The removal of Harvard Law School professor Ron Sullivan as dean of Winthrop House for joining the defense team of Harvey Weinstein has sent shock waves through the legal academic community.
Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz has sided with Sullivan and made his opinion known in a column for FOX News:
McCarthyism comes to Harvard — Why this should alarm us allWhen I was a college student, lawyers who represented Communists would be fired from academic positions. In parts of the South, lawyers who represented civil rights activists were fired. In some areas of the country lawyers who represented men accused of sodomy or women seeking abortions would be fired.Now Harvard College joins this Hall of Shame by firing Professor Ron Sullivan and his wife, Stephanie Robinson from their positions as Co-Deans of Winthrop House because Sullivan decided to represent a man accused of rape. The defendant is the highly controversial Harvey Weinstein, who is presumed innocent and has not yet been tried.Many troubling arguments have been offered in defense of the decision not to renew Sullivan’s role as Dean of Winthrop house. The most common – and dangerous – is that students feel “unsafe” around a lawyer who is representing Weinstein.Feeling “unsafe” is the new mantra for the new McCarthyism. It is a totally phony argument not deserving of any serious consideration. Any student who feels unsafe in the presence of two distinguished lawyers doesn’t belong at a university. They should leave and not force the firing of the professor.The “unsafe argument” could be made against a dean who is gay, Black, Muslim, Jewish, Republican or libertarian. No credence should be given to the argument, especially since the students apparently did not feel “unsafe” when Sullivan was representing a convicted double murderer.
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Dershowitz expanded his thoughts during an appearance on the Laura Ingraham show on Monday night:
I couldn’t agree more with Professor Dershowitz. This situation was the inspiration for my new column at Townhall:
Harvard Is Punishing a Law Professor for Representing Harvey Weinstein, And They Should be AshamedA strange and unsettling thing is happening at Harvard.Harvard Law School professor Ron Sullivan Jr. is being removed from his deanship at the school’s Winthrop House. His wife, Stephanie Robinson, who is a lecturer in the law school as well, has also been cast aside.According to The New York Times, “They were the first African-American faculty deans in Harvard’s history.”What crime could they have committed to deserve what is obviously a demotion? The answer should alarm anyone who values the American legal system.Sullivan and Robinson are being punished because Sullivan joined the legal team representing the disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein last year, and social justice warriors on campus think that means Sullivan is somehow complicit in Weinstein’s alleged crimes.Like everyone else in the world, these Harvard students think Harvey Weinstein is a grotesque pig. Unlike everyone else, the students think that somehow disqualifies him from due process under the law.
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Featured image via YouTube.
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