Report: Pitt, Duquesne Law Professors Protest Trump Nomination For Attorney General
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Local law professors are joining 1,200 others across the nation in urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump's nomination for U.S. Attorney General.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, professors from the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University released a letter this week referencing the committee's 1986 bipartisan vote to reject Sessions' nomination as a federal judge, after colleagues testified that Sessions made racially prejudiced comments.
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"Nothing in Sen. 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," the professors wrote.
Additionally, they referenced concerns on the Alabama senator's past positions on topics of immigration, drug and incarceration policies, climate change and the rights of women and LGBTQ people.
Jules Lobel, a Pitt law school professor, told the Tribune-Review why he decided to sign the letter.
"For the chief law enforcement officer of the United States to have a history of racial prejudice and insensitivity is very, very problematic," he said. "The chief thing the chief law enforcement officer of the United States has to do is ensure everybody is treated equally under the law."
Law professors from 49 states and 176 of the country's approximately 200 accredited law schools signed the letter.