I was proud to join my colleagues at the Harvard Law School in writing this letter to our students. Letters aren’t enough, and alone won’t change anything. But they draw clear lines, and focus what is true.
What is true here is this: We have never in our history seen such an open defiance of the fundamental principles of the rule of law. There are particular examples (Lincoln and FDR, in actual war), but nothing as brazen.
The Framers crafted institutions to resist such corruption. The principal institution was to be Congress. Congress has failed. Republicans believe their job is to follow their President; Democrats believe their job is to minimize the harm that President would cause.
The Framers didn’t have much hope for courts. No one much liked judges back then; few thought the institution could be strong enough. Chief Justice Marshall teased the power to control both Congress and the executive in Marbury v Madison (1803). He didn’t dare give Jefferson the chance to snub him. Bold acts by the Supreme Court against a President would only come 150 years later, when the Court slapped down Truman’s seizing of the steel mills to support the Korean War. Twenty years after that, the Court told Nixon to turn over evidence that would force him to resign. No one knew whether Truman or Nixon would obey the Court. What has defined America — and forged the rule of law in America — is that they did.
But not one of the Framers ever expected that government alone could protect the Republic. Everyone understood that resistance requires all of us. Each of us must do what we can. Not because we believe our acts alone will change anything. But because our acts together will make clear just what must change, and our silence (or acquiescence) would make us complicit. (I described that complicity here.)
What follows is the text of the letter we released to our students yesterday. The list of 91 faculty is as of 3/29. You can see any updates here. (Note some — like Noah Feldman, Jack Goldsmith and (I believe) Cass Sunstein—have a general policy against signing public letters. Others expressed a principled argument against faculty ever taking such public positions. I respect that position, and am a believer in the Kalven Principles — but including (and especially) the exception: “From time to time, instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values.”)
March 29, 2025
To our students:
We are privileged to teach and learn the law with you. We write to you today — in our individual capacities — because we believe that American legal precepts and the institutions designed to uphold them are being severely tested, and many of you have expressed to us your concerns and fears about the present moment.
Each of us brings different, sometimes irreconcilable, perspectives to what the law is and should be. Diverse viewpoints are a credit to our school. But we share, and take seriously, a commitment to the rule of law: for people to be equal before it, and for its administration to be impartial. That commitment is foundational to the whole legal profession, and to the special role that lawyers play in our society. As the Model Rules of Professional Conduct provide: “A lawyer is … an officer of the legal system and a public citizen having special responsibility for the quality of justice.”
The rule of law is imperiled when government leaders:
• single out lawyers and law firms for retribution based on their lawful and ethical representation of clients disfavored by the government, undermining the Sixth Amendment;
• threaten law firms and legal clinics for their lawyers’ pro bono work or prior government service;
• relent on those arbitrary threats based on public acts of submission and outlays of funds for favored causes; and
• punish people for lawfully speaking out on matters of public concern.While reasonable people can disagree about the characterization of particular incidents, we are all acutely concerned that severe challenges to the rule of law are taking place, and we strongly condemn any effort to undermine the basic norms we have described.
On our own campus and at many other universities, international students have reported fear of imprisonment or deportation for lawful speech and political activism. Whatever we might each think about particular conduct under particular facts, we share a conviction that our Constitution, including its First Amendment, was designed to make dissent and debate possible without fear of government punishment. Neither a law school nor a society can properly function amidst such fear.
We reaffirm our commitment to the rule of law and to our roles in teaching and upholding the precepts of a fair and impartial legal system.
Sincerely,
Bill Alford
Deborah Anker
Sabi Ardalan
Oren Bar-Gill
Elizabeth Bartholet
Christopher Bavitz
Yochai Benkler
Sharon Block
Gabriella Blum
Nikolas Bowie
Molly Brady
Scott Brewer
Guy-Uriel Charles
John Coates
I. Glenn Cohen
Andrew Manuel Crespo
Christine Desan
Ryan D. Doerfler
Charles Donahue
Benjamin Eidelson
Einer Elhauge
Richard Fallon
Susan H. Farbstein
William Fisher
Idriss Fofana
Jody Freeman
Jacob Gersen
Jeannie Suk Gersen
Tyler R. Giannini
Ruth Greenwood
Michael Gregory
Jim Greiner
Janet Halley
Jon Hanson
Sheila Heen
Howell Jackson
Vicki Jackson
Alan Jenkins
Elizabeth Papp Kamali
Andrew Kaufman
Randall Kennedy
Duncan Kennedy
David Kennedy
Michael Klarman
Adriaan Lanni
Eloise Lawrence
Richard Lazarus
Emily Broad Leib
Jill Lepore
Lawrence Lessig
Christopher Lewis
Anna Lvovsky
Kenneth W. Mack
Bruce H. Mann
Frank Michelman
Martha Minow
Robert Mnookin
Naz K. Modirzadeh
Daniel Nagin
Alexandra Natapoff
Charles Nesson
Gerald L. Neuman
Richard Parker
Todd Rakoff
Daphna Renan
Mark J. Roe
David Rosenberg
William Rubenstein
Benjamin Sachs
Lew Sargentich
Larry Schwartztol
Carmel Shachar
Hannah Shaffer
Joseph William Singer
Holger Spamann
Carol Steiker
Henry Steiner
Nicholas Stephanopoulos
Matthew C. Stephenson
Kristen Stilt
Ronald S. Sullivan Jr.
Laurence H. Tribe
Rebecca Tushnet
Dehlia Umunna
Rachel Viscomi
Laura Weinrib
Lucie White
David Wilkins
Mark Wu
Crystal S. Yang
Jonathan Zittrain
