Ronald S. Sullivan Jr.

On November 19, 2019, the United States Tax Court ruled that over $1 million in unpaid taxes was owed by Ronald Sullivan, who had not filed income tax returns between 2005 and 2013. The amount, which Sullivan had been disputing, was mainly attributed to the sale of Sullivan's former home in 2013.

On June 9, 2016, it was announced, and confirmed by news outlets such as The Boston Globe, that Sullivan would be part of the head legal defense team for ex-NFL New England Patriots football star player Aaron Hernandez in a double murder case. While Hernandez was serving a prison sentence for another murder, of which he had been convicted, he was found not guilty in the double murder case.

From July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2019, Sullivan and his wife (Harvard Law School instructor and Class of 1994 Harvard Law School alumna Stephanie Robinson) served as Faculty Deans of Winthrop House at Harvard College, where they lived with their two young sons and were known as the first black Faculty Deans in the history of the college. On January 23, 2019, it was announced, and confirmed by news outlets such as CNN, that Sullivan had joined the legal defense team of Harvey Weinstein, a movie mogul facing multiple charges of rape and other sexual assault. Sullivan’s decision met with criticism from Harvard University students, faculty, and administrators, including an online petition by students seeking the removal of Sullivan as Faculty Dean of Winthrop House. A letter supporting Sullivan, signed by 52 Harvard Law School professors, appeared in The Boston Globe on March 8, 2019. Following the aforementioned criticism, as well as subsequent allegations by Winthrop House students, tutors, and staff of a toxic environment under Sullivan and Robinson stretching back to 2016, the Dean of Harvard College, Rakesh Khurana, announced on May 11, 2019, that he would not renew the appointments of Sullivan and Robinson as Faculty Deans when their appointments expired on June 30, 2019. In response, Sullivan wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times.

Sullivan supported fellow Harvard Law School alumnus Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election where he chaired then-Senator Obama's Criminal Justice Policy Group. Fellow Harvard Law School professor and Obama supporter Charles Ogletree mentored Sullivan when Sullivan was a law school student.

Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. (born December 12, 1966 in Gary, Indiana) is a law professor at Harvard Law School. Sullivan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Morehouse College in 1989 and received his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1994. Prior to joining the Harvard Law School faculty, Sullivan served as the Director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.