Yale Law Students Claim Invitation To ‘Trap House’ Promotes ‘Blackface.’ School Says Student’s Membership In Federalist Society Makes Him Problematic.

A lighthearted email has led to a nightmare for one Yale Law School student, who has had nine discrimination and harassment complaints filed against him and has been threatened with having his future career as an attorney withheld.

The situation began on September 15, when the law school student sent an email to the Native American Law Students Association (NALSA), of which he was a member, according to The Washington Free Beacon, who broke the story. The student, who has not been named, is part Cherokee and a member of NALSA and the conservative Federalist Society, a legal group founded by Yale Law students in 1982 and whose members include the current conservative Supreme Court justices and the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The student’s email invited classmates to a group hosted by NALSA and the Federalist society. The email read:

Sup NALSA,

Hop you’re all still feeling social! This Friday at 7:30, we will be christening our very own (soon to be) world-renowned NALSA Trap House… by throwing a Constitution Day Bash in collaboration with FedSoc. Planned attractions include Popeye’s chicken, basic-b****-American-themed snacks (like apple pie, etc.), a cocktail station, assorted hard and soft beverages, and (most importantly) the opportunity to attend the NALSA Trap House’s inaugural mixer!

Hope to see you all there!

Just minutes after the email was sent, others screenshotted it and shared it to an online forum for all second-year law students, according to the Free Beacon. Some of the students claimed “trap house” was a term to describe a blackface party. In slang, a “trap house” refers to a place where people buy drugs. It is also, according to the Free Beacon, “generic slang for any place where young people can score beer.” Further, the popular socialist podcast “Chapo Trap House” made the phrase popular over the past five years. The Free Beacon noted that the podcast has received positive profiles in The New York Times and elsewhere without anyone raising concerns that the three white hosts were promoting blackface.

Yet Yale Law School students saw differently.

“I guess celebrating whiteness wasn’t enough,” the president of the Black Law Students Association wrote on the forum in response to the email. “Y’all had to upgrade to cosplay/black face.” She also claimed the Federalist Society “has historically supported anti-Black rhetoric.” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who is black, is a member of the Federalist Society.

On September 16, the student who sent the email was