EXCLUSIVE: Federal judges are organizing a rare, multi-judge discussion about antisemitism at the Federalist Society’s national convention, driven by concerns that the post‑Oct. 7 climate has pushed debates about Israel into legal territory. The panel, led by U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, aims to bring judicial perspective to campus tensions, free speech disputes, and the broader rise in anti-Jewish sentiment. Judges with diverse backgrounds will speak about faith, legal rules, and what happens when public debate turns into national controversy.
The gathering is notable because it shifts a forum usually given to single speakers into a collaborative judicial exchange, something the moderator calls unprecedented and necessary. Judge Altman has framed the discussion as a response to a noticeable uptick in antisemitic incidents following Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel, and he wants judges to weigh in where law and heated public discourse collide. The forum is named for the late Judge Bork and is meant to reflect principles of moral clarity and the value of open conversation.
“This conversation on faith, understanding, and moral responsibility could not be more timely,” Altman said. “It reflects the importance of the moment, the endurance of Western values, and Judge [Robert] Bork’s abiding belief in moral clarity and in the strength that comes from open dialogue.”
The naming after Judge Bork also nods to a longer history: Bork once helped challenge a firm’s discriminatory hiring practices that excluded Jewish lawyers, an episode noted in his peers’ 1987 Senate testimony. That background helps explain why a conversation about antisemitism would be staged at a gathering of lawyers and judges focused on constitutional questions. It is meant to be a timely blend of moral and legal reflection rather than a partisan exercise.
The panel includes seven judges appointed by former President Trump, one by President George W. Bush, and a justice from the Texas Supreme Court, reflecting the conservative legal community’s engagement. This lineup signals a determined effort by judges appointed by Republican administrations to address the practical fallout of a polarized public debate. Their presence is meant to underline that legal training and judicial experience are useful tools for parsing charged claims and alleged violations.
Altman, who is a visibly Jewish federal judge in the Southern District of Florida, has also organized trips for judges of different faiths to visit Israel since the Oct. 7 attack. Those trips have informed conversations back home, especially about how campus narratives shape young Americans’ views on Israel and the Middle East. Altman argues that questions about war crimes, occupation, and apartheid are fundamentally legal issues that call for careful analysis rather than slogans.
“Those claims, is Israel violating the laws of war? Is it an apartheid state? Does it occupy land that doesn’t belong to it?” Altman said. “Those are just legal questions with legal answers, and I thought, who better than federal judges to understand what the applicable legal rule is, to adduce and find out what the relevant facts are, and then to apply the facts to the law and issue a judgment, than a federal judge.”
The October attack reopened hostilities in Gaza and sparked large anti‑Israel demonstrations on U.S. campuses, where critics accuse Israel of indiscriminate killing while Israeli officials insist their operations target Hamas after warning civilians. Those clashes have sometimes spilled into questions about whether criticism crosses into antisemitism and whether universities are protecting speech or enabling harassment. Conservatives argue that many campus settings have become one-sided spaces where pro‑Israel viewpoints are marginalized.
Free speech advocates worry that government action aimed at noncitizen speech or campus protests could curtail constitutionally protected expression, and recent court fights over cases like Mahmoud Khalil have highlighted the tension between national security and First Amendment protections. From a Republican perspective, national security concerns are real, but so is the need to uphold free speech and ensure that legal standards, not political currents, govern outcomes. Judges meeting to clarify those standards is presented as a corrective to chaotic public argument.
NYU BLOCKS OCT. 7 CAMPUS TALK BY JEWISH CONSERVATIVE, CITING SECURITY CONCERNS was one of several flashpoints this year when university administrators cited safety to cancel events, a development that alarms many who defend open debate. Altman has been explicit about his own surprise at how skewed campus views can be and how debate often lacks balance. He has said he saw firsthand a pattern of one‑sided storytelling that left students with a distorted sense of Israel’s history and role.
“I was shocked, honestly, to discover that so many young people in our country, especially on our college campuses, had a totally incorrect view about the one Jewish state in the world and its role in the Middle East and its history and how it came to be, and it also became clear that the sort of debate that was taking place on campus wasn’t really a debate, because only one side of the story was being told,” Altman said.
Organizers say the judges will recount personal encounters across faiths, tackle the First Amendment implications of rising antisemitism, and explore how legal frameworks can guard against discrimination without stifling legitimate critique. The event is pitched as a practical effort by the judiciary to restore clarity where public passions have muddied facts and law. Republican voices among the bench are positioning this as a necessary defense of principle and public order through reasoned legal judgment.
