Law Firm Cancels Job Offer to NYU Law Student Over Support for Hamas

The student argued that Israel bears full responsibility for lives lost in the ongoing conflict.

A New York University flag flies outside the NYU business school in New York City on Aug. 25, 2020. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A law student at New York University has lost a job offer because of her open support for recent terrorist attacks against Israel, which she called an apartheid regime bearing “full responsibility” for lives lost in the conflict.

Winston & Strawn, a Chicago-headquartered law firm, said it had decided to rescind its offer of employment to a student who published “inflammatory comments” in a message to the school’s student bar association.

In an announcement posted to LinkedIn, the law firm said it found those comments regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas war “profoundly in conflict” with its values.

“We remain outraged and deeply saddened by the violent attack on Israel over the weekend,” the firm said, adding that it “stands in solidarity with Israel’s right to exist in peace” and condemns Hamas “in the strongest terms possible.”

The firm did not name the student, who it said previously worked as a summer associate, but several media outlets have reported that the student is Ryna Workman, president of the the NYU Student Bar Association.

In an internal newsletter that has since been widely shared on social media, Ms. Workman told members of the student group on Tuesday that she “will not condemn Palestinian resistance,” but will instead condemn Israel for creating “conditions that made resistance necessary.”

“Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life,” she declared.

“I condemn the violence of apartheid. I condemn the violence of settler colonialism. I condemn the violence of military occupation. I condemn the violence of dispossession and stolen homes. I condemn the violence of trapping thousands in an open-air prison,” the law student continued.

“I condemn the violence of collective punishment. I condemn the violence of phosphorous bombs. I condemn the violence of the United States military-industrial complex. I condemn the violence of obfuscating genocide as a ‘complex issue.’ I condemn the violence in labeling oppressed people as ‘animals.’ I condemn the violence in removing historical context. I condemn the violence of silence. Palestine will be free.”

Ms. Workman, whose now-deleted LinkedIn account previously listed her as a summer associate at Winston & Strawn, could not be immediately reached for comment.

NYU Disavows Message

On Wednesday, members of the Student Bar Association released a statement saying they did not “write, approve, or see this message” before it was published, and said Ms. Workman’s personal opinion did not represent the views of the organization as a whole.

The association also kicked off a process to remove the student president. The student group said it will conduct a hearing on that matter next week. A “vote of no confidence” survey has been circulated as well.

The law school also released two statements—one as an institution and one in Dean Troy McKenzie’s own capacity—in an effort to “make things abundantly clear” about the controversy.

“NYU Law unequivocally condemns the recent terrorist acts and the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas in Israel. The murder and kidnapping of civilians, and the use of sexual violence and the separation and torture of children, are all abominable and atrocious,” the most recent statement read.

“We want to say, loud and clear, to our community: Any statement that does not recognize this brutality does not reflect the values of NYU Law.”

Current State of War

As of early Thursday, the sixth day since Hamas launched its unprecedented terror attacks into Israel, the death toll has reached over 2,400 on both sides of the border.

The number of U.S. citizens who have died in the war has risen to at least 25, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday during a visit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It has also been confirmed that some Americans have fallen into hands of Hamas as hostages.

At the same time, in Gaza, the number of Palestinian civilian deaths continue to soar as Hamas deliberately embeds itself in densely populated residential and commercial areas to use civilians as human shields in the wake of intensifying Israeli airstrikes. Hamas has been using this tactic for more than a decade, ever since its violent takeover of Gaza in 2007.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said 1,100 people had died as a result of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

A Hamas spokesperson threatened that every time Israel launches an airstrike into Gaza, there will be a civilian hostage executed.