamas have no justification, no legitimacy, and must be universally condemned” and that Israel should be supported “in its efforts to defend itself and its people against such atrocities.“ In contrast, while terrorists were still killing Israelis in their homes, 35 Harvard student organizations wrote that they hold “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” with not a single word denouncing the horrific acts by Hamas. In the context of the unfolding events, this statement can be seen as nothing less than condoning the mass murder of civilians based only on their nationality. We’ve heard reports of even worse instances, with Harvard students celebrating the “victory” or “resistance” on social media…

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a long and complex history. We hold varying opinions, but none of us endorses all of Israel’s past actions. However, the events of this week are not complicated. Sometimes there is such a thing as evil, and it is incumbent upon educators and leaders to call it out, as they have with school shootings and terrorist attacks. It is imperative that our academic leadership, whose good faith we do not doubt, state this clearly and unequivocally. Further, while individuals’ free speech should be protected, our leaders should make it clear that our community rejects any statements that excuse terrorist acts.

As the letter says, this shouldn’t be so hard. Condemning evil isn’t complicated so why are so many students at these schools unable to manage it?