allegations: On January 3, 1993, the bipartisan Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980, also known as the "October Surprise Task Force," was released. The Task Force, led by Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D) and Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R), specifically concluded that "there is wholly insufficient evidence of any communications by or on behalf of the 1980 Reagan Presidential campaign with any persons representing or connected with the Iranian government or with those holding Americans as hostages during the 1979-1981 period" and that "there is no credible evidence supporting any attempt or proposal to attempt, by the Reagan Presidential Campaign – or persons representing or associated with the campaign – to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran." Iran–Contra affair Silberman served on a panel of the D.C. Circuit in U.S. vs. Oliver L. North, 910 F.2d 843 (1990), in which a per curiam opinion was issued that overturned the conviction of Oliver North, who had been a key figure in perpetrating the Iran–Contra affair. In his memoir, Firewall, published seven years after the case in 1997, Lawrence Walsh, the Independent Counsel appointed by President Reagan to investigate the Iran Contra Affair, he mused that in retrospect, he wished that he had moved for Silberman's recusal from the panel: Silberman also observed that David Brock, latterly a Silberman critic (see below), published a refutation of Lawrence Walsh's characterization of Judge Silberman's involvement in the North case: Yale Law School protest On March 17, 2022, several news outlets published an email that Silberman had sent to all Article III federal judges regarding a protest at Yale Law School. In the email, Silberman suggested that students who disrupted a Federalist Society event by shouting down a speaker should be barred from consideration for potential clerkships because they clearly do not respect free speech principles. The panel discussion, which focused on remedies for First Amendment violations, featured Monica Miller, the legal director of the American Humanist Association, and Kristen Waggoner, general counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom. Several outlets criticized Silberman's characterization of the event, while others praised it. Academic career Silberman was a lecturer at the University of Hawaiʻi from 1962 to 1963. He was an Adjunct Professor of Administrative Law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1987 to 1994 and from 1997 to 1999, at NYU