Members of the Georgetown University faculty joined hands with students in unity on Tuesday morning to protest a visit by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Some protesters opted to #TakeTheKnee.
The Washington Post reports there were some who welcomed the opportunity to hear from the top-law enforcement officer and top lawyer in America. And that would make sense, as the Georgetown University Law Center is one of the most prestigious and esteemed in the country. But more students, faculty and public objected to Sessions for saying he’d be there to discuss free speech, yet removed 130 students from the event’s attendance, squelching their right to free speech and an opportunity for an open exchange of ideas with the attorney general. It’s reported that those students were potentially not “sympathetic” with Sessions and his agendas.
Sessions was one of Donald Trump’s first appointments and his nomination hearings were riddled with controversy, protest and lies. While questioning the former senator of Alabama, Minnesota Congressman Al Franken called Sessions out and exposed blatant “inconsistencies” during the hearings.
Soon after taking his position, Sessions reversed one of President Obama’s endeavors to end the nation’s alleged corrupt and racist "prisons for profit.” By nixing the new law, Sessions once again opened the barn doors for large corporations to profit in the billions, by keeping prisons full with mostly African American men.
Sessions sides with the historically unpopular president on most everything including harsh immigration laws. In 1986, Sessions was lambasted for being racist in a letter by Coretta Scott King, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
On Monday, some students said they got messages informing them they would not be allowed to attend the event, as they were not included on the invitation list drawn up by the Georgetown Center for the Constitution at Georgetown Law, which is hosting Sessions.
More than 130 students who had followed official channels to register for a seat in the auditorium were told they could attend, Lauren Phillips, a student at the school, wrote in an email Monday night. But the students were later suddenly uninvited because they were not part of a group that, Phillips believes, would ensure a sympathetic audience.
Here are some photos from the even used with permission by Alina Joy Schmidt, who said the protest was not organized to disallow Sessions from his own free speech—but to protest some of his policies and his free speech hypocrisy.
Today, the American spirit, the Constitution and democracy were at work in Georgetown. Much thanks to the all of the prostestors who showed up and spoke out.
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