More than 1,100 law professors urge senators to reject Sessions as AG

More than 1,100 law school professors proclaimed their opposition to President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general pick in a letter to Congress Tuesday, rejecting Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as unfit to handle the responsibilities of the country’s top law enforcement official.

“As law faculty who work every day to better understand the law and teach it to our students, we are convinced that Jeff Sessions will not fairly enforce our nation’s laws and promote justice and equality in the United States,” the letter says. “We urge you to reject his nomination.”

The letter, which was addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), recalls Sessions’s failed 1986 confirmation hearing for a federal judgeship.

{mosads}It also accuses the Alabama senator of being “racially insensitive” and criticizes his hard-line stances on issues such as drug enforcement and LGBTQ rights.

Sessions’s opponents have revived his failed ’86 nomination for a federal judgeship under a Republican-controlled Senate. During his confirmation hearings, he was accused of making racially insensitive comments — allegations he and his aides have denied.

“Nothing in Senator Sessions’ public life since 1986 has convinced us that he is a different man than the 39-year-old attorney who was deemed too racially insensitive to be a federal district court judge,” the professors’ letter reads.

The letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post, comes a week before the Judiciary Committee is expected to hold Sessions’s confirmation hearings on Jan. 10 and 11.

The letter is set to run as a full-page newspaper ad, the Post reported, and is signed by law professors from all but two states.