'Shut down entire cities': Liberal academics are outraged over Roe v. Wade news

Liberal academics are outraged after a drafted majority opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that leaked Monday night showed the Supreme Court's apparent intent to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Liberal academics are outraged after a drafted majority opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization showed the Supreme Court’s apparent intent to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

The draft opinion was leaked Monday night.

Below is a sampling of their tweets. 

Assistant professor of history at Sam Houston State University Benjamin Park spoke for many liberals in his field when he said the news was “absolutely gutting.”

Johnathan Perkins, the director for race and equity at the University of California Los Angeles who previously made headlines after wishing death upon the lone black Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas, said that “the bad guys are winning.” 

Like many others in academia, Perkins made a call to action, “Tomorrow, we take to the streets.”

A “Duke Ph.D.-bound” student “researching queerness, slavery, and blackness in colonial Latin Am. & the Caribbean” named Jose Sanchez took it a step further.

The riots that took place in the summer of 2020 following George Floyd’s death caused over $2 billion in damage according to the World Economic Forum.

Keri Leigh Merritt, an historian with a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, suggested a largescale strike as well.

Princeton University Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor additionally suggested large demonstrations.

Monmouth University Professor Hettie V. Williams called the Supreme Court justices who will likely vote to overturn Roe v. Wade “monsters,” stating “[s]ome of you still refuse to realize we are teetering on the brink of fascism.”

Assistant Professor at Durham University Jana Bacevic compared the news to the dystopian series The Handmaid’s Tale.

Nina Turner, a former Cuyahoga Community College professor running for Congress, called on legislators to “Abolish the filibuster,” “Codify Roe,” and “Expand the Supreme Court.”

Knight Chair at Howard University and “1619 Project” author Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted, “You can’t understand the court overturning Roe without understanding the role racism has played in the rise of the religious right.”

University of Pennsylvania law professor Dorothy Roberts tweeted, “the state violence spreads” as a result of what she calls an “assault on reproductive freedom.”

Desiree Weber, assistant professor of political science at the College of Wooster, retweeted a tweet by a Ph.D. student named Mike Dunford alleging that the leaked opinion implies only rights “designed to protect cis white men” are protected by law.


Dunford told Campus Reform, ”As a legal academic, I’m quite pessimistic about the news,” stating “This also puts all the progress made on LGBTQ+ rights issues squarely on the chopping block, and could even be read to call long-settled cases like Loving v VA into question.”


Campus Reform reached out to all individuals mentioned. This article will be updated accordingly.

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