Statement in Response to Trump Administration’s Unprecedented Demand that Harvard Dismantle Student Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild

 Originally posted 16 April 2025 by national NLG.

Last Friday, the Trump Administration privately sent a letter to Harvard University with a series of racist, reactionary, and unconstitutional demands attacking civil liberties, academic freedom, human rights, and racial justice. The letter explicitly calls on Harvard to defund and dissolve the Harvard Law School chapter of the National Lawyers Guild—along with several student groups supporting Palestinian rights—and punish our student members and leadership.

The Trump administration targeting the National Lawyers Guild is yet another example of governmental repression of pro-Palestinian organizations and speech. It is also a clear message that this administration, like all authoritarian governments, recognizes that the power of the people threatens its regime.

“NLG’s mission, to use the law for the people by valuing humans and ecosystems over property interests, is fundamentally at odds with our government funding the ongoing genocide in Palestine, disappearing people from our neighborhoods, and attacking our most marginalized communities,” stated Allie Ryave, a third-year student and co-president of Harvard Law School NLG. 

“That the federal government wants us disbanded and disciplined exposes what they fear: an organized resistance movement, supported by law students and lawyers dedicated to fighting back against fascism,” added Corinne Shanahan, a third-year student and co-president of Harvard Law School NLG.

The Harvard Law School Chapter of NLG was founded roughly 50 years ago and has long functioned as a hub for progressive law students to organize. Over the past year, Harvard NLG members have protected those protesting for Palestinian rights, academic freedom, and the rights of immigrants. We have provided legal observers, held Know-Your-Rights trainings, and helped educate the broader Harvard community on staying safe while imagining a better world.

“The student movement for racial justice, immigrant justice, and for Palestine is unbelievably powerful. It’s unsurprising that the Trump administration is targeting us,” said Ariel Boone, a second-year student and incoming co-president of NLG. “Trump’s threats just steel our resolve to continue organizing. We’re proud to stand with the student groups listed in this letter.”

We call on all NLG chapters to conduct membership drives, schedule regular meetings, subvert your institutions, hold your ground, and strengthen the social fabric. 

Organizations like NLG help form a bulwark against violations of human and civil rights around the globe. This is not the first time the National Lawyers Guild has been targeted by the federal government. In the 1950’s, during the Second Red Scare, U.S. Senator McCarthy targeted the National Lawyers Guild and its members under the guise of eliminating communism.  

We urge the Harvard administration to protect all of the students, organizations, and academic programs named in Trump’s letter and to fulfill its promise to push back against the government’s unconstitutional demands. At the same time, we know the power of Harvard NLG comes not from its name or its funding, but from students. We, as the members of the Harvard Law School chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, are committed to continuing in the tradition of fighting for justice and human rights, no matter what form that fight takes. 

Our fight goes beyond the Trump presidency. We won’t be distracted from our pursuit of full liberation.

This is a statement of the HLS National Lawyers Guild Executive Board.

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Background: The National Lawyers Guild is the nation’s oldest and largest network of human rights and public interest activists in the U.S. legal system. NLG has consistently worked to protect democratic rights and create more just societies in the United States and abroad—its members were organizers in the Civil and Labor Rights Movements, prosecuted Nazis at the Nuremberg trials, protected anti-Vietnam War protesters, and supported divestment from apartheid South Africa at a time when the United States labeled Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Most recently, NLG has continued to stand firm in its opposition to genocide and occupation in Palestine. 

The National Lawyers Guild also provides a Sanctuary Campus organizing toolkit to make universities safe for all.

National Lawyers Guild in Madison and Milwaukee denounce politically motivated arrest of Judge Dugan

The Milwaukee and Madison chapters of the National Lawyer Guild (NLG) strongly condemn the public courthouse arrest of elected Milwaukee County Circuit Court  Judge Hannah Dugan on Friday, April 25. The Guild asserts that this unusual arrest is part of an ongoing political campaign by the Trump administration to discredit and intimidate judges and the courts, as it continues to defy multiple rulings. 

News of this arrest came from national FBI director Kash Patel in a release on social media with a photo of the Judge in handcuffs,  rather than an announcement from the Milwaukee office of the U.S.  Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.  Patel’s media release has since been deleted without explanation.

Rather than notify this sitting judge and allowing her to report for processing, as would normally be the case where the defendant is well known and there is no significant flight risk, the FBI chose to take her into custody from the County Courthouse not only displaying her in handcuffs but then shackling her in leg irons in the proceeding, thus highlighting the drama and intimidating effect of this arrest. That she posed no flight risk was confirmed when the magistrate judge released her on her own recognizance at the end of the hearing.

The April 18 underlying incident was also unusual.  According to the FBI affidavit supporting the criminal complaint, a team of no less than six agents were deployed, including two FBI agents, at least one of whom was planted “inconspicuously.” In the prior two such arrests in the County Courthouse, we believe that only two ICE agents were deployed and were sufficient to take the immigrants into custody.  No explanation has been given for this massive deployment in and around Judge Dugan’s courtroom.

Some of the ICE agents did notify Judge Dugan’s court of their presence that morning and plan to arrest one of the parties to a scheduled case before that court. However, they lacked a judicial warrant and thus had no right to enter non-public spaces.

The criminal complaint against the well-respected Judge Dugan was issued without any apparent signature or involvement by the U.S. Attorney’s office, but instead relied solely on the affidavit of one FBI Special Agent, and almost all of the alleged facts are based on hearsay, which would be inadmissible at trial.

This unusual conduct must be seen in the context of the Trump administration’s battle for public opinion against judges nationwide who have issued orders which the administration has defied, and some have been targets of threats, media attacks, and at least one illegal impeachment demand by the president .

These facts also suggest  the possibility that this incident may have been a “set up” in order to stage a high profile arrest of a respected sitting  judge  for the administration to use as a tool in its ongoing effort to discredit judges, as it defies their rulings up to and including the Supreme Court.

In contrast, strong support for Judge Dugan was clear from the immediate outpouring of hundreds of supporters who gathered in short order during the workday demanding the charges be dropped; they  also heard from many elected officials, labor, civil rights, civic and immigrant organizations representing thousands of Milwaukeeans.