Seattle University School of Law has caved to the demands of its liberal students, suspending its externship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The externship offered students the opportunity to work in ICE’s legal office, which provides legal advice, training, and services to support the ICE mission. This includes representing the government in deportation proceedings.
Fearing that the presence of ICE at a recent law school externship fair could be frightening for undocumented students, Alex Romero, a third-year law student, complained to administrators. Romero told administrators that ICE’s presence on campus challenged the school’s mission of “empowering leaders for a just and humane world.”
When the administrators didn’t swiftly respond, he created an online petition, which attracted nearly 470 signatures before the law school dean announced her decision to suspend the externship. As a result, ICE representatives will not be allowed to participate in externship fairs on campus.
“As educators, lawyers, and soon-to-be-lawyers, we hold particular power and bear a special responsibility to be peacemakers and to assist those who are suffering due to the unjust operation of our legal system, laws, and their enforcement,” Dean Annette Clark wrote in an email to students.
Despite this thinly veiled denunciation of the Trump administration’s policies, the dean also noted that it has not suspended externships with other federal agencies.
This is not the first time Seattle University, a Jesuit Catholic private school, has played the part of “social justice activist.” Back in June, the law school joined other liberal Jesuit groups in condemning the Trump administration’s family separation policy.
Interestingly enough, students at the law school have not even taken advantage of the opportunity for several years. As would be expected, the progressive students attracted to the school’s social justice mission have no interest in defending the country against illegal immigration.
In making this decision, administrators have apparently disregarded the fact that the ICE’s sensitive-locations policy restricts it from taking any enforcement action on campus except in extraordinary circumstances.
This politically motivated decision is more about optics and showing resistance to the Trump administration than about making students feel safe. Unfortunately for law students around the country, it could spur a new wave of academic protests, limiting their own externship opportunities.
Brendan Pringle (@BrendanPringle) is writer from California. He is a National Journalism Center graduate and formerly served as a development officer for Young America’s Foundation at the Reagan Ranch.
