Harvard Law School professor Ron Sullivan Jr. and his wife Stephanie Robinson, who also teaches at the school, were removed from their positions as residential deans for Harvard’s Winthrop House this spring.
They were targeted by social justice warriors on campus who claimed they felt “unsafe” due to Sullivan’s decision to join the defense team of Harvey Weinstein, even though he dropped Weinstein when he learned the trial would conflict with his teaching schedule.
The school caved to the mob and removed Sullivan and Robinson from Winthrop House. Both still have their teaching positions and are now speaking out about this situation for the first time.
Joey Garrison reports at USA Today:
Former Harvard dean, removed after defending Weinstein, speaks out for first time since ouster, condemns schoolA Harvard Law School professor who was ousted as a faculty dean amid a campus uproar for working on the legal defense of Harvey Weinstein is speaking out publicly for the first time, saying the university abandoned the academic values that make it special.Sullivan, in a new sharply worded YouTube video co-narrated with his wife, law professor Stephanie Robinson, says they are setting out to “help restore academic freedom, reason, discourse and honor at Harvard College.””When Harvard University, to which the entire world looks for leadership, abandons its commitments to academic freedom and open and unfettered debate, it undermines its responsibilities and its opportunities,” Sullivan says in the video posted Friday. “Regrettably, Harvard’s administrators acted in ways grossly antagonistic to the very norms that make Harvard the epitome of higher education.”…”A university, it’s a place where bright young minds are supposed to learn the disciplines of framing and grappling with arguments and quite frankly, respecting and understanding the views of others,” Robinson says in the video.”So when a place like Harvard pays insufficient attention to that vital work, it not only betrays the ambitions of the university and its students, but it quite frankly betrays our academic traditions.”
Watch the video below:
Harvard has been widely criticized for this decision, and for placating a campus mob. Last week, the ACLU joined the chorus of critics on their official blog:
Harvard Was Wrong to Dismiss Its Dean for Representing Harvey WeinsteinLast month, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana announced that Ronald Sullivan, a professor in the law school, would no longer serve as faculty dean of Winthrop House, a residential dorm at Harvard. Sullivan was the first African American to serve as a faculty dean and had served in that role at Winthrop House for a decade. But when he chose to join the legal team defending Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in his upcoming criminal trial on allegations of sexual assault, his decision sparked protests and sit-ins, as students demanded his ouster as dean. In the end, Harvard caved to the pressure.The decision sacrificed principles central to our legal system.
Featured image via YouTube.
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