HLS Black Law Students Association Endorses Candidates to Serve as Next Dean

Harvard Law School’s Black Law Students Association endorsed professor David B. Wilkins ’77 and controversial former Winthrop House Faculty Deans Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. and Stephanie R. Robinson in the search for a new dean.

If Wilkins, Sullivan, or Robinson are tapped to helm the Law School, they would be the first Black dean in the history of HLS. None responded to requests for comment on the endorsement.

A professor at HLS since 1986 and a vice dean since 2009, Wilkins was pointed to as a potential candidate by a number of faculty members who spoke to The Crimson last month. He was previously endorsed by 10 HLS affinity groups, including BLSA, in the 2017 dean search that selected Manning.

BLSA’s endorsement cited Wilkins’ clerkship for Thurgood Marshall, tenure as Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, and position as a faculty associate at Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics for “his place as a towering figure in legal ethics.”

Robinson has been a lecturer at Harvard Law School since 2007. For their endorsement, BLSA cited her experience in media as well as her service as Chief Counsel for Sen. Ted Kennedy ’56 and as president and CEO of the Jamestown Project think tank.

Sullivan, a professor of criminal law, is the faculty director of the Harvard Trial Advocacy Workshop. He also serves as a faculty advisor to BLSA and was president of the group as a student at the Law School.

Robinson and Sullivan, who are married, served as the faculty deans of Winthrop House from 2009 to 2019. When appointed, they became the first Black faculty deans at the College.

However, Sullivan and Robinson’s tenure at Winthrop house was marred by controversy. When Sullivan joined Harvey Weinstein’s legal team, he faced protests for more than three months in 2019, ranging from graffiti and sit-ins to students requesting house transfers.

Towards the end of Sullivan and Robinson’s term, College administrators launched a “climate review” of Winthrop House following concerns from residents about the house’s environment and support for students.

Just one day after more than a dozen Winthrop House staff members told The Crimson that Sullivan and Robinson created a hostile work environment for over a decade, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana announced that their contract would not be renewed and Winthrop House affiliates said the environment improved after they were dismissed.

At the time, the BLSA criticized College administrators’ investigation of the Winthrop House climate, calling it an “outsized response” with “racist undertones.” The BLSA did not mention Sullivan and Robinson’s tenure at Winthrop House in their endorsement.

BLSA also outlined criteria they would like the search committee to take into consideration and policy goals they hope the next dean will commit themselves to, including expansions of the Low Income Protection Program, the Summer Public Interest Funding program, and clinical programs focused on racial justice.

BLSA also wrote that they hope the next dean will hire another critical race theory scholar to be a professor at HLS and “codify curricula requirements surrounding the legal history of enslavement and broad disenfranchisement of people of color.”

BLSA did not comment on whether Wilkins, Robinson, or Sullivan agreed with these criteria for the next dean, or goals for HLS.

—Staff writer S. Mac Healey can be reached at mac.healey@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @MacHealey.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.