As Keith Whittington noted, some judges are refusing to hire students who they see as endorsing murder of civilians (or threatening to withdraw offers to such students):
Judges are looking at student actions in the wake of October 7th and drawing a line in the sand for those who would want to clerk for them. Judge Matthew Solomson said,
To me, it's a simple proposition that just like no judge would hire anyone who endorsed the KKK or the Nazis, anyone who endorses or approves or otherwise gives comfort to—in writing—Hamas, should not be hired.
Sarah Isgur reports on the Advisory Opinions podcast that Judge Lee Rudofsky has written to his own future clerks asking them to confirm that they have not condoned the October 7th massacre or engaged in acts of antisemitism or Islamophobia. He, quite appropriately, added that he had no problem with his future clerks holding or expressing a wide range of views about the Israeli-Palestinian situation and the current war, so long as they stopped short celebrating or advocating the targeting of civilians for abduction, torture, or death.
Some commenters on that thread suggested that this was an unconstitutional viewpoint-based test for government employment. I appreciate that argument, which I think is apt for many government jobs. But given the Court's caselaw, I don't think the First Amendment precludes such viewpoint-based criteria in a judge's employment decisions for law clerks.
