Harvard erred egregiously in firing Ronald Sullivan as faculty dean of Winthrop House, allowing radical students to try to subvert a basic principle of American democracy, that accused persons have the right to legal representation in court. Heads should roll at Harvard, but not Sullivan's.
As America's oldest and wealthiest university, Harvard University has been a source of national pride, indeed a national treasure, always very high on the list of the world's top schools. Yet recently it committed a blunder of breathtaking proportions, one so egregious that it calls for action not only by Harvard but possibly even beyond.
Randall Kennedy said Harvard"has never so thoroughly embarrassed itself as it did." Laurence Tribe said, according to Peter Berkowitz's account in,"Of many blunders, Harvard has made in my 50 years ...here, I recall none worse." Alan Dershowitz weighed in:"feeling 'unsafe' is the new mantra for the new McCarthyism..... It is a totally phony argument.
3. If the firing of Sullivan occurred with the concurrence of Harvard President Lawrence Bacow, he too should be ousted.