Several years ago, Gay was the dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Harvard. She was presented with a comparable issue that revolved around the co-dean of a Harvard residential dorm, Ronald Sullivan, who is a professor at Harvard Law School and a distinguished practicing lawyer.

During a one-month period, he played a role in defending Harvey Weinstein, who was accused and eventually convicted of various sexual assault crimes. When Sullivan had previously represented a man accused of brutal murders, none of the students in residential dorm Winthrop House expressed concern. After all, he was their lawyer. But when Sullivan participated in the representation of an accused rapist, several students expressed that they didn’t feel safe. Although it was irrational for any student to be afraid of a lawyer because of who he represented, their claims were taken seriously by Harvard administrators.

In the end, Sullivan’s appointment as dean of the Winthrop House was not renewed. In effect he was fired. Although Gay denied that the Weinstein issue was the sole cause, it seems clear from the chronology and statements made to Sullivan that the primary basis for his ouster was the fear some students expressed.

Gay said that Sullivan’s explanation of why he represented Weinstein was “insufficient” — as if a lawyer has to explain defending an accused person. She also said that a dean has a “pastoral role” — “a special responsibility to the well-being of the students.” One would expect that a president has an even greater responsibility to provide a sufficient explanation for a widely condemned statement, and to serve in a pastoral role in assuring that students feel safe.

[Plenty of people have pointed to the Sullivan case as an example of Harvard’s hypocrisy. I wrote about it at the time, and made the same points as Dersh does now (and did then, loudly, as well). But I think the idea that deans are ‘pastoral’ is rather telling, because Harvard and other bastions of Academia are no longer educating. They are indoctrinating young adults into the Cult of Woke, and Gay’s appointment as High Priestess makes sense in that context. — Ed]