1,100 law professors beg Congress not to confirm Jeff Sessions

More than 1,100 law school professors across the country have banded together to urge the Senate not to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as attorney general. Professors from 170 law schools in 48 states have written a letter to send to Congress on Tuesday, and they are also publishing that letter as a full-page newspaper ad. The only states that aren't represented are North Dakota and Alaska, which doesn't have a law school.

"We are convinced that Jeff Sessions will not fairly enforce our nation's laws and promote justice and equality in the United States,” the letter reads, per The Washington Post. The professors specifically raise concerns about Sessions' record on racially-charged issues, his support of a border wall, and his "repeated opposition to legislative efforts to promote the rights of women and members of the LGBTQ community," The Post reported.

Those concerns factored into the rejection of Sessions' nomination to a federal judgeship decades ago, and the law professors contend those arguments still stand. "Nothing in Sen. Sessions' public life since 1986 has convinced us that he is a different man than the 39-year-old attorney who was deemed too racially insensitive to be a federal district court judge," the letter says.

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Sessions' confirmation hearings are scheduled for Jan. 10-11.