Columbia Law Review (CLR), a prestigious journal run by Columbia Law School students, has remained offline after the student editors rejected an offer from the board of directors to reinstate the website. The dispute began when CLR published an article about Palestine titled “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept” by Rabea Eghbariah, the first Palestinian legal scholar to be published in CLR. However, shortly after publication, the board of directors took the journal’s website offline, citing concerns about the process. The student editors considered appending a disclaimer to the article, but ultimately rejected the deal.
The student editors’ rejection of the disclaimer proposal signifies a shift in power dynamics on campus. Sohum Pal, a CLR articles editor, believes that students are recognizing and stepping into their power. He states, “This whole year, and particularly this last semester, has been about students recognizing, stepping into their power. And I’m very glad that the law students at the law review are doing the same.”
The battle over free speech and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a contentious issue on campuses across the country. Protests erupted following Israel’s war on Gaza, resulting in brutal police violence. Students advocating for Palestine often face consequences such as censure, expulsion, and censorship. In November, the Harvard Law Review voted to kill an online article by Eghbariah that had gone through the full editing process.
After The Intercept published a story about the initial suppression of Eghbariah’s piece, the student editors received a letter from the board of directors offering a proposal to further important values at stake. The proposal included attaching a disclaimer to Eghbariah’s piece, highlighting that it did not go through the usual review and editing processes. However, some student editors took exception to this demand, viewing it as an attempt by the board to interfere with the student-run editorial process.
The letter from the board also raised questions about the adequacy of the editing and substantiation processes due to the alleged secrecy surrounding the article. However, one of the editors refuted these claims, stating that the internal communications policy was different but not the editing process itself. The editors had stored the draft on a server accessible to opt-in editors to prevent leaks, which they claimed was necessary. They had never received a previous request from the board to distribute an article draft to the full membership of CLR.
The website takedown and ongoing dispute highlight the power struggle between the board of directors and the student editors. While the website remains offline, some CLR students view their rejection of the disclaimer as a victory. Sohum Pal expresses gratitude and pride in his colleagues for taking a meaningful and principled stance. He believes that optimism requires a little grain of delusion, and their actions demonstrate their determination to win.
