US House drops probe for data from university over pro-Palestinian protestor cases
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Legal clinics, which are housed and funded by law schools, enable law students to work on actual cases under the supervision of an attorney.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – A US House of Representatives committee on April 10 dropped its probe for information from Northwestern University over its law school’s representation of pro-Palestinian protestors.
Mr Matthew Berry, a lawyer for the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said during a court hearing in Chicago federal court that the committee was no longer seeking information from the university regarding its legal clinics’ budgets, policies and other information it requested in a March 27 letter to the school.
Legal clinics, which are housed and funded by law schools, enable law students to work on actual cases under the supervision of an attorney.
The investigation appeared to be the first congressional inquiry of a law school’s client representation, and sparked concern among academics that it would have a chilling effect on the cases clinics take on.
US District Judge Elaine Bucklo at the hearing on April 10 was expected to consider a request for a temporary restraining order against the committee and the university sought by two Northwestern law clinical professors to stop the university from providing clinic data to the committee.
Judge Bucklo said that request was now moot.
In a lawsuit filed on April 9, plaintiffs Sheila Bedi and Lynn Cohn said the committee’s request violated their First Amendment rights and would undermine the clinic’s work.
A committee spokesperson did not immediately respond on April 10 to requests for comment on why it is no longer investigating Northwestern’s law clinics.
A Northwestern University spokesperson declined to comment on April 10 but said earlier that the university had intended to cooperate with the investigation.
The committee’s March 27 letter said the school had supported “illegal, anti-Semitic conduct”, citing one Northwestern clinic’s work to represent organisers of a pro-Palestine protest in Chicago in April 2024 that resulted in 40 arrests.
April 10 was the deadline to provide the information the committee sought.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Mr John Loevy of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, said his clients are grateful that the committee “reconsidered its position”. REUTERS
