Harvard Dean Representing Harvey Weinstein Ousted

CAMBRIDGE, MA — The Harvard dean who has been representing Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein since January against rape charges will no longer be a dean at the school's Winthrop House, the college announced over the weekend.

Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana announced Saturday that the school would not be renewing Ron Sullivan and his wife Stephanie Robinson as deans of Winthrop House, where they have overseen some 400 students for the past decade. Their last days as deans of the undergraduate house will be June 30.

The announcement, which was first reported by the Harvard Crimson, comes after months of both students and staff voicing concern about "the climate in Winthrop House," according to a statement from Khurana who mentioned nothing about the Weinstein controversy in his statement to the community. However, he did say his decision was informed by a number of considerations following a review of the climate at the house.

“The actions that have been taken to improve the climate have been ineffective, and the noticeable lack of faculty dean presence during critical moments has further deteriorated the climate in the House,” Khurana said in the statement. “I have concluded that the situation in the House is untenable.”

The Harvard Crimson newspaper details complaints about Sullivan’s leadership at the house going back several years.

In April, Harvard sophomores living in Winthrop House Allison Scharmann and Caroline Kaufman wrote an oped outlining why they felt unsafe having Sullivan be their undergraduate house dean.

"It is naive and irresponsible to believe that Dean Sullivan’s decision to represent Harvey Weinstein will not discourage survivors from reporting their assaults in Winthrop House. As survivors, it is difficult not to imagine ourselves on that witness stand. We have had our credibility called into question," they wrote.

"We do not believe that Ron Sullivan is an extension of his clients — no lawyer is — and we are not arguing that his position as a professor of criminal justice should bar him from taking this case. But Winthrop House is not Harvard Law School and we are not first-year law students. We are in his house, not his classroom, and we are still waiting for him to acknowledge that very important distinction."

The announcement comes a day after Sullivan told a Manhattan judge Friday that he will no longer be representing Weinstein, according to ABC News, which first reported Sullivan’s decision to leave Weinstein’s legal team.

Sullivan and Robinson will continue to teach at Harvard Law School. They are the first African Americans to serve as faculty deans of an undergraduate house, according to their bios.

Sullivan, who represented Aaron Hernandez and Michael Brown as well as victims of sexual assault has explained why he vies representing “unpopular defendants” as important. He appointed a new point person in the residential college for conversations about sexual assault. And he told the New Yorker he feels he has been racially targeted and that it has been a vocal minority of students in the house who have expressed upset at his decision to represent Weinstein.

Read more about the controversy at the Crimson:

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).