Jan Ransom and Michael Gold

<h1>The graffiti showed up on the door of a Harvard University building last week: “Our rage is self-defense,” and “Whose side are you on?”</h1>

The unexpected target was Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., director of Harvard’s criminal-law clinic and the first African-American to be appointed a faculty dean.

This year, Sullivan joined a team of lawyers representing Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who heads to trial in June in Manhattan on rape and related charges.

The move sparked protests and intense debate at the Ivy League campus where a small, but vocal, group of students have called for his resignation as dean of Winthrop House, one of Harvard’s residential colleges for undergraduate students.

Some students said they did not believe Sullivan was fit to serve as a dean of a residential college and at the same time represent Weinstein, who has been accused by more than 80 women of sexual harassment and, in some cases, assault.

In his first public remarks, Sullivan said in a phone interview Monday that he did not anticipate the level of backlash he has received. He has a long history of taking on high-profile and, at times, controversial clients, as well as representing students who have been victims of sexual assault, he said.

“Lawyers are not an extension of their clients,” Sullivan said. “Lawyers do law work, not the work of ideology. When I’m in my lawyer capacity, representing a client, even one publicly vilified, it doesn’t mean I’m supporting anything the client may have done.”

Some students disagree. Dozens of protesters, some with tape over their mouths, protested last month in front of the administration building, holding signs that said “Remove Sullivan” and “#MeToo.” About 270 people have signed an online petition calling for him to resign from his faculty dean position.

“Do you really want to one day accept your diploma from someone who for whatever reason, professional or personal, believes it is OK to defend such a prominent figure at the center of the #MeToo movement?” one student, Danu Mudannayake, wrote in the petition.

In the past week, the doors of Winthrop House were spray-painted with graffiti and had flyers posted on them that included an illustration of Sullivan that some students described as “racially insensitive.”

The fliers, which were also distributed throughout the campus, included images of Weinstein and Roland Fryer Jr., a Harvard economics professor who has been accused of sexual harassment.

Protests regarding Sullivan’s representation of Weinstein have erupted at the college, and members of the Association of Black Harvard Women said in a public letter addressed to Sullivan: “You have failed us.”

But many of Sullivan’s colleagues have come to his defense. Dozens of law professors from the university on Feb. 14 sent a letter to the college in support of Sullivan. On Feb. 28, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article by Randall Kennedy, a Harvard law professor, who wrote:

“Those calling for Sullivan’s resignation or dismissal as a faculty dean solely because he is serving as Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer in a rape prosecution are displaying an array of disturbingly widespread tendencies. One is impatience with drawing essential distinctions such as that between a lawyer and his client. Another is a willingness to minimize or dispense with important safeguards like fair trials. Yet another is a tendency to resort to demonization.”

The dean of Harvard College, Rakesh Khurana, said in a statement Feb. 20 regarding Sullivan that the right to a vigorous defense is a cornerstone of the justice system. Yet he also announced last week that the college would conduct a “climate review” of how students at Winthrop House view Sullivan’s representation of Weinstein and “take action as appropriate,” according to The Harvard Crimson.

“It is not lost on me that I’m the first African-American to hold this position,” Sullivan said. “Never in the history of the faculty dean position has the dean been subjected to a ‘climate review’ in the middle of some controversy.”

A spokeswoman for the university declined to comment.

Sullivan has had other controversial clients. He defended Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots player, at his second murder trial, when he was acquitted of murdering two men in Boston. Sullivan also represented the family of Usaamah Rahim, a man shot by the Boston police who had been accused of being a terrorist.

Sullivan has largely built a career helping to overturn wrongful convictions and he also designed an indigent defense system in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina that resulted in the exoneration of thousands of people falsely convicted of crimes.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office tapped Sullivan in 2014 to design a conviction integrity unit to identify wrongfully convicted people that has become a national model. In 2017, he also helped the family of Michael Brown, a man killed by police in Missouri, obtain a reported $1.5 million settlement from the city of Ferguson after the family had filed a wrongful-death suit.

Mudannayake, a design editor at The Harvard Crimson, said the students’ quarrel with Sullivan was not that he took on a controversial, high-profile client.

But Mudannayake said faculty deans like Sullivan are responsible for setting the tone and culture in their houses, and students in Winthrop House felt that Sullivan’s representation of Weinstein disrupted the safe atmosphere of their community.

“Everyone on this campus knows what #MeToo is and who Harvey Weinstein is,” she said. “And it’s just shocking that it’s been brought quite literally to some students’ doorsteps.”

Sullivan wrote in an email to Winthrop students in January that all defendants, even the most disliked, have “basic due process rights.” On Monday, he said the students’ concern was genuine, but misplaced.

Sullivan called the controversy “a teachable moment,” and expressed concern that the climate review could have a chilling effect on faculty who engage in work that may be unpopular.

One former student, whose name is being withheld because she is a survivor of sexual assault, said she had no problem with Sullivan representing Weinstein. Sullivan, she said, has been a staunch advocate for victims and had represented her with her case. She said she had trusted only two people to tell about the attack, and one was Sullivan.

The woman, who went on to become a sex crimes prosecutor, said in an interview Monday that one unfortunate effect of the #MeToo movement was a tendency for the public to rush to judgment when someone is accused of sexual assault without affording any sort of due process.

Diana L. Eck, a longtime faculty dean at Harvard, said it seemed students in Winthrop House felt Sullivan’s outside work as a defense lawyer was “fracturing that sense of community” and making it harder for students in Winthrop House to discuss sexual assault openly.

“There’s nobody that would think that every single person doesn’t deserve the best possible legal representation in court — of course we believe that,” Eck said. “It’s just, you know, to what extent does that commitment to legal representation in a very high-profile case like this collide with the responsibilities of being a community leader at Harvard?”

This article originally appeared in <a id="90ab69a7-2592-4ee8-8863-f51c9a4e1b12" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/nyregion/harvard-dean-harvey-weinstein.html">The New York Times</a>.

Black Harvard professor representing Weinstein hit with graffiti, campus criticism

This year, Sullivan joined a team of lawyers representing Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who heads to trial in June in Manhattan on rape and related charges.

Weinstein, the movie mogul who became the symbol of the #MeToo movement after dozens of women accused him of sexual misconduct, has hired Jose Baez, Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., Duncan Levin and Pamela Robillard Mackey to his defense team, the person said.

The four will replace Benjamin A. Brafman, the Manhattan defense lawyer with whom Weinstein parted ways last week.

“I am pleased to confirm that I along with Jose Baez have been retained by Harvey Weinstein,” Sullivan said in a statement. “Mr. Weinstein steadfastly maintains his innocence in this matter and we are looking forward to assisting Mr. Weinstein in his defense.”

Baez and Sullivan will serve as Weinstein’s lead co-counsels, according to a second person with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Neither lawyer is based in New York City.

It is possible that additional lawyers could be added to the team, the person said.

Levin is a former federal prosecutor and a former chief assistant to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. He will provide strategic advice to the other three lawyers on the team, who have little experience with New York law or Vance’s office, the person said.

Weinstein began to make calls to other lawyers last month after a judge rejected Brafman’s argument that the case against Weinstein should be dismissed. Since then, he has pursued a plan to follow the template set out by O.J. Simpson in his murder trial in 1995, assembling a group with a variety of specialties.

With his new team, Weinstein has a set of lawyers with experience in high-profile cases.

Baez, a lawyer based in Florida, represented Casey Anthony, who was acquitted in 2011 of charges that she murdered her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.

He also worked with Sullivan, a professor at Harvard Law School, to defend football player Aaron Hernandez, who was acquitted in a double murder trial in Massachusetts in 2017 and later committed suicide. (Neither Baez nor Sullivan represented Hernandez in his murder trial in 2015, when he was found guilty in a conviction that was later nullified.)

Baez and Sullivan also represented actress Rose McGowan when she faced drug possession charges in Virginia. She eventually pleaded no contest.

Coincidentally, McGowan is an outspoken critic of Weinstein and was one of the first women to come forward publicly about his history of sexual misconduct.

By hiring Mackey, who works for a Denver-based law firm, Weinstein will add a prominent female lawyer to his legal team. Mackey also has experience in sexual assault cases. She represented former basketball player Kobe Bryant when he was accused of raping a 19-year-old woman in 2013 in Colorado.

Bryant said at the time that Bryant viewed their encounter as consensual, and the case was dropped after the woman said she would not testify.

Mackey, who is out of the country, could not be reached immediately for comment.

Weinstein, 66, faces five charges in Manhattan stemming from allegations that he raped one woman and performed oral sex on another against her will. The charges include two counts of predatory sexual assault, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. His trial is scheduled to begin in May.

Weinstein has denied the allegations and has said the relationships were consensual.

The New York Post first reported Weinstein’s new team.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/nyregion/harvey-weinstein-new-lawyers.html" id="a0e774cc-7ed5-3d9f-a151-10e8300ca8dd">The New York Times</a>.

Harvey Weinstein Hires Lawyers for His New 'Dream Team'

NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein has started to cast his new “dream team” of lawyers, selecting a former Manhattan prosecutor and three litigators with a history of representing celebrity clients around the country, a person familiar with the discussions said.

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Jan Ransom and Michael Gold

Articles written by the author

Black Harvard professor representing Weinstein hit with graffiti, campus criticism

Harvey Weinstein Hires Lawyers for His New 'Dream Team'