Law Student Sues Over Withdrawn Offer from Law Firm
Jinan Chehade was a student at the Georgetown University Law Center. She worked as a summer associate in the Chicago office of Foley and Larnder, LLP (Foley) and received an offer of full-time employment to begin in October 2023. Before Ms. Chehade accepted Foley’s offer, she made clear to Foley’s Director of Diversity and Inclusion that she expected that Foley would allow her to be “her authentic self” as a Muslim Arab woman. She received assurances that Foley embraced and supported her Muslim Arab heritage and embraced her history and values.
Just two days before Ms. Chehade was to start work, she was called into a meeting with the managing partner and head of litigation in Foley’s Chicago office. Plaintiff alleges that she was subjected to a hostile interrogation about her student activism in support of the Palestinian people, her social media posts, and her participation in meeting in Chicago’s City Hall on October 11th. She was also questioned about her participation in a student organization of which she was no longer a member. That same day, her offer of employment was withdrawn.
Ms. Chehade sued alleging discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, religion, and association and asserting a claim for promissory estoppel. Foley moved to dismiss the promissory estoppel claim. In Chahade v. Foley & Lardner, LLP, the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed without prejudice the promissory estoppel claim. The central issue was whether the Diversity and Inclusion officer’s assurances that Foley supported Ms. Chahade’s Muslim Arab heritage and embraced her history and values entailed a promise that she would not be terminated for statements or activities that the firm viewed as inconsistent with its values. The Court construed Ms. Chehade’s claim as alleging a promise that Foley would not fire her regardless of the nature of her activities so long as they somehow related to her Muslim Arab heritage. The Court found that Foley had made no such clear promise.
I commented in an earlier post on students’ misguided belief that freedom of expression means that the law shields them from all adverse actions based on their speech and or expressive conduct. The students’ confusion on this matter is understandable. The First Amendment has been construed to be very broad. People used to routinely complain about “censorship” by social media sites, as though Twitter were the government. Ironically, now that Twitter/X is the government, the complaints about its content-moderation policies have grown silent.
Foley & Lardner filed a motion for summary judgment last week. Stay tuned.