(CNN)Harvard Law School professor Ronald Sullivan is criticizing the college following the backlash over his decision to symbolize Harvey Weinstein at his sexual assault trial.
In a video titled “When Harvard stumbles…”, Sullivan and his spouse Stephanie Robinson, who is also a lecturer at Harvard Law School, said that Harvard relieved them of their positions as school deans of an undergraduate house due to Sullivan’s function as Weinstein’s legal professional.
“When Harvard University, to which the complete world appears for management, abandons its commitments to academic freedom and open and unfettered debate, it undermines its responsibilities and its possibilities,” Sullivan stated.
“Regrettably, Harvard’s administrators acted in methods grossly hostile to the very norms that make Harvard the epitome of higher schooling.”
Sullivan withdrew from Weinstein’s defense crew in May, pronouncing that the brand new trial date would war with his teaching obligations. But he stood through his initial decision to sign up for the group.
“In America, anybody is entitled to protection, in America, absolutely everyone is presumed innocent until validated guilty, and in America, everybody is entitled to the due manner of law beneath our Constitution,” Sullivan said.
Harvard University informed CNN that the decision not to reinstate Sullivan and Robinson as school deans were unrelated to Sullivan’s position as Weinstein’s lawyer.
“As we have again and again said, the decision not to resume Ronald Sullivan and Stephanie Robinson changed into now not at once associated with the Weinstein illustration, but as an alternative because of their failure to fulfill their duties as Faculty Deans of Winthrop House,” the college stated in an assertion to CNN.
Sullivan’s selection made waves on campus
Sullivan’s decision in January to symbolize Weinstein changed into met with heavy criticism on Harvard’s campus.
In May, the university introduced that it’d not reinstate Sullivan and Robinson as faculty deans of Winthrop House while their term ends on June 30.
The couple had been the first black faculty deans in Harvard’s records. Harvard has 12 undergraduate homes, which are residential centers which have their personal eating halls, common rooms, and different areas for sports.
In a letter explaining the purpose for the couple’s elimination, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana wrote about worries from students and workforce inside the 400-scholar residence although he did no longer specify what the one’s worries were.
“Over a previous couple of weeks, college students and a group of workers have persisted in talking issues approximately the weather in Winthrop House to the university. The worries expressed had been critical and numerous,” Khurana wrote. “The actions that have been taken to improve the climate had been ineffective, and the great lack of college dean presence at some point of critical moments has further deteriorated the weather within the House.”
Weinstein’s trial starts later this 12 months
Weinstein’s trial is ready to start on September nine.
The disgraced movie magnate is accused of raping a lady in a New York resort room in 2013 and forcibly appearing oral intercourse on another lady at his Manhattan apartment in 2006. The allegations towards him and his ensuing downfall helped launch the #MeToo motion.
The former movie govt faces five criminal costs: counts of predatory sexual attack, one be counted of the crook sexual act in the first degree, and one rely each of first-diploma rape and 0.33-diploma rape. He has pleaded not guilty to all prices.
Weinstein has denied all accusations of nonconsensual sex.
CNN’s Jason Hanna and Monica Haider contributed to this document.