Law Professor and Former Dean Castigates Harvard

Ronald Sullivan, the former Harvard dean who was removed from that post after students protested his representation of alleged serial rapist Harvey Weinstein, has posted a video on You Tube that is sharply critical of the University and its actions. “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. “Regrettably, Harvard’s administrators acted in ways grossly antagonistic to the very norms that make Harvard the epitome of higher education.” In a statement, Harvard downplayed Sullivan’s association with the Weinstein defense team as the reason for his removal. “As we have repeatedly stated, the decision not to renew Ronald Sullivan and Stephanie Robinson (Sullivan’s wife and a Harvard Law lecturer) was not directly related to the Weinstein representation, but rather due to their failure to fulfill their responsibilities as faculty deans of Winthrop House.” According to Sullivan, this is a distinction without a difference since it was the furor over his decision to represent Weinstein that caused the difficulties at Winthrop House.