Education

Group Says Legal Expert Has Received Death Threats For Testifying Against Obama Transgender Guidance

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A legal expert has received death threats after she testified against the legality of the Obama administration’s Transgender Guidance.

University of San Diego law professor Gail Heriot — a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights — was invited to testify before a House hearing on “executive overreach” where she called the transgender guidance “fundamentally anti-democratic.”

As part of her written testimony, Heriot said that “We are teaching young people a terrible lesson. If I believe that I am a Russian princess, that doesn’t make me a Russian princess, even if my friends and acquaintances are willing to indulge my fantasy.”

In response to Heriot’s testimony, Democratic California Rep. [crscore]Zoe Lofgren[/crscore] angrily called Heriot “an ignorant bigot” for her Russian princess analogy. Lofgren did not attempt to actually refute any of Heriot’s arguments.

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) sharply criticized the Democratic congresswoman in a press release Friday, noting that supporters of Lofgren’s outburst sent “a cascade of hate mail to Professor Heriot, including death threats and a writer urging her to commit suicide.”

“Lofgren’s outburst was outrageous. It violated the standards of civility of the U.S. House of Representatives. And it was especially inappropriate in view of the temperate character of Professor Heriot’s remarks,” the NAS said.

“It is perhaps too much to hope that Representative Lofgren will apologize for her antics as they seem to have served her purpose in exciting her progressive base. Other observers will take note of her abuse of her authority.”

The press release went on to praise “Professor Heriot’s outstanding work on behalf of civil rights in America and her determination to uphold the rule of law during a period in which the executive has frequently abused it.”

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