A letter to Congress, signed by professors from 170 law schools in 48 states, urges the Senate to reject nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general reports Washington Post writer Sari Horwitz. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold confirmation hearings for Sessions on January 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,” states the letter, which refers to the rejection of Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship in 1986: “Nothing in Senator Sessions’ public life since 1986 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.”
Six NAACP activists, including the organization’s president Cornell Wm. Brooks, were arrested Tuesday night after they held a sit-in at the senator’s Mobile, Alabama office, calling Donald Trump’s nomination of Sessions “despicable and unacceptable.” The protesters were charged with criminal trespass in the second-degree.
A Twitter follower commented, “Resistance to injustice is always beautiful!” in response to posted mugshots of the six.
Law students share that sentiment. Members of the American Constitution Society at Harvard Law School also wrote a letter, in this case to the president-elect, opposing the nomination and soliciting signatures from around the country. The fact that “Sessions stated that he believed the Ku Klux Klan was okay,” was part of students’ argument for withdrawal of Trump’s attorney general choice.
“Jeff Sessions is a strident conservative and consistently opposes progressive policies and nominees,” adds a report prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union in preparation for the confirmation hearing. We’ll be watching developments closely.