As students at colleges in the United States protest the war in Gaza, they have drawn the ire of some of the most powerful figures in the financial world: investors, lawyers and bankers. They have been asserting their financial power over universities and toppling school leaders in the process.
It didn't stop the students. The protests intensified this year until campuses emptied for the summer.
Now, a prominent Wall Street law firm is taking a more direct approach to protesters. Sullivan & Cromwell, a 145-year-old firm that counts Goldman Sachs and Amazon among its clients, says that participating in an anti-Israel protest — on or off campus — can be a disqualifying factor for job applicants.
The firm examines students’ behavior using a background check firm, looks at their involvement in pro-Palestinian student groups, scours social media and reviews news reports and footage of protests. It looks for explicit instances of anti-Semitism and statements and slogans it deems “triggering” to Jews, said Joseph C. Shenker, a principal at Sullivan & Cromwell.
Candidates can face scrutiny even if they don’t use problematic language but are involved in a protest where others are. The protesters should be responsible for the behavior of those around them, Mr. Shenker said, or they would embrace a “mob mentality.” Sullivan & Cromwell declined to say whether it had dropped candidates over the policy.
“People are taking their outrage over what's happening in Gaza and turning it into racist anti-Semitism,” Shenker said.
Private employers in the United States can hire whomever they want, with few restrictions designed to prevent discrimination. Some have fired workers for their actions or statements since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.
Sullivan & Cromwell's policy is notable for the way it holds applicants accountable for the actions of others and for tabooing commonly used protest slogans. No other Wall Street law firm has publicly discussed a similar policy toward protesters, but leaders of four Several of Sullivan & Cromwell's biggest rivals have privately indicated they are considering introducing similar rules.
Critics at Sullivan & Cromwell say the policy is an attempt to silence criticism of Israel on campus and paint all protesters as harassing and threatening Jewish students.
“When we were recruiting through big law firms, we knew that you had to be clean on social media, you had to not put anything on there that you couldn't defend, you had to be a respectable person to get a job at one of these places,” said Rawda Fawaz, an attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “That's always been the practice. Why do you have to have a special policy for this?”
Ms. Fawaz, who worked as a lawyer at a major law firm after graduating from Columbia University Law School in 2022, said many Muslims and Arabs working for large firms already felt discouraged from discussing their views on Israel and the country's actions.
“Your political activism is part of your identity,” she said. “In a way, it’s good because law students know who they can work for and still maintain their identity.”
Sullivan & Cromwell does not ask applicants for privately expressed opinions, does not try to exclude anyone who has criticized Israel or condemn the general protest action, Mr. Shenker said. He and others who support this approach argue that it is an extension of existing workplace prohibitions on hate speech.
“What’s happening here is really just the implementation of basic employee decency standards,” said Neil Barr, chairman of Davis Polk, a global firm with more than 1,000 lawyers. Davis Polk rescinded job offers because of students’ involvement with groups that released statements blaming Israel for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Sullivan & Cromwell’s screening comes after students apply for jobs or secure interviews through top law schools, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and New York University. The firm has hired a background check company, HireRight, to scour social media and recordings of public appearances for statements or actions about the conflict. Applicants are also asked to list student groups they belong to.
Participating in a protest or being involved with a group that Sullivan & Cromwell finds offensive will raise questions. Applicants must explain their role, including what they did to stop other protesters from making offensive or intimidating statements.
The policy shows how companies are trying to influence the behavior of people they can’t directly control for years to come, said Roderick A. Ferguson, a Yale professor of American studies who has studied college responses to student movements. Disqualifying people based on what someone else nearby might have done suggests that all protesters have a single mindset, he said.
“How do we make the leap that it’s all the students?” Mr. Ferguson said. Such thinking, he said, “can mimic racist thinking, sexist thinking, homophobic thinking, that one case becomes a character of everything.”
On the list of unacceptable slogans and statements, Mr. Shenker said, is one seen or heard at virtually all pro-Palestinian rallies: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
The intent of the chant is hotly contested. Many Palestinians see it as a call to end Israeli oppression in Gaza and the West Bank and as a plea for equal rights for Arab citizens of Israel. Many Israelis see it as a threat to wipe their country off the map.
Mr. Shenker is not Israeli, but he has strong ties to the country. His great-grandfather was the leader of an influential Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem a century ago, and he is a member of a synagogue there. Mr. Shenker was in Israel during the Oct. 7 attack.
He has used his professional status to play a prominent role in combating anti-Semitism and defining acceptable language in law schools.
Mr. Shenker, 67, was chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, the top job, from 2010 to 2022. He has helped clients including Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a Saudi investor; billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman; and Frank McCourt, who has said he is interested in buying TikTok, buy and sell everything from buildings to sports teams.
He has also helped clients survive divorces and resolve bitter inheritance disputes.
Shortly after Oct. 7, he wrote a letter, signed by about 200 other firms, urging law school deans to urge campus protesters to behave civilly and to do more to protect Jewish students. If the schools had done that, Mr. Shenker said, his firm's new policy would not have been necessary.
But for Kenneth S. Stern, the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, which studies anti-Semitism, the policy’s failing is that it fails to distinguish between unpopular opinions and hate speech. Mr. Stern, who has said he believes in the importance of Israel as a Jewish homeland, believes rules like these would weed out candidates who would be valuable to the law firm.
“I feel offended by some of the chants, but that's it – I feel offended,” he said.
