Sally Yates Harvard Law School Class Day Address: “When Law and Conscience Intersected”

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

By John Laidler, Harvard Correspondent

Sally Yates, the acting attorney general whom President Trump fired for refusing to enforce his tightened strictures on entering the country, said that she acted out of a belief that defending the executive order would have meant falsely claiming it was not directed at Muslims.

Speaking at Harvard Law School’s Class Day ceremony, Yates depicted the episode as an example of “an unexpected moment when the law and conscience intersected.” The partial travel ban, which was blocked by the courts, would have restricted travel from seven Muslim-dominated countries.

Yates said she concluded that “defending the constitutionality of the travel ban would require the Department of Justice to argue that the executive order had nothing to do with religion, that it was not intended to disfavor Muslims … despite the numerous prior statements that had been made by the president and his surrogates regarding his intent to effectuate a Muslim ban.”

“I believed that this would require us to advance a pretext, a defense not grounded in truth. So I directed the Department of Justice not to defend the ban,” Yates told graduating law students and family members at Holmes Field.

Yates, who was deputy attorney general when she became acting attorney general in January, said she grappled for several days over whether to resign.