The modern university is a child of the Enlightenment, but today Enlightenment values are threatened there. Free speech is under attack by student mobs and free inquiry by many universities' enforcement of a diversity ideology. The latest embattled Enlightenment values are the presumption of innocence and support for the choice of counsel in a criminal trial.
It started with students in Winthrop House, the residence where I lived as a Harvard undergraduate. The residential head of the House, Ronald Sullivan, a clinical professor at Harvard Law School, has agreed to represent Harvey Weinstein in his upcoming trial. This decision has caused an uproar among the House's students. They have demanded that he be fired as the Dean of the House, because Weinstein is accused of sexual assault and because Sullivan's decision to represent him threatened their well-being.
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