This Is Sparta: 1,100 Law Professors Against Jeff Sessions

The professors object to Sessions on the grounds that, essentially, he is too racist to be the attorney general.

Jeff Sessions (Generated by JG JPEG Library)

Jeff Sessions (Generated by JG JPEG Library)

The Washington Post reports that over 1,100 law professors have signed a letter announcing their opposition to Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

That sounds like a lot: the professors come from 170 different law schools across 48 states. But really, if we lived in a world where people listened to law professors, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

The professors, armed only with their approbation, will be ignored and crushed by the mighty armies of white Xerxes Donald Trump. Their attempt has valor, but this story only has one ending, and that’s with the bad guys winning.

The professors object to Sessions on the grounds that, essentially, he is too racist to be the attorney general.

“We are convinced that Jeff Sessions will not fairly enforce our nation’s laws and promote justice and equality in the United States,” states the letter, signed by prominent legal scholars including Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, Geoffrey R. Stone of the University of Chicago Law School, Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School and Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California at Irvine School of Law.

Sure. They’re not wrong. I don’t know that Sessions is any more racist than who a “normal” Republican would have nominated for the position. But Sessions has the misfortune of being on record with his racism more than most. There are a lot of people Trump could have nominated who think just like Sessions, but who haven’t been rejected for being too racist to be a federal judge.

Sponsored

But that’s the thing about the Sessions nomination: the people who support him and voted for Trump want this kind of racism in charge of the Justice Department. Sessions will not fairly “promote justice and equality”? Guys, that’s what these people want! From the perspective of a Trumpkin, this law professor letter reads: “Don’t appoint Jeff Sessions, he’s everything you guys want him to be! He’ll really piss off the liberal intelligentsia who think blacks and Latinos and women deserve to have equal rights.”

That’s just… not going to work.

And we haven’t even talked about the Senate Democrats. If the law professors have cast themselves as the 300 at Thermopylae, then Senate Democrats are the Greek city-states that cowered at home and hoped to get a pass from the Persians. Senate Democrats don’t have the vision or the will to fight what’s about to happen. They’re just trying to position themselves to benefit when the pendulum swings back the other way.

One might hope that the law professors’ letter will give cover to other, more powerful groups, to fight the Sessions nomination. The NAACP staged a sit-in in Session’s office yesterday. After a few hours, six protesters were arrested, including NAACP President Cornell W. Brooks.

That seems like the right way to go. Sessions is going to be the attorney general, but we can and should make his life and job as difficult as possible.

Sponsored

The Persians learned the hard way how difficult it is to conquer a people who are willing to fight you to the last breath of the last man. That’s what we need to see from the 1,100 law professors. Not one letter-writing campaign, but constant, relentless legal pressure. Sessions shouldn’t be able to change the Keurig choices at the DOJ without a flurry of lawsuits filed by the most prominent legal minds in the country.

The Fourth Reich is going to win more of these battles than they lose. But every one should be a battle. You can’t stop Sessions, but you can make him pay for every inch of ground he takes away from equality under the law.

More than 1,100 law school professors nationwide oppose Sessions’s nomination as attorney general [Washington Post]
Arrests end NAACP sit-in at Jeff Sessions’ office [CNN]

Earlier: I Survived John Ashcroft, I’ll (Probably) Survive Jeff Sessions


Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.