Few Recall Gorsuchs Volunteer Work at Harvard

[deminks]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/few-recall-gorsuchs-volunteer-work-at-harvard-1486342894

When President Donald Trump introduced his Supreme Court pick on live television last week, he said Neil Gorsuch had “demonstrated a commitment to helping the less fortunate” by working in the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project and the Harvard Defenders.

His affiliation with these volunteer programs—which offer law school students real-life legal experience representing prison inmates and the poor—helped give Mr. Gorsuch’s deeply conservative résumé a personal touch, and the groups were highlighted in news reports about his nomination.

But roughly three dozen students who participated in the two programs while Mr. Gorsuch was at Harvard Law School from 1988 to 1991 said they have no recollection of his involvement.

“If he was active in PLAP I am sure I would remember him,” said Elizabeth Buckley Lewis, who attended Harvard at the same time as Mr. Gorsuch. Now a New York City tax lawyer who advises nonprofits, she said PLAP was her “most meaningful experience” at Harvard.

(snip)

[HassleCat]

1. Kind of like Bush and the Air National Guard.

Nobody remembers him being there, but nobody can prove he wasn't there.

[Justice]

16. not exactly

Harvard Defenders represents low-income defendants for free in criminal show-cause hearings. Would be records of appearances, defendants he represented. John Salsberg has served as Harvard Defenders Clinical Instructor since 1980.

Same type of thing with other group.

[dhol82]

2. Interesting.

Need more of this.

[Achilleaze]

3. Hmm?

[UTUSN]

4. He led a fascist club

[csziggy]

10. Snopes say false on that one

That is was an "inside" joke because of Gorsuch's conservative bent.

http://www.snopes.com/neil-gorsuchs-fascism-forever-club/

[Mc Mike]

14. Gorsuch's Coors repug bircher backers are just conservatives who believe all the same things

as nazis.

Complete coincidence. Inside 'joke'.

[wishstar]

15. According to Snopes, Gorsuch did write that he founded the Fascism Forever Club

He either originated or at least laid claim to founding the nonexistent Fascism Forever Club. He was proudly dedicated to espousing conservatism and going against "liberal correctness" by poking fun of liberals who used term fascism.

Per Snopes:
"When it came time to write his senior biography for the yearbook, he would make light of the divide between his conservative political beliefs and those of the more liberal faculty and students.
Gorsuch wrote that he founded and led the “Fascism Forever Club,” though those with knowledge of the school back in the 1980s say there was no such club. The mention of it in the yearbook was a tongue-in-cheek attempt to poke fun at liberal peers who teased him about his fierce conservatism."

Maybe his claiming volunteer work was also tongue- in- cheek and not meant to be taken literally!

[csziggy]

17. That's right - apparently Gorsuch is as fond of alternate facts as Kellyanne Conway! nt

[grantcart]

5. He also headed up the Red Cross group that assisted at the Bowling Green Massacre

[Lucinda]

6. Nice!

[elehhhhna]

8. It is also not widely known that he and Brian Williams caught the murderers

[steventh]

9. Thanks for the big laugh

So funny! The Bowling Green Massacre must never be forgotten for what it was. And is.

[uponit7771]

12. +1

[gratuitous]

7. Nice headline there

"Few" recall seeing Gorsuch volunteer. Only if by "few" you mean "nobody."

[ProudLib72]

11. I'm sure Kellyanne

can find a couple who do remember the alternative fact that he was involved.

[TeamPooka]

13. This is a lawyer version of lying about military service.

[dalton99a]

18. Yep.