UPDATE: Nov. 28 ― Anthony Scaramucci is stepping down from an advisory role at his alma mater, Tufts University, after students and faculty spoke out against his involvement, The Boston Globe reports.
Scaramucci has been on the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s advisory board since June 2016.
The resignation announcement came two days after the university postponed an event featuring the former White House communications director, and 10 days after Scaramucci threatened to sue the school’s newspaper for opinion pieces he considered “defamatory.”
PREVIOUSLY:
Tufts University is postponing an event scheduled for Monday with Anthony Scaramucci after he threatened to sue a grad student who wrote a scathing editorial about the former White House communications director.
Scaramucci is a Tufts graduate. Since 2016, he has served on an advisory board at the university’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Monday’s event was to focus, in part, on a petition signed by more than 240 students and administrators calling for Scaramucci to be ejected from that board.
University officials postponed the event because of legal threats Scaramucci has made toward grad student Camilo Caballero and The Tufts Daily, the school’s student newspaper, according to Slate.
In a Nov. 6 column, Caballero, 26, argued against Scaramucci’s inclusion on the Fletcher board.
“A man who is irresponsible, inconsistent, an unethical opportunist and who exuded the highest degree of disreputability should not be on the Fletcher Board,” Caballero wrote.
He wasn’t alone in his feelings, as the petition indicates. When University officials didn’t respond to the petition, Caballero wrote a second op-ed on Nov. 13, saying, in part: “Scaramucci has shown his intentions while in the White House as well as in his public statements that he cares about gaining attention and nothing more.”
On Nov. 16, Scaramucci sent a letter to the paper through his lawyer, saying the two opinion pieces “contained several false and defamatory statements,” including that the former White House official “exuded the highest degree of disreputability” and “sold his soul in contradiction to his own purported beliefs.”
The Daily printed that letter on Monday.
Scaramucci also sent an email threat to Caballero, saying: “Either back it up or you will hear from my lawyer... You may have a difference of opinion from me politically which I respect but you can’t make spurious claims about my reputation and integrity.”
Scaramucci told The Boston Globe he’s not trying to curtail free speech, just defend himself against an “attack” that he considers factually inaccurate.
He was also surprised that Tufts postponed Monday’s event.
“I’m shocked that a university that I love and have been a part of for 35 years is silencing that debate because of my request for an apology,” Scaramucci told the paper.
Caballero sees Scaramucci’s actions as evidence that his initial op-ed was, in fact, correct.
“He is someone that uses his money to gain power and his wealth to buy himself into things that will get him attention,” he told the Globe. “He’s trying to stop me from exercising my First Amendment right, and that’s plain wrong.”
HuffPost reached out to Scaramucci and Caballero, neither of whom immediately responded.
Scaramucci did comment about the threats via Twitter on Sunday:
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