Davis Polk Chair Neil Barr announced the firm's decision to rescind the job offers in a short email to the firm's staff. The email did not identify the three students who lost their job offers or specify the controversial statements at issue, but it explained that the statements were in "direct contravention" with the firm's values.
"These statements are simply contrary to our firm's values, and we thus concluded that rescinding these offers was appropriate in upholding our responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive work environment for all Davis Polk employees," Barr wrote in the email. "At this time, we remain in dialogue with two of these students to ensure that any further color being offered to us by these students is considered."
The email added that the job offers were rescinded in order to ensure Davis Polk maintains a supportive and inclusive work environment, and said the students were "no longer welcome in our firm."
Representatives for Davis Polk didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
The announcement comes a week after Winston & Strawn LLP confirmed that it withdrew a job offer to a former summer associate and former New York University School of Law Student Bar Association president, Ryna Workman, who the firm claimed distributed "inflammatory comments" about Hamas' recent attack on Israel.
According to the New York Post's reporting, Workman, who uses they/them pronouns, wrote a message to the NYU Law Student Bar Association expressing "absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression," and that "Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life."
Workman's statement garnered swift backlash online, including from the nonprofit watchdog organization StopAntisemitism, which tweeted that Workman lost their job offer from Winston & Strawn after "penning a horrifying justification for the murder, rape and kidnapping of Jews in a school newsletter."
Workman, whose LinkedIn profile appears to have been deleted, could not be immediately contacted for comment Tuesday.
The rescinded job offers come as the complex international conflict in the Gaza Strip has escalated in recent days following the initial Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which the U.S. designates a terrorist group, when Hamas fighters reportedly killed at least 1,400 civilians and soldiers in Israel, and took nearly 200 people hostage.
Israel responded to the attack by launching a bombing campaign and cutting off water, power and fuel to the Gaza Strip.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Arab American Civil Rights League argued in a lawsuit filed Monday that the bombing campaign has turned the Gaza Strip into an active war zone, with bombs indiscriminately hitting civilian facilities, and accused the U.S. government of engaging in discrimination by actively removing U.S. citizens from Israel, but not Palestinian Americans from Gaza.
For his part, President Joe Biden boarded Air Force One on Tuesday bound for Tel Aviv. A planned visit to Jordan was canceled following news that the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza had been bombed, killing hundreds of civilians inside. Israeli and Palestinian officials each blamed the other side for the explosion.
In a White House statement following the bombing, Biden said he was "outraged and deeply saddened" by the explosion, and he has directed his national security team to continue gathering information about what happened. In recent days, Biden has condemned Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel and pledged the U.S. government's support for Israel while also reiterating that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people's right to dignity and self-determination.
"The United States stands unequivocally for the protection of civilian life during conflict, and we mourn the patients, medical staff and other innocents killed or wounded in this tragedy," the White House said in a statement Tuesday.
--Additional reporting by Lauren Berg and Jonathan Capriel. Editing by Kristen Becker.
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