BY ED ERALIST
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An event hosted by the Harvard Law School Federalist Society this past week crashed to a halt before even getting underway after the student responsible for hanging the Federalist Society’s banner accidentally unfurled the wrong one. The crowd in Langdell South was overflowing with Federalists eager to hear Attorney General Alberto Gonzales speak about human rights violations when the ugly incident occurred.
An unnamed 1L was responsible for bringing the banner from its home in the bowels of the Gropius complex, but something went drastically wrong. The student was running late and Gonzales was already at the podium when the 1L rushed in with the banner. Mumbling an apology for his lateness, the student stepped around the Attorney General and climbed up to hang the banner. As he let it drop into place, a sharp intake of breath was heard from the crowd. The student looked down and turned bright red as he realized that the banner he had just hung was not the beautiful Federalist Society one but an ugly orange tinged banner that read “Harvard Law School Civil Liberties Union.”
Students seemed to be very confused, and many immediately headed for the exits, almost causing a stampede in the process. “I think that many of them thought this was some kind of setup, and feared that they would have to sit through a panel on critical legal thought,” said Brett Talley. “The fear of not making it through that with their sanity sparked the mass exodus”.
To make matters worse, the Attorney General did a quick double take and then was quickly whisked out of the room into a waiting car by his security detail. Later communication with his staff confirmed that Alberto Gonzales was afraid for his safety when he saw the banner, and assumed that liberals were somewhere in the room. “We have a strict policy of not allowing the Attorney General to be in a room with liberals, and the Federalist Society had guaranteed us that none of those would be in attendance” said a staff member speaking on condition of anonymity. The AG’s office said that they would be referring the incident to Homeland Security for investigation.
Matt Cooper, the outgoing president of the Federalist Society, apologized for the mix-up. “I am not entirely sure that this was a benign mistake,” he told The Record. “A part of me thinks that maybe ACS had something to do with this. If we find any evidence of that we will immediately get Charles Fried to take on the case and possibly moderate a town hall style meeting to discuss this subject.”