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Rosa

@fancyrosa.bsky.social

315 followers 221 following 8 posts

I can't keep Buffalo a secret

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Rosa @fancyrosa.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

I often think of this excerpt from Harold Koh’s speech to our YLS graduating class:

Let me ask you to remember a second word: "No." All lawyers want to tell their clients yes. What is much harder is to tell your client no. We all recently learned about two groups of lawyers in the Justice Department. Both groups included Yale Law School graduates. One group was asked by the White House to approve an illegal program, at the hospital bed of the ailing Attorney General. Their answer, and the Attorney General's, was simply "No." A few years earlier, another group of Justice Department lawyers - again including graduates of this school--were asked to write an opinion asking whether American officials could lawfully torture detainees. Instead of saying no, they answered, "here's how." That was the wrong answer. Their job was to say no, what you are asking violates the law, and we should not do it. It is illegal, and it is wrong.