By Michael W. Chapman | January 15, 2021 | 11:17am EST
(Getty Images)
Graduate students and alumni of the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) have launched a campaign and petition to revoke the degrees earned by Harvard alumni who worked in the Trump administration and Harvard grads in Congress who support the president. Harvard must revoke the degrees of alumni whose incendiary language and subversion of democratic processes rooted in a history of white supremacist voter suppression incited the violent insurrection on January 6, reads the petition, which is headlined Revoke Their Degrees.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who earned his law degree at Harvard University. (Getty Images)
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Claiming she had made public assertions about voter fraud in November’s presidential election “that have no basis in evidence,” Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf today announced Rep. Elise Stefanik would be removed from a school political science advisory board.
“Moreover, these assertions and statements do not reflect policy disagreements but bear on the foundations of the electoral process through which this country’s leaders are chosen,” Elmendorf said in a letter released Tuesday.
“In my conversation with Elise, she declined to step aside, and I told her that I would therefore remove her from the Institute of Politics’ Senior Advisory Committee at this time,” Elmendorf wrote.
Harvard faculty reacted with shock and frustration â but often little surprise â to the storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob Wednesday that disrupted the counting of electoral votes.
Chaos erupted in Washington, D.C. Wednesday afternoon when rioters breached the Capitol, forcing the Senate to be cleared out and Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers to be evacuated to secure locations. Amid the riots, a woman was shot and killed, and several explosives were discovered around Capitol Hill.
Police managed to clear the mob from the Capitol by early evening, and lawmakers resumed the vote count around 8 p.m.