Harvey Weinstein's Lawyer Is Out of a Big Job

Ronald Sullivan loses job as faculty dean at Harvard after protests

By Polly Davis Doig, Newser Staff

Posted May 12, 2019 8:12 AM CDT

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Harvey Weinstein's Lawyer Is Out of a Big Job — In a Jan. 25, 2019 file photo, attorney and Harvard faculty member Ronald Sullivan Jr. arrives at New York Supreme Court, in New York. Sullivan, who decided to represent Harvey Weinstein at his rape trial, is losing his position as head of a student house at the college. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

Law professor Ronald Sullivan and his wife, Stephanie Robinson, were Harvard's first African-American faculty deans in history, and both are out of the gig after the university caved to pressure to dump Sullivan over his side job: That of defense attorney for Harvey Weinstein. Harvard cited "serious and numerous" concerns expressed by students and staff "about the climate in Winthrop House," where the New York Times reports that Sullivan and Robinson have served as faculty deans since 2009.

Sullivan has served as Weinstein's lawyer since January, and the university has seen protests, a sit-in, graffiti, and even a lawsuit as a result, concluding in a statement "that the situation in the house is untenable." Their positions will not be renewed when they expire on June 30, notes the Times. Sullivan and Robinson responded in a statement that they're "surprised and dismayed" after believing high-level talks "were progressing" until Harvard "unilaterally ended those talks." (More Harvey Weinstein stories.)

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