The Cornell Review would like to congratulate an alumnus of our organization, Kenneth Lee ‘97 on his nomination by President Trump to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from California.
Lee is clearly a strong supporter of minorities from a young age as shown by his writing in the Review and other publications. He advocated for full integration in freshman and upperclassmen accommodation as well as equal treatment in a piece for The American Enterprise. He was against the unfair allocation of disproportionately large amounts of funding towards LGBT organizations. As a law clerk, he was against the “litigation of new entitlements for favored groups” and the “defense of racial preferences in California” by left-wing lawyers. While some may disagree with Lee’s views, they are clearly not one of a racist but one of a Conservative with the best of intentions in mind.
It is unfortunate that those who are intent on stopping President Trump’s agenda would go so far as to attack the character and qualifications of an individual based on his collegiate career. Kenneth Lee did not just distinguish himself as the Editor in Chief of The Cornell Review, he graduated summa cum laude and was selected for membership to Phi Beta Kappa. He is also a graduate of Harvard Law School magna cum laude, selected by Judge Emilio Garza for a judicial clerkship, and a partner at Jenner & Block (the 96th highest-grossing law firm in the world). According to his profile from the Los Angeles Business Journal (which named him one of the “Most Influential Minority Attorneys”), he has “represented the White House in congressional and other governmental investigations and provided advice for the President and senior White House officials on a host of legal and compliance issues.” Lee is clearly not a “Harriet Miers” candidate, but one with distinguished academic credentials and work experience who happens to have strongly conservative views from a young age. He also, quite coincidentally happens to be a minority that is underrepresented in the American judiciary.
Kenneth Lee, and other Cornell Review alumni, has demonstrated the importance of publications such as The Cornell Review to provide a platform for conservative and independent voices in left-leaning institutions such as Cornell.
