More than 1,100 law professors from universities around the country are urging Congress to reject Sen. Jeff Sessions’, R-Ala., nomination to be the next attorney general.
The letter was signed by professors from 170 law schools in 48 states and is also set to be a full-page newspaper ad, according to the Washington Post. The letter is aimed at the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be holding confirmation hearings for the Alabama Republican on Jan. 10-11.
“We are convinced that Jeff Sessions will not fairly enforce our nation’s laws and promote justice and equality in the United States,” the letter said.
Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School, Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago Law School, Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School and Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California, Irvine School of Law are prominent legal scholars who highlight the list of signees.
The letter — which is specifically addressed to Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott of South Carolina — highlight Sessions’ failure to be confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee to be a federal judge in the 1980s.
“Nothing in Senator Sessions’ public life since 1986,” the letter added, “has convinced us that he is a different man than the 39-year-old attorney who was deemed too racially insensitive to be a federal district court judge.”
The law professors also complained about Sessions’ prosecution of three civil rights activists for voter fraud in Alabama in 1985, his support for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and his “repeated opposition to legislative efforts to promote the rights of women and members of the LGBTQ community.”
Various other lawyers and law enforcement officials have already said they support Sessions’ nomination, including former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys and Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.
