{"id":716,"date":"2011-02-23T13:09:42","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T18:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=716"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:58:30","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:58:30","slug":"a-response-to-harvards-career-advice-on-wikileaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/02\/23\/a-response-to-harvards-career-advice-on-wikileaks\/","title":{"rendered":"A Response to Harvard\u2019s Career Advice on Wikileaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

HLPR Online editorial staff<\/em><\/p>\n

This post was written by Danny Rosenthal and Rachel Lauter and signed by nine members of the HLPR masthead, incoming masthead, and blog staff.\u00a0 Their names are listed at the end of the post. \u00a0The full response of Alexa Shabecoff, head of the Harvard Law School Office of Public Interest Advising, is reprinted following the post.<\/em><\/p>\n

Three weeks ago, Harvard Law School\u00a0advised students<\/a>\u00a0to reconsider posting commentary about Wikileaks on \u201cyour blog,\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>, or\u00a0twitter account<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 The message came on the blog of the Harvard Law School\u00a0Office of Public Interest Advising<\/a>. \u00a0The reason for the warning?\u00a0 Students who comment on the leaks might struggle to obtain government employment in the future.\u00a0 As Harvard students interested in public service, we were troubled both by Harvard\u2019s statement and by the government policy that the statement describes, though we doubt that the policy actually exists.<\/p>\n

Like\u00a0Boston University Law School<\/a>, Harvard extrapolated from news that the federal government\u00a0warned employees and contractors<\/a>\u00a0not to access Wikileaks material.\u00a0 But this extrapolation seems like a huge leap because\u00a0that policy<\/a>\u00a0is limited to current employees who are using government computers, as well as personal computers in very limited circumstances.\u00a0 Indeed, the Constitution may bar the government from going any further, an issue we will explore in a future post.\u00a0 (See\u00a0this related post<\/a>\u00a0at ACSblog.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Harvard\u2019s statement did not present any evidence that government agencies are actually screening job applicants for activity related to Wikileaks.\u00a0 In fact, the government has distanced itself from warnings like Harvard\u2019s.\u00a0 In December, Columbia sent a similar admonition, evidently based on the advice of an alum who now works in the State Department.\u00a0 But Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley\u00a0responded<\/a>\u00a0that the alum appeared to be an \u201coverzealous employee.\u201d\u00a0 Ultimately, Columbia\u00a0retracted<\/a>\u00a0its message. \u00a0Oddly, while Harvard\u2019s statement mentioned Columbia, it neglected to tell students that Columbia\u2019s warning was later rejected both by a prominent State Department official and by the university that issued it. \u00a0The Office of Public Interest Advising says it is considering a follow-up with this update.<\/p>\n

We greatly respect and appreciate the\u00a0Office of Public Interest Advising<\/a>, which disseminated the message.\u00a0 Generally, the Office provides excellent career advice.\u00a0 Yet, its Wikileaks warning seems hasty and poorly researched. The warning contains no indication that Harvard tried to determine whether federal government employers were screening for Wikileaks activity.\u00a0 Instead, the post is entirely equivocal, asking students to \u201creconsider their first amendment right for the sake of employment.\u201d \u00a0And there are many other signs that the university just wasn\u2019t taking this the very seriously, including its choice of forum\u2014an informal blog that has been updated exactly three times in the last five months.<\/p>\n

That all would have been fine if this were a less important matter.\u00a0 But the interests involved here\u2014curtailment of free expression and threats to job opportunities\u2014deserve greater diligence.\u00a0 Harvard chose the worst course by hemming to an indecisive middle ground.\u00a0 If there was a real threat to future employment, then Harvard neglected to send a sufficiently strong and public warning.\u00a0 But if, as we suspect, there was no real threat, then Harvard chilled expression for no reason.\u00a0 Ultimately, students were likely confused by the mixed message, leading them to overreact or underreact to the warning.<\/p>\n

In a very thoughtful email to HLPR (reprinted below), Alexa Shabecoff, the director of the Office of Public Interest Advising, emphasized that the post was the work of a sole staffer, not an official position of the Office, and that the blog is a forum to provide \u201cfood for thought\u201d and \u201cfoster discussion.\u201d \u00a0She said the post was not meant to discourage free expression. \u00a0Rather, the post was part of the Office\u2019s responsibility to \u201ccall attention to\u00a0question<\/a>s that are being raised across the academic community, especially when those\u00a0question<\/a>s are relevant to the job search process.\u201d \u00a0Ms. Shabecoff also indicated that the Office aims to encourage risk-taking and that our message spurred a discussion within the Office about the post and possible follow-ups.<\/p>\n

Still, while the Office\u2019s blog may be an unofficial forum, this is not clear to readers. \u00a0The blog is hosted on Harvard\u2019s website, titled with the name of the Harvard Law School Office of Public Interest Advising, and linked on the official page of the Office. \u00a0Nothing on the blog or this post told readers that this was not an \u201cadvisory from OPIA,\u201d in Ms. Shabecoff\u2019s words. \u00a0Furthermore, the casual nature of the post actually deepens our concerns. \u00a0We think that, given the chilling potential, Harvard should have addressed the issue more openly and worded the warning more carefully, making clear that there was no real evidence that screening was taking place.<\/p>\n

While the warning would have been troubling as an isolated incident, the problem is not primarily about this particular message or the office that issued it. \u00a0Rather, the situation demonstrates a broader phenomenon of law schools overtly or indirectly pushing students towards moderation and risk-aversion, while failing to help them develop strong personal beliefs. \u00a0Actually, this phenomenon seems much more pronounced in private sector career advising than in public sector advising. \u00a0Perhaps the push towards risk-aversion is a rational response to market forces, including schools\u2019 fear of unemployment among graduates.\u00a0 But we came to law school in part to develop advocacy skills to fight for the issues we believe in, and sometimes we feel pressured by our school to shelve this ambition in favor of marketability to potential employers.<\/p>\n

A better model for Harvard might have been its own response to the Solomon Amendment, which required schools to admit military recruiters to receive federal funds.\u00a0 Harvard banned military recruiters from campus in protest of Don\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell and challenged the amendment in court. \u00a0After the Supreme Court\u00a0upheld<\/a>\u00a0the Solomon Amendment, Justice Kagan, then Dean Kagan,\u00a0wrote the following<\/a>\u00a0to the Harvard Law School community:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am disappointed by this decision, which rejected the statutory claim presented by a group of Harvard Law School professors as amici, as well as the constitutional claim raised by FAIR. \u00a0In the wake of this decision, Harvard Law School will continue to provide Career Services assistance to the military, as the School does to non-discriminating employers. \u00a0At the same time, I hope that many members of the Harvard Law School community will accept the Court\u2019s invitation to express their views clearly and forcefully regarding the military\u2019s discriminatory employment policy. \u00a0As I have said before, I believe that policy is profoundly wrong \u2014 both unwise and unjust \u2014 and I look forward to the day when all our students, regardless of sexual orientation, will be able to serve and defend this country in the armed services.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Columbia retracted its Wikileaks warning, it made a\u00a0similar statement<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cStudents have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

But we have not yet heard this message from Harvard with respect to Wikileaks.\u00a0 We think that a statement from the law school administration supporting students\u2019 First Amendment rights and encouraging vigorous debate and intellectual risk-taking would be a welcome change. \u00a0\u00a0At the very least, when the next situation of this kind arises, Harvard should avoid suggesting to students that these values are subordinate to marketability.<\/p>\n

As for the government, we urge federal agencies to build on Assistant Secretary Crowley\u2019s statement by making clear that they will not blacklist applicants who read or comment on Wikileaks, much as the Air Force\u00a0clarified<\/a>\u00a0that families of Air Force personnel could not be punished for reading Wikileaks. Even assuming that corralling the leaks is a worthy goal, the government cannot realistically hope to contain information published by the New York Times and others through this approach.\u00a0 That would have been difficult 100 years ago, but it\u2019s impossible today.\u00a0 Consequently, any benefit to the policy would be dramatically eclipsed by the burden on public discourse and academic freedom.<\/p>\n

-Danny Rosenthal, Rachel Lauter, Dan Berkovits, Lee Brand, Anush Emelianova, Jason Harrow, Anthony Kammer, Jake Laperruque, Yevgeny Shrago, Seth Wiener, and Dave Zucker.<\/em><\/p>\n

The following response was sent to HLPR by Alexa Shabecoff, director of the Office of Public Interest Advising:<\/p>\n

Thanks for writing and giving me a chance to clarify the function of OPIA\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n

Like the HLPR blog, our own blog is not meant to be the place\u00a0where we communicate official stances of OPIA or formal advice to students about their searches for public interest jobs. When we need to communicate an agreed-upon position, policy or advisory, we post it on our website\u00a0or send it in an email to\u00a0the students who need to know about it.\u00a0 An example of the former is athttp:\/\/www.law.harvard.edu\/current\/careers\/opia\/landing-your-job\/negotiating.html<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0the latter at\u00a0https:\/\/www.law.harvard.edu\/current\/careers\/opia\/secure\/1ljan24summer.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, the blog is meant to be a kind of forum \u2013 a place where, if our staffers see some timely news and have time to post it, they can raise issues of interest and potential relevance to students who are thinking about or pursuing public interest or public sector jobs. The blog is meant to be \u2018food for thought\u2019 and to foster discussion.<\/p>\n

Having said that, I can see that parts\u00a0 of the blog post in\u00a0question<\/a>\u00a0do sound a bit editorial, but it was written by a sole staffer (several staffers contribute items for the blog) and does not reflect an official position or advisory from OPIA. Beyond that, I hope it is apparent that the most salient part of the post was probably Jonathan Zittrain\u2019s quote about what had been happening at some other schools, actions that he surmised were less about weighing in as a matter of policy than they were about simply raising an issue.\u00a0 I know the staffer meant to emphasize that point , even if it did not come across clearly as clearly as we might have liked.<\/p>\n

I hope you know from your own experience with us that our staff here at OPIA does indeed try to encourage students to take risks that we believe will lead to careers in public service. We know that the public interest route inherently feels\u00a0somewhat riskier to students than the private sector career path, so we try hard to encourage people to pursue the work they find the most exciting and try to get them to think outside the box about their options and how to get there.<\/p>\n

However, we do feel that we have some responsibility to at least call attention to\u00a0question<\/a>s that are being raised across the academic community, especially when those\u00a0question<\/a>s are relevant to the job search process. For example, we\u00a0advise students\u00a0to be aware of their online presence in an age when more and more fragments of personal information and communication are accessible. We don\u2019t tell them what they should or should not share or do online \u2013 after all, freedom of information and expression is a core value of our school. But they should be aware of the visibility of their online lives so they can make their own informed and calculated decisions about exposure and risk.<\/p>\n

In any event, I appreciate your reaching out to me about this \u2013 it has helped foster further discussion in our own office about the original blog post, and it suggests that a follow-up post or continuing updates about the Wikileaks issue (for example, the turn of events that occurred at Columbia) would be appropriate and \u2013 I hope \u2013 beneficial.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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