Josh Blackman (South Texas; Google Scholar), Harvard Law School v. Vermeule:

[M]ore than ninety members of the Harvard Law School faculty issued a statement concerning the rule of law … 

The rule of law is imperiled when government leaders:

• single out lawyers and law firms for retribution based on their lawful and ethical representation of clients disfavored by the government, undermining the Sixth Amendment;
• threaten law firms and legal clinics for their lawyers' pro bono work or prior government service;
• relent on those arbitrary threats based on public acts of submission and outlays of funds for favored causes; and
• punish people for lawfully speaking out on matters of public concern. …

Adrian Vermeule … has written a response. Vermeule identifies a problem: how are students who agree with President Trump's policies to approach professors who have castigated Trump as antithetical to the rule of law?

Among you, the students of Harvard Law School, there is a surprisingly large and intellectually powerful contingent who are conservative in some sense or other, many of whom support the current President and the legal policies of his administration. What exactly are you supposed to think when an overwhelming supermajority of the faculty, although purporting to speak "in their individual capacities," jointly condemn those policies? You might be forgiven for wondering if you will get a fair shake during your time at the law school. Perhaps that concern will turn out to be objectively warranted, or perhaps it won't. But the concern in itself is entirely legitimate, and as the collective letter speaks to the "fears" of other students without asking whether those fears are objectively justifiable, it seems only fair to do the same in the other direction. …

Vermeule writes further that these signatories were silent during breaches over the past four years. 

• Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA; Google Scholar), On Not Signing Most Open Group Letters by my Fellow Legal Academics
• Huffington Post, Harvard Law Professors Warn ‘Rule Of Law’ Is Buckling Under Trump
• Robert Kuttner (The American Prospect), Harvard Between Courage and Disgrace
• Law360, Trump EOs And Skadden Face Pushback At Law Schools
• Law.com, Harvard Law Alumni Circulate Letter Condemning EOs Against Law Firms 

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