Alan Dershowitz said Ted Cruz’s line of questioning during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s SCOTUS hearings was ‘absurd’

• Prominent lawyer Alan Dershowitz slammed his former student Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday.
• Dershowitz criticized Cruz’s “absurd” questions posed to Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
• Dershowitz took issue with Cruz’s question on whether he could choose to become Asian despite being Hispanic.

On Wednesday, prominent lawyer Alan Dershowitz slammed his former student, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and described the lawmaker’s questioning of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson as “absurd.”

Dershowitz made the comments during a live stream on Rumble, during which he expressed his views on the queries posed by senators to Jackson during her confirmation hearings this week.

In particular, Dershowitz appeared to refer to Cruz’s questions to Jackson on Wednesday relating to an ongoing affirmative action case at Harvard University. 

Referring to what he labeled as a “modern leftist sensibility” regarding fluid gender identity, Cruz asked Jackson if she thought the “same principle” could apply to other “protected characteristics” such as race.

Describing himself as a “Hispanic man,” Cruz added: “Could I decide I was an Asian man and challenge Harvard’s discrimination because of that decision?”

Jackson then replied to Cruz that she could not respond to questions based on “hypotheticals.”

Slamming the senator for his “series of absurd questions,” Dershowitz said: “You can’t change into somebody who’s Asian. You can parody someone who’s Asian and live an Asian life and be part of Asian culture, but no, you can’t do that.”

Dershowitz also noted that it would be “bigotry” to “discriminate against someone who changed genders if they wanted to serve as a federal judge.” “People have the right to choose how to live their lives,” he added.

As one of Cruz’s former law professors at Harvard, Dershowitz said he hoped the senator didn’t learn his style of questioning from the former.

Dershowitz also leveled criticism at other senators who questioned Jackson on the issue of transgender rights. For instance, Sen. Marsha Blackburn asked Jackson pointed questions about her stance on transgender athletes, claiming that transgender female athletes — whom she called “biological males” — are stealing opportunities from women in sports. 

“There’s certain things you can change, certain things you can’t,” said Dershowitz. “We used to think that gender was one of them. It turns out it’s not! It turns out you can change gender and live a perfectly happy and good life.” 

Cruz pressed Jackson multiple times on hot-button issues like critical race theory during the confirmation hearings. He also repeatedly defied Sen. Dick Durbin’s instructions to stop questioning Jackson after his time ran out and complained that South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was allowed to exceed his time by 10 minutes. 

Dershowitz’s criticism of Cruz comes as a surprise, given his previous praise for the senator. In 2016, Dershowitz called Cruz “one of the best students” he had ever taught, noting that Cruz made “brilliant arguments.”

In 2014, Cruz also honored Dershowitz, calling him a “friend” and “great teacher” who “pressed all his students — conservative and liberal alike – to make the very best arguments they could, based on logic, reason, and precedent.”