Federal District Judge Loren AliKhan is the presiding judge in Soffer v George Washington University, a case centered on allegations that antisemitic activity is rampant on the GWU campus. While serving in that capacity, the GWU Law School hired the judge as an adjunct professor.
The overlap has prompted questions about a potential conflict of interest, given federal rules requiring judges to avoid cases in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. AliKhan did not immediately step aside but issued a 10-day stay in late March to consider whether recusal is warranted. Since the April 20 status conference, no final decision has been publicly announced.
??
How is this even a question? Those Federal rules don’t just bar judges’ conflicts of interest, nor is this merely a matter of questions of impartiality. Those rules bar judges from actions that create even the appearance of a conflict of interest, a requirement that, if honored by judges, preempts any questions of impartiality.
It’s more than that, though. While AliKhan was presiding, she should never have even considered the GWU offer of employment, or she should have resigned from the bench altogether: teaching in a law school hews too close to the ethical line and creates that barred appearance of conflict.
That she hasn’t even deigned recuse herself yet (as I write on Sunday) is instructive of her level of ethics. Given that lack, GWU’s Law School should reconsider its hiring of her, and if the Law School can’t figure it out, GWU should act in its subordinate Law School’s stead. Either of those entiities’ decision to do nothing would be instructive, also.