Harvard Students Call for Firing of Law Prof for Representing Harvey Weinstein
“’It is absolutely morally unacceptable,’ said Hilda Jordan, a Harvard senior who was among about 40 students protesting”
Harvard Law School professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. has taken a role on the defense team of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Now some students are protesting and calling for his firing.
Stephanie Ebbert reports at the Boston Globe:
At Harvard, Harvey Weinstein is now a cause for concern
To witness all the tumult, you might think Harvey Weinstein had just moved onto Harvard’s campus.
That is not the case.
But the news that the disgraced Hollywood producer has chosen for his legal “dream team” a faculty dean of one of Harvard’s residential houses has unleashed a wave of concern on campus.
Holding signs that said “Harvard Doesn’t Care” and “Down with the Dean,” students protested outside the president’s office in Harvard Yard on Monday, demanding that the administration immediately remove Winthrop House faculty dean Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. from his position.
“It is absolutely morally unacceptable,” said Hilda Jordan, a Harvard senior who was among about 40 students protesting, many wearing tape over their mouths. “Harvard, we want to see you do better. We want to see you hold your administrators, your deans to the same standards that you are attempting to hold your students.”
A recent op-ed in the Harvard Crimson comes right out and demands that the school drop Sullivan. It was written by two students whose bios appear at the top of their article:
Danukshi A. K. Mudannayake ’20, a Crimson Design editor, is a Visual and Environmental Studies concentrator in Eliot House. Remedy Ryan ’21 is a Social Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality concentrator in Lowell House. She is an organizer with Our Harvard Can Do Better.
They write:
Harvard, Remove Dean Sullivan
On Jan. 25, The Crimson reported Winthrop House Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr.’s decision to defend in court Harvey Weinstein, the man whose infamous sexual misconduct and assault of over a dozen women initiated the #MeToo movement in 2017. In the following week, Sullivan upheld his choice to represent Weinstein through an email addressing the Winthrop community.
Subsequent reports revealed Sullivan has also come out in public support of Harvard professor Roland G. Fryer, Jr. against allegations of sexual harassment from female employees. In his comments about Fryer’s case, Sullivan disparaged both the #MeToo movement and Harvard’s Title IX procedures, calling the University’s investigations “deeply flawed and deeply unfair.”
Sullivan’s actions and statements are unfitting of a faculty dean. We condemn Sullivan’s decision to represent Weinstein and defend Fryer while serving as a Winthrop faculty dean. We further condemn the Harvard administration’s inaction in light of these actions.
We believe deeply in every defendant’s right to attorney. But there are many lawyers who could have defended Weinstein.
This controversy began to stir at the end of January, when Sullivan made the decision.
At the time, I mentioned that Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz faced some push back in the 80’s when he decided to represent Claus von Bülow. In the 1990 film “Reversal of Fortune” there is a scene where Dershowitz explains to an angry student why he is doing it:
Perhaps Harvard could arrange a screening for the student protesters.
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Comments
I am going to assume that I probably wouldn’t be a fan of Weinstein’s lawyer if I knew him, but these students are the bottom of the barrel stupid if they actually advocate this kind of nonsense. It is unbelievable just how low this type of nonsense has taken us. And the problem is Harvard just might fire him because it is the norm for universities to capitulate to the mob nowadays. Of course I would assume he would have a very solid case for wrongful termination.
“Hilda Jordan, a Harvard senior” I thought that Harvard was supposed to produce people with decent reasoning skills. Maybe they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get her, to meet a quota?
So, we can fairly draw three conclusions from the stance of these infantile, totalitarian, jackbooted twits:
1) They don’t believe that a criminal defendant is entitled to legal representation, in order to mount his/her defense;
2) They believe that defense attorneys who represent unpopular defendants should be vilified and should suffer social/professional consequences, as a result of their advocacy on behalf of such defendants;
3) These idiots can’t comprehend that the criminal justice system cannot properly function without attorneys who are willing to represent defendants and offer them the vigorous defense that they are constitutionally entitled to.
This is the rank stupidity that is promoted by these self-reverential and sanctimonious Ivy League fools.
I amend my post to acknowledge that, upon reflection, I believe that Weinstein is actually facing civil suits, not criminal charges. But, my points still apply to the civil realm.
He’s facing criminal charges in New York, and is being investigated criminally in California, and in the UK too.
Thank you for the clarification — I stand corrected.
Good criminal lawyers defend the Constitution, not just their clients.
I have a friend who’s brother defended the Oklahoma City bomber. Part of his burden was to provide a defense that would survive appeal on a guilty verdict.
He did.
We should bring Weinstein to California to be tried by Senator Harris as judge, and we should allow only women who have been molested to be on the juries. Any attorney who tries to defend him should be arrested also. If we don’t get the right verdict the first time we can just keep trying him until we do.
People who don’t like all this prove they are on the side of the sexual predators and should be put in jail along side all the gunowners. Letting them sit in jail for a few years before they are charged will give the government plenty of time to find something wrong in their lives. Anything they say, write, or express should be held against them to prove their guilt.
My dear, even in this forum, you need to use the /s, because we get visitors.
He should organize a group of counter-protesters to hold signs saying, “These Students Should Be Expelled Because They Are Too Stupid For Harvard”.
In fact, he should wear a disguise, hold up the sign standing by them, and get a photo of it. But he is probably too busy to play games with them.
Maybe they are now the norm for Harvard:)
“We believe deeply in every defendant’s right to attorney. ”
Liar.
For a minute there, I thought this nonsense was coming from law students, but it turns out to be from SJW “studies.” Those are the people trying to take away all of our rights, and it’s all supposed to be for our own good, as decided by their elite little selves.
To which I say “Womp!” and add another “Womp!” on top of it. SJW studies is a babysitting for useful idiots, and this is just more proof of this sad misuse of our university system.
The experienced judges of our country have held time and time again that every accused person has a right to counsel, that this right is meaningless without the added notion that the counsel be of the person’s choice. Thus, so long as the person is willing to pay and counsel is able and does not have an ethical conflict, the accused gets his choice.
The whole point of these rulings is to keep ignorant undergraduate twerps like Danukshi A. K. Mudannayake and Remedy Ryan from interfering in either criminal or civil matters.
What would this clown say to John Adams defending the Brit soldiers involved in the Boston massacre?
A proud moment in our history which set the precedent in our society that all deserve a vigorous defense.
John Adams was a white male who was part of the patriarchy, so what do you think they would say? We are not dealing with deep thinkers here.
A successful defense, too, as I recall.
They would have joined Hollywood in giving Roman Polanski a standing ovation.
I love how students in universities and colleges think that they are actually part of that institution. All they are are customers. They are giving the institution money to provide them with a product, access to an education. They do not own the institution nor are they even shareholders. They, essentially, have no standing to demand anything beyond what the institution has contracted to provide, access to educational opportunity. Yet, they act as though they have a controlling interest ion the functioning of the institution. The only thing more insane, is when an educational institution actually grants students the power and authority to tell it how it should be run. Students do not know anything. That is why they are students and not teachers.
That is an interesting concept you have there. It was once, way back when, the way things were. But then the inmates were given things like “student senates”, etc and allowed to put their hands on the reins. It has been downhill ever since.
I don’t know how much a year at Harvard costs, but its probably a damn sight more that I live on… And someone, family or sponsor, is footing the bill for these two to study “studies”; that’s a lot of moola for something so worthless.
Equal protection under the law… with the usual “some animals are more equal than others.” As repugnant as some lawyers are, some judges are and as some laws are, civilization is shredded without the rule of law.
Ah the not so best, but maybe the brightest –just ask them of their opinion of themselves–don’t believe in defending individuals. Life in the trenches is not all white shoe law firms. And even there there are pro bono projects to keep they young uns happy–advocating for Fidel Castro or Mduro or some such politically correct stuff. I doubt that any of these kids will wind up in a Public Defender’s office—and if they ever do defend someone charged with a crime, it will be a white collar crime.
Of course if they really want to make some dough in their careers, they might consider followubg in Michael Avenatti’s footsteps. But you have to get dirty there as well.
According to information that appeared at LI earlier today, Mr. Avenatti’s means of making some dough has some flaws.
Of course these two will be unaware of that since they probably think that CPL is just “like totally awesome..” because he found all those women to make claims about Brent Kavanaugh; and they would never read LI because people at LI have opinions and even argue with each other, and without trigger warnings.
Anyone who hires a Harvard Grad thinking they are getting the best and the brightest are going to be sorely disappointed. Harvard is nothing more than a bunch of ignorant social warriors who tick the right boxes re sexuality, skin color and hatred of America….and while at Harvard they will be trained in nothing but hatred and entitlement.
The little fascists of harvard march on.
I was once asked by a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher if I had ever considered being a lawyer. I told him no. I never did well in my law courses. I had trouble seeing the justice in it. He responded “THAT is the problem! We practice law, not justice. Hopefully, justice is what comes out of the process IF everyone does a good job.”
A few years later, that statement was expanded by my neighbor, a nationally-noted career counselor and dean of a CA graduate school of psychiatry. I had made a career mistake and wanted to switch into something more suitable. I sought her for help.
After a battery of tests, she concluded that I was born to be a psychiatrist. Second option? Constitutional lawyer (gulp). Puzzled, I told her the above anecdote. She said “That’s different. As a trial attorney, you would have trouble. As a constitutional attorney, you would be advocating for justice based on your personal morality, rather than just applying the law and hoping for justice.” I didn’t do either but she approved of my choice.
What would Atticus Finch do?
This is simply amazing. Can we get the names of these potential lawyers? I sure wouldn’t want one working for me.
They might decide I’m guilty or something and testify against me. Lawyer Client confidentiality shmality.
This is stupefying. Are these folks quota students or something? Put there just for snickers cause apparently they haven’t got a clue what the Constitution is all about.
If I was a Harvard grad I’d hang my head in shame. And the professors should be most all fired.
Just an accurate representation of the “Modern,Progressive Education System”.
INSANITY – Taught and Learned !