There’s a new outrage on campus. A group of students at Columbia University are attacking the college for employing a professor who was involved in the prosecution and wrongful conviction of five young men in the 1990s over a horrific assault in Central Park, a famous case where the alleged perpetrators became known as “the Central Park Five.”
The Columbia University Black Students Organization has created a Change.org petition calling for current law professor and former prosecutor Elizabeth Lederer to step down from her teaching position. Prior to teaching at Columbia Law School, Lederer was a prosecutor in Manhattan, which is why she was involved in prosecuting the Central Park Five.
In their petition, the students acknowledge that Columbia has a long history of disavowing racism and supporting the local African American community. However, they also claim that the university is openly contradicting their support by employing Lederer.
“Although Columbia’s administration has made countless statements disavowing racism and discrimination and continually boasts of its commitment to the Harlem community, by openly supporting two women who committed morally reprehensible acts against the Black and brown boys of the Harlem community, Columbia University again proves a contradiction between their words and their actions,” the petition reads.
The Black Students Organization has also called on administrators to rescind an award given by the prestigious Columbia University School of Medicine to Lederer’s co-prosecutor in the case, Linda Fairstein, for her service to the university.
This is not the first time that students at an Ivy League university have turned on one of their own for simply doing their job as a lawyer. Over the last year, several Harvard administrators and students took extensive action to harass Harvard Law School professor Ronald Sullivan Jr. because he chose to represent disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in his criminal trial.
During the time Sullivan spent on Weinstein’s legal team, he was repeatedly harassed by students for defending an accused sexual predator, had his residence on campus vandalized, and even was removed from a position as faculty in residence. Last month, Sullivan finally left Weinstein’s legal team after months of protest from students.
John Patrick (@john_pat_rick) is a graduate of Canisius College and Georgia Southern University. He interned for Red Alert Politics during the summer of 2012 and has continued to contribute regularly.
