Sally Yates, the former deputy U.S. attorney general who was fired by President Trump after she refused to defend his immigration ban, will be the Class Day speaker at Harvard Law School this year.
Yates, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, served briefly as acting attorney general after Trump’s inauguration. In January, she told the Department of Justice not to defend Trump’s first executive order banning immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries. Her firing became a sign of the controversy surrounding the order.
More recently, the White House tried to stop Yates from testifying before congressional committees investigating Russia’s attempts to sway the 2016 election.
Yates, who graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law, was selected by members of Harvard Law School’s graduating class to speak at the ceremony on May 24.
