“Intersectionality” becomes a feeding frenzy as self-styled victim groups vie for primacy
This essay first appeared in Law & Liberty as “Harvard’s Disgrace” on May 15, 2019 (here). Thank you, Instapundit! (here) And thanks to Acton Institute’s PowerBlog (here).
Utopian social movements often degenerate into unruly—and sometimes vicious–mobs. During the French Revolution, the slogan “liberty, equality, fraternity” quickly led to the guillotine as the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror. Call it the law of unintended consequences. We are witnessing a similar display at Harvard, America’s most elite university, where Ronald Sullivan, an African-American law professor, faces professional retribution for the sin of representing a (presumed innocent) client accused of sexual assault. Harvard Law school professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz denounced the incident as “The new McCarthyism comes to Harvard.”
Capitulating to the noisy
complaints of a small number of undergraduates, and a sit-in protest at the
dining hall, the Harvard administration recently announced that, effective June
30, Sullivan and his wife, Stephanie Robinson (who likewise teaches at
Harvard’s law school), would be removed as “faculty deans” at the school’s Winthrop
House—a student residence where Sullivan and Robison also lived. (Sullivan remains as a law professor.) When
appointed as residential deans in 2009, Sullivan and Robinson were the first African-Americans to hold that
position at Harvard, according to The Harvard Crimson. The decision to remove Sullivan and Robinson
was made by Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana, who had reportedly joined the students’ sit-in
protest, dubbed “Reclaim Winthrop.”
Students absurdly charged that Sullivan’s representation of a
criminal defendant charged with sexual assault—by itself–made them feel upset,
and contributed to an unsafe and hostile educational environment.
Never mind that procedural
due process (including the right of criminal defendants to zealous
representation) is a critical tenet of the Anglo-American legal system, and that
criminal law professors have long practiced criminal defense on the side,
without controversy. Never mind that Sullivan previously represented other high-profile clients without
incident, including accused terrorists and former New England
Patriots tight-end Aaron Hernandez in his 2017 double murder trial. That was
then.
The #MeToo movement sweeps
away such precedents as inconvenient impediments to achieving a higher state of
virtue, just as the Robespierre-led Committee of Public Safety eliminated many
“enemies of the people.” It is tempting to ignore the horrors of the French
Revolution, or to dismiss them as an aberration of history, but then—as
now–idealistic reformers believed with moral certainty in the righteousness of
their cause.
The new “enemies of the
people” are patriarchy, “white privilege,” and a capitalist system deemed responsible
for income inequality and climate change. The amorphous (and broad-based) nature
of the perceived foes complicates the identification of their “victims.” In the
zero-sum game of identity politics, however, victimhood confers power, so the precise
hierarchy of victim status is critically important. Not all victims are equal. Accordingly,
“oppressed groups” compete with each other for primacy. The stakes are high. Conventional
feminism faces challenges from the LGBT movement. Do “transgender” athletes (who
are biologically male) trump the interests of actual women in sports competitions? Is it bigoted to assert that
only women have vaginas?
At Harvard, the kerfuffle
involving Sullivan pits several different groups against each other in the
intersectionality sweepstakes: people of color, criminal defendants (once the
darling of the ACLU), and feminists. Progressive activists are furious that
Sullivan was willing to represent disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey
Weinstein—until recently an influential Democratic donor—against charges of
sexual misconduct. The apex movement du jour—at least on elite college
campuses–is #MeToo, and defending Weinstein is somehow more repugnant than representing
accused murderers such as O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow, as Dershowitz did with
nary a complaint in recent decades. Sullivan’s Harvard Law colleague, Charles
Ogletree, advocated on behalf of convicted cop killers (such as Troy Davis)–without
objection from Harvard’s sensitive students. And never mind that Sullivan has
announced his withdrawal from Weinstein’s defense team.
Too late. The damage has been done. The “trauma” to the delicate student body
was irreparable.
Alas, Harvard students—surely
the least marginalized group of people on this planet–have gotten “woke.” The
moral calculus in progressive circles, which once accorded great importance to
protecting the rights of accused criminals and safeguarding the advances of
African-Americans, has abruptly changed. Not only must “survivors” of sexual
assault always be believed, those accused must not be defended (although different
rules apparently apply to Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax). To progressives,
consistency—like logic itself—is the hobgoblin of little minds.
This sad spectacle puts our
supposedly “elite” institutions in a most unflattering light. University
administrators cower in fear of “triggered” students behaving like spoiled
children. Outside of the Ivy League
student bubble, Harvard’s cowardly willingness to throw Sullivan and Robinson
under the bus has elicited nothing but scorn. Dershowitz declared that Sullivan’s removal was “the
worst violation of academic freedom during my 55 year association with
Harvard.”
Writing in The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf dismissed the concerns of Harvard
undergraduates as “discomfort rooted in difficulty tolerating moral difference,
not in having to report sexual assault to Sullivan, as some have erroneously
suggested.” Friedersdorf called
Sullivan’s removal “shameful” and warned that “Harvard’s decision may deter
ambitious young lawyers from undertaking the defense of any potentially
controversial client, including indigent men who stand accused of rape or
sexual assault. That raises the odds of wrongful convictions, especially among
the poor.”
Other commentators were
equally disdainful. Legal Insurrection
asked “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?” Fifty-two members
of the Harvard law faculty, understanding the damaging signal represented by
Sullivan’s ouster, expressed their public support for their colleague. Legal Insurrection concluded that “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.”
Reason’s
Robby Soave concurred:
This is a disaster. The administration has endorsed the ridiculous notion that serving as legal counsel for a person accused of sexual misconduct is itself a form of sexual misconduct, or at the very least contributes to sexual harassment on campus. It is no exaggeration to say that Khurana has undermined one of the most important principles of modern, enlightened justice. He should be ashamed of himself.
By caving to the mob, Harvard has shown student-activists that it takes seriously their demands for a kind of broadly-defined safety that includes protection from ideas they don’t like. This outcome will undoubtedly embolden them.
Capitulating to the petulant protests
of intolerant snowflakes does not create a “safe space”; it defeats the essential purpose of higher
education, which is to promote critical thinking, expose students to
uncomfortable ideas, and challenge their presuppositions. Harvard’s craven submission
to students’ puerile demands will only embolden the mob, its appetite for power
now whetted by success. Now that the “woke” activists at Harvard–seemingly
intent on devouring their own–have humiliated an African-American trailblazer
committed to civil rights, who will be their target?