Robert P. George, McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and director of its James Madison program in American ideals and institutions, said on Monday that he is resigning from the Heritage Foundation board.
One of the most prominent conservative professors in the country, George is a former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, among other presidential appointments.
“I could not remain without a full retraction of the video released by Kevin Roberts, speaking for and in the name of Heritage, on Oct. 30,” George said of a video in which the Heritage president defended former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who had a Holocaust denier and racist on his podcast.
“Although Kevin publicly apologized for some of what he said in the video, he could not offer a full retraction of its content,” George stated. “So, we reached an impasse.”
George said that Roberts “is a good man,” who “made what he acknowledged was a serious mistake.”
“Being human myself, I have plenty of experience in making mistakes. What divided us was a difference of opinion about what was required to rectify the mistake,” George said.
He added that he is sad to leave the board of the conservative think tank.
“My hope for Heritage is that it will be unbending and unflinching in its fidelity to its founding vision, upholding the moral principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the civic principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States,” he said.
“I pray that Heritage’s research and advocacy will be guided by the conviction that each and every member of the human family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion or anything else, as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, is ‘created equal’ and ‘endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,’” he said.
That creed is the “anchor” for the Heritage Foundation, and “for our Nation and for every patriotic American is that creed.”
“It must always be that creed,” he said. “If we hold fast to it even when expediency counsels compromising it, we cannot go wrong. If we abandon it, we sign the death certificate of republican government and ordered liberty.”
Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, stated that George was “the head of the ‘Kevin Roberts showed terrible judgment and there needs to be consequences’ camp, which has apparently lost out to ‘everything is well, nothing to see here’ camp.”
“Heritage will now decline as an institution, or we will decline as a nation,” he stated. “Sad.”
“An organization that picks Tucker Carlson over Robert P. George isn’t one worth anyone’s support,” stated the columnist David Harsanyi.
