For months now, students at Harvard have expressed outrage and even held protests because law professor Ron Sullivan is representing disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Now, the school is removing Sullivan from his position as a house dean.
Students have been calling for his firing since at least February. The school conducted a ‘climate review’ of Sullivan in March.
Now the school is removing him from his dean position at the school’s Winthrop House.
Josh Siegel reports at the Washington Examiner:
Harvard removing black faculty dean for representing Harvey Weinstein at rape trialHarvard College is removing a faculty dean who drew controversy for deciding to represent Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein at his rape trial this fall.Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana said Saturday he would not renew the appointments of law professor Ronald Sullivan and his wife, Stephanie Robinson, as faculty deans when their terms end on June 30.Students who lived in Harvard’s Winthrop House, the undergraduate student residence that Sullivan supervises — and where he also lives — had demanded he be removed from his job because of his work for Weinstein.
Does Harvard have any idea how damaging this is to their brand? People see this for what it is. Sullivan is being punished because social justice warrior students don’t want Weinstein to be represented by a Harvard law professor.
Has no one explained to these students that law professors often take on high profile and controversial cases in order to write about them and use them in their teaching?
Kate Taylor of the New York Times has more:
Harvard Drops Harvey Weinstein Lawyer as a Faculty DeanHarvard said on Saturday that a law professor who is representing Harvey Weinstein would not continue as faculty dean of an undergraduate house after his term ends on June 30, bowing to months of pressure from students.The professor, Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., and his wife, Stephanie Robinson, who is a lecturer at the law school, have been the faculty deans of Winthrop House, one of Harvard’s residential houses for undergraduate students, since 2009. They were the first African-American faculty deans in Harvard’s history…In a statement, Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Robinson said, “We are surprised and dismayed by the action Harvard announced today. We believed the discussions we were having with high-level university representatives were progressing in a positive manner, but Harvard unilaterally ended those talks.”“We will now take some time to process Harvard’s actions and consider our options,” their statement continued. “We are sorry that Harvard’s actions and the controversy surrounding us has contributed to the stress on Winthrop students at this already stressful time.”The decision not to renew the appointments of Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Robinson as faculty deans does not affect their positions at the law school, where Mr. Sullivan is the Jesse Climenko Clinical Professor of Law and the director of the Criminal Justice Institute.
In the 1980’s, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz represented Claus von Bülow in his appeal for a murder case which had become a nightly news item.
Sullivan has the backing of many Harvard Law School professors, including Dershowitz.
The Harvard Crimson reports:
52 Harvard Law School Professors Voice Support for SullivanFifty-two Harvard Law School professors signed a letter supporting their fellow Professor and Winthrop House Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. as he faces on-campus scrutiny following his decision to represent Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.Law School professors Janet E. Halley and Elizabeth Bartholet ’62 organized the effort, sending a draft to other professors and faculty clinicians early last week. Fifty-two faculty members — including Professor Emeritus Alan M. Dershowitz, former Harvard Law School Dean Martha L. Minow, and Professor Laurence H. Tribe — signed on to the document, and the resulting letter was published in the Boston Globe on Friday.
This is a sad day for Harvard. They have put the anger of a campus mob ahead of the very foundations of our legal system.
Featured image via YouTube.
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