- The lawyer
Alan Dershowitz slammed Sen.Ted Cruz , his former student, on Wednesday. - He said Cruz's questions for the Supreme Court nominee
Ketanji Brown Jackson were "absurd."
On Wednesday, the lawyer Alan Dershowitz slammed Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, his former student, describing the lawmaker's questioning of the Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson as "absurd."
Dershowitz made the comments in a livestream on Rumble expressing his views on the questions that senators asked Jackson during her confirmation hearing this week, including Cruz's questions related to an ongoing affirmative-action case at Harvard.
Describing "modern leftist sensibilities" regarding fluid gender identity, Cruz asked Jackson if she thought the "same principle" could "apply to other protected characteristics" such as race.
"For example, I'm a Hispanic man. Could I decide I was an Asian man — would I have the ability to be an Asian man and challenge Harvard's discrimination because I made that decision?" Cruz added.
Jackson replied that she could not respond to questions based on hypotheticals.
Dershowitz slammed the senator's "series of absurd questions," adding: "You can't change into somebody who's Asian. You can marry someone who's Asian and live an Asian life and be part of Asian culture, but no, you can't do that."
Dershowitz also said it would be "bigotry" to "discriminate against somebody who changed genders if they wanted to serve as a judge." He added, "People have the right to choose how to live their lives."
Dershowitz said he hoped the senator didn't learn his style of questioning from Dershowitz as his student at Harvard.
Dershowitz also leveled criticism at other senators who questioned Jackson on transgender rights, such as Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who asked Jackson pointed questions about her stance on transgender girls and women in sports.
"There's certain things you can change, certain things you can't," Dershowitz said. "We used to think that gender was one of them. It turns out it's not! It turns out you can change gender and you can live a perfectly happy and good life."
Cruz pressed Jackson on hot-button issues like critical race theory during the confirmation hearing. He also repeatedly defied Sen. Dick Durbin's instructions to stop questioning Jackson after his time ran out and complained that Sen. Lindsey Graham had been allowed to exceed his time by 10 minutes.
Dershowitz's criticism of Cruz is perhaps surprising, given his previous praise for the senator. In 2016, Dershowitz said Cruz was "one of the best students" he'd had, adding that Cruz made "brilliant arguments."
In 2014, Cruz honored Dershowitz, calling him a "friend" and "great teacher" who "pressed all his students — conservative and liberal alike — to make the very best arguments they could, based on logic, reason, and precedent."