Georgetown Law Professor: Justice Antonin Scalia 'Defender of Privilege, Oppression and Bigotry'

Days after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Georgetown Law Professor Gary Peller wrote in an email to his colleagues and Georgetown University Law Center Dean William M. Treanor that Justice Scalia “was a defender of privilege, oppression and bigotry, one whose intellectual positions were not brilliant but simplistic and formalistic.”

“I disagree with these sentiments and that expressions attributed to the ‘Georgetown Community,’” said Georgetown Law Professor Mike Seidman in response to the laudatory statement Georgetown Law issued on the day of Scalia’s passing.

One professor who was outraged by the messages shaming Scalia just hours after his death described the email as saying “in effect, your hero was a stupid bigot and we are not sad that he is dead.”

Seidman’s vitriolic emails calling Justice Scalia a “bigot” were sent, according to Above the Law, to “the entire student body at Georgetown Law, some 2000 students.”

The Black Law Students Association at Georgetown responded to the email debate between professors with a statement that said, “While we support an individual student’s choice to mourn, it must also be acknowledged that Justice Scalia’s legacy affects us in vastly different ways.”

“As a result, some of the viewpoints expressed in the email exchange were disheartening for many in our membership,” the group wrote in a post entitled, “An Open Letter to the Georgetown Law Community.”

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson.