Controversy Over Harvard Professor Joining Weinstein Defense

a constitutional right to an attorney. But now a Harvard law professor joining the defense team for Harvey Weinstein is causing controversy at Harvard, from protests and petitions calling for his aust as the Winthrop House faculty dean, to a review of the living climate among the undergraduates at the

house by the college. Harvard Law professor Ronald Sullivan is a renowned criminal defense attorney who represented Aaron Hernandez and his acquittal on a double murder charge and helped free thousands of wrongfully incarcerated inmates in new or lends after Hurricane Katrina. He's also the first African American to be named as a faculty dean of an undergraduate house in

Harvard's history. Fifty four Harvard Law professor assigned a letter supporting Sullivan and his legal advocacy in service of constitutional principles, joining me as Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholett, one of the organizers of that letter of support, tell me a little bit about Professor Sullivan's legal work. Professor Sullivan has

a long history as a criminal defense attorney. He was with the Public Defender's Office in Washington, d C. Representing indigent people accused of crimes, and at Harvard Law School, where he has an appointment on the faculty, he helps run programs for students who are interested in doing criminal defense work. He's also had a practice on the side of representing various people accused of all kinds of crimes over the years, so that's a large part of his persona.

He's also helped create systems for the representation of poor people, so is a long history as a criminal defense attorney, most of it devoted to representing poor people who otherwise wouldn't get a defense. So he agrees to become part of Harvey Weinstein's defense team and students start to complain

what are their concerns One other things. Professor Rowland Friar another African American professor at the university, was accused of sexual harassment and has been under investigation by Harvard for that, and Professor Sullivan also agreed in some capacity to represent him or advise him, and the students initially objected to his representation of both Professor Fryer and Harvey Weinstein. Well, what are the students concerns? Do they not recognize the

constitutional right to have an attorney represent you. I can't speak for the students, and I think more recently the students have claimed that they understand people have a right to criminal defense, but that they're saying that a House dean doesn't have the right necessarily to represent all people accused of crimes. So I think they're emphasizing that now.

I stressed that simply to be fear of what the students are claiming, not because I think their most recent claim is necessarily true in terms of what they're about, And in any event, I don't think it's justified as a reason to be trying to push him out. So you were one of the professors who circulated a letter that fifty two Harvard law professors sign. I think it's

fifty four in total. An astounding number. It's just, you know, the law school faculty is large, but that's astounding number given that it's almost always impossible to get a member of the law school faculty to sign something that they didn't right themselves. So I think it's a very strong statement of how strongly people on this law faculty feel about the idea that somebody is being attacked for his representation of a criminal defendant, and also that Harvard is

taking the position it is on that. So the emphasis on the letter is really Harvard's role, not the student's role. The letter recognizes its students have a right to protest. The letter emphasizes that Harvard should not be hounding Professor

sellisant out based on his representation. And I think I would just like to emphasize that, you know, I'm one of the fifty four, and I certainly believe in the letter, but my own concerns really are very largely with the role Harvard has played here in that Harvard has done nothing to discourage or control or sanctioned the student's conduct,

even when it involved graffiti. And you know, it's the arguable threats that go along with the kind of graffiti that we're posted Harvard did nothing, It has done nothing to defend or protect Professor's Sullivan, but it has completely undermined him. They're clearly, as best I can read what we're allowed to see, trying to hound him out of this position and pressure him to resign. And I think that it's on Harvard's part, a completely on principled position.

Tell me about this climate survey of Winter House Climate review of winterprice. The climate review appears to be, as again as best I can read, the tea leaves here

part of Harvard's attempt to drive Professor Sullivan out. So they are doing something that's extraordinarily rare, and we don't know of it's being done in another situation where a Harvard dean has been accused of something or challenged by the students and it's you know, enormously threatening, is obviously there are some students in the House who are unhappy, and Harvard pears to be saying that if there are enough that are just made quote uncomfortable, then you know,

maybe that's reason to get rid of him as House deeing. In an interview with New York Magazine, Professor Sullivan said that he thought this climate review was racially motivated. Do you agree. I'm not going to say I agree or disagree with that. I'll just say that he is the first and is the only African American dean of a Harvard House, and I know of no other incident of a dean being driven out. And I will point out that there seems to be something of a pattern so far.

Visibly a pattern of two is Professor Rowland Friar being subjected to an ongoing investigation that at least there's one long investigative reporters piece that indicates that Harvard's challenge to an attack on Professor Rowland Fryar, a very distinguished economics professor, is deeply unfair. Um, so we've got that, We've got Ron Sullivan, and it's is problematic, if small, so far pattern. I mean, I'm not a criminal defense attorney myself, and I chose not to be one because honestly, I would

not represent anyone simply because they needed representation. Um, even though I think everybody deserves some representation. But I'm big on lawyers exercising their own sort of ethical standards in deciding whom to represent. And obviously Harvey Weinstein could get other representation. What I'm concerned with about Harvard is one that on a complicated issue, it takes a totally simplistic,

one sided position. So the complicated issue is how do we think about issues of sexual assault and sexual harassment? And there are in these situations alleged victims and alleged perpetrators, and it's complicated because victim claims aren't always true and perpetrators aren't always guilty of everything that they're charged with. And yet Harvard on this issue appears, at least in recent many years now, only to take positions when they can take positions on what looks to be the side

of alleged victims. And Harvard shows zero concern with the rights, including rights to truth seeking process when they involved alleged perpetrators. In this recent instance, Professor Sullivan is somebody who has represented while he's been at Harvard and in the house being position, he has represented a terrorist, he has represented a murderer. He has also represented alleged victims of sexual harassment. And the only problem Harvard has with him is when

he represents an alleged perpetrator of sexual assault. So you know, there's it's one issue. It's decided to have to be on the rightically correct side of all the time. That's all it cares about. I'm wondering if it's because of the Me too movement and the power of the Me too movement. It's affected all kinds of people in our society, from movie stars to politicians to know law professors. Now, absolutely,

you're right, it's the Me too movement. It's the pressure that students are applying to Harvard that is related to the Me too movement. Now, there are other people out there, There are women out there, there are women's rights activists out there who also thinks true sexual assault, true sexual harassment is a bad thing and should be addressed and

victims should be treated properly. But not everybody agrees that any and everyone accused of sexual harassment, or who defends somebody accused of sexual harassment, you know, is an evil that should be removed and taken down and fired from the job, etcetera. So some people think we should address sexual reressment, but you know, take a more considered position and consider the rights of those who are accused, because there might be wrongful accusations. So Harvard is responding to

pressure here. It has pressure from one side, So there's a me too movement. Yes, it is more sort of vocal groups who are on the side of almost always assume the person accused is guilty and go after him to the max. And that's the pressure they're responding to. So the loudest students who are rounding the biggest protests at Harvard's are anti Sullivan. They're not the only ones. There are other people who have other views that include students.

There were two students who wrote into the Crimson asking for their letters to be published who were victims of sexual harassment that Ron Sullivan had represented. The Crimson refused to publish their letters, So there is pressure there. But Harvard only wants to respond to the most loud mouthed pressure and it is doing that, And yes, that relates to me to movement. My feeling is that Harvard University is in a position to stand on principle, not simply

to respond to pressure. And that's all they're doing. And I think that the student pressure, and yes it's a sort of a larger pressure beyond the students, that this fits in with the meetch movement pressure and we want Harvard to look good and that means get rid of Sulivan. Thanks for being on Bloomberg Law. That's Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartha Lett. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg. Ya.