Harvard Law Professor: Trump's Response to Riots Was 'Deeply Unlawful'

160 members of the Harvard Law School faculty signed a letter last week condemning President Donald Trump’s response to the recent riots. One professor that signed onto the letter argued that Trump’s response has been “deeply unlawful.”

According to a report by the Crimson, 160 members of the Harvard Law School faculty have signed onto a letter that condemns President Trump’s response to the riot protests that have occurred in major cities around the nation.

The letter takes aim at a tweet by the president in which he called for intervention against looters. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” the tweet read. The faculty letter compares the tweet to the statement of a southern police chief during the Civil Rights Era and argues that the president’s tweet encouraged “indiscriminate violence.”

On May 29, the President responded to protests in Minneapolis with a tweet that pledged federal control to the effect that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The statement promised indiscriminate violence on its own terms.  In addition, the phrase, famously uttered by a southern police chief who embraced police brutality during the Civil Rights Era, aligned U.S. military action with violent reprisals against protesters.    Finally, as in the Civil Rights Era, the statement pledged violent state action against those who protest race-based injustices.

Harvard Law School Professor Christine A. Desan, who helped with the drafting of the letter, argued that President Trump’s response to the protests has been “deeply unlawful.”

“We don’t under our Constitution live in a society where even if somebody is stealing something they get shot,” Desan said. “To have him pledge to use excessive state violence against people indiscriminately is really unlawful — deeply unlawful.”

Breitbart News reported at the end of May that two deans at Harvard University had defended the riots, telling students that the riots were “symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself.”

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