Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), left, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speak after Republicans in a joint session of Congress objected to certifying the Electoral College votes from Arizona, January 6, 2021.
Hundreds of alumni of Harvard and Yale Law Schools have signed various petitions condemning two alumni, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (Harvard) and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley (Yale), for their roles in fomenting an attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. The petition calls for various levels of censure for Cruz and Hawley—from condemnation to, in one case, calling on Yale to rescind Hawley’s law degree.
“Senator Hawley was not merely complicit in these horrific events, but was a catalyst for them,” the petition authors write. “Senator Hawley has desecrated these ideals, and yet Yale has not released a statement condemning his direct role in these events.”
In response to a request for comment from the Prospect, Dean of Harvard Law School John Manning, through a spokesperson, declined to condemn Cruz’s part in the Capitol Riot. Cruz, a 1995 graduate of Harvard Law, was a vocal leader in the charge to overturn the election result certification.
Dean of Yale Law School Heather Gerken has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Cruz is also a 1992 graduate of Princeton University. More than 200 members of his class have signed a petition condemning his actions, including his first-year roommate Craig Mazin. “Inventing false claims of voter fraud that lawyers are too afraid to present in courts where there are actual consequences for lying, and trying to use the ensuing controversy to challenge a Constitutionally proper proceeding to ratify the decision of the Electoral College is by all fair measures utterly inconsistent with this oath” to the Constitution, the Princeton alumni wrote. “Ted Cruz ’92 did all of the above and then, unconscionably, sent out a fundraising appeal during an attack on the electoral vote certification process on Jan 6, 2021.”
On his personal blog, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber wrote, “There is no place in a democracy for what transpired today in Washington … Every leader has a responsibility to oppose it and never to stoke or encourage it.” He did not mention Cruz by name.
Eisgruber did not respond to a request for comment. Stanford, where Hawley received his bachelor’s degree, has also not responded to a request for comment.
Similar groups of alumni criticized Trump administration figures like Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the wake of the unrest in Charlottesville. Law school students and recent graduates in particular have grown more activist in recent years. For example, members of the People’s Parity Project, a nationwide network of law students, have called for law firms that assisted President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election outcome to be barred from recruiting on college campuses.
“The conservative legal movement has propped up people like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz with no sign of remorse,” said Sejal Singh, co-founder of the People’s Parity Project. “[Wednesday’s] actions were incredibly scary, but they were in many ways a predictable response to the right stoking white supremacy and making white grievance the pillar of the Republican Party today … If there are conservative legal institutions going to stand by and not condemn this, it’s hard to see them as anything but anti-democratic.”
The Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Friday afternoon, a new petition went live calling for the disbarment of Hawley and Cruz, who are both members in good standing of the bars of Missouri and Texas, respectively.
The petitioners enumerate several ways the senators showed no respect for the law. “In inciting and encouraging a violent insurrection against the U.S. government, they have committed ‘a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects,’” they write, adding that “they have engaged in ‘conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.’”
“For their part in Wednesday’s insurrection, they have stained the reputation of the legal profession, which is supposed to promote our democratic institutions and reinforce the principles and the rules that American democracy is founded on,” said Ramis Wadood, a third-year Yale Law student and one of the petition’s authors. Wadood said that the petition already has hundreds of signatures since it went live. “I think it’s very telling that the deans of Harvard and Yale Law Schools have been totally silent,” he added.
In 2001, the Supreme Court issued an order disbarring President Bill Clinton from practicing in front of the high court in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, though he resigned from practice before facing any penalties. Previously, Clinton’s Arkansas law license was suspended for five years.
“The conservative legal movement has propped up people like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz with no sign of remorse.”
Hawley’s book deal with Simon & Schuster was canceled, the editorial boards of the two biggest papers in his home state have called on him to resign, and prominent backers appear to be distancing themselves—even calling for censure. Hawley, for his part, has said he will not apologize. Hawley’s campaign website still has a petition up where you can “Stand Up for American Election Integrity NOW!”
When Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called on Cruz to resign, he tweeted, “Leading a debate in the Senate on ensuring election integrity is doing our jobs, and it’s in no way responsible for the despicable terrorists who attacked the Capitol yesterday. And sorry, I ain’t going anywhere.”
Sens. Chris Coons, Patty Murray, and several members of the House have called on Cruz and Hawley to resign, a shocking escalation for what is normally a rather convivial body. “Any senator who stands up and supports the power of force over the power of democracy has broken their oath of office,” Murray said in a statement.
Cruz and Hawley were not the only Republican senators to support the move to challenge the election results. Even after the Capitol Riot, Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Rick Scott (R-FL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), John Kennedy (R-LA), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) voted to overturn the Electoral College votes. Over 130 Republican members of the House supported the objection to the votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania as well.
In an editorial, The Daily Pennsylvanian called for the University of Pennsylvania’s condemnation of President Trump, a graduate of the Wharton School of Business. Writing about the actions of the president that came before January 6, the editors wrote, “For many of these past flash points, it could be reasonably argued that it was not Penn’s place to comment. The University, after all, could not condemn every action by a polarizing administration, especially one headed by arguably its most notable alumnus.” But Wednesday was different. “The world saw rioters temporarily prevent President-elect Joe Biden (a former Penn professor) from being certified as the rightful winner of the presidential election.”
Penn has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Update 1/10/21:
Since initial publication last Friday, the push for institutional censure in the academic and legal communities has grown. On Sunday afternoon, Harvard government professor Ryan Enos wrote a public letter to Harvard President Lawrence Bacow, arguing that “nobody who aided a violent insurrection should be welcome at our university.” A new petition for Princeton alumni and affiliates calls on the university to disavow Cruz, condemning his part in the Capitol Riot and committing never to name any buildings after him. The petition, which has more than 450 signatures as of Sunday evening, demands the university call for Cruz’s resignation, demand Cruz commit to never serving in public office again, and consider rescinding Cruz’s degree.
The petition to disbar Hawley and Cruz has received over 5,000 signatures from members of the legal community around the country, including Harvard legal scholar and co-founder of the American Constitution Society Laurence Tribe, civil rights activist Valarie Kaur, and former federal judge H. Lee Sarokin. Former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold and prominent Harvard Law professor Michael Klarman also added their names.
