The Damage That Harvard Has Done
The institution removed Ronald Sullivan as faculty dean after students criticized his decision to help mount Harvey Weinstein’s legal defense.
Defense attorneys often arouse what John Adams called a “clamor of popular suspicions and prejudices” when representing reviled clients. Just last week, the attorney Christopher Darden stopped representing a California man charged with killing the rapper Nipsey Hussle because people were so upset with his choice of client that they demanded to know his fee and threatened the safety of his children.
The vital work of criminal defense has managed to endure in spite of such attacks, thanks to a core of sober-minded citizens in each generation who know better than to pile on. They understand that to defend an accused criminal is not to defend his or her alleged crime—and that conflating the
