After Lawsuit Threat and Canceled Speech, Scaramucci Resigns From Tufts Advisory Board

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The controversial former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has resigned from an advisory board at Tufts University, according to a Tuesday-morning email from a university official.

Mr. Scaramucci sat on a board advising the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, a graduate school of international affairs at the Massachusetts institution. James Stavridis, the school’s dean, announced Mr. Scaramucci’s resignation with little detail or fanfare.

“This morning Anthony Scaramucci informed the Fletcher School that he is resigning his position on the school’s Board of Advisors, effective immediately,” Mr. Stavridis’s email said. “We thank Mr. Scaramucci for his past service to Tufts and wish him well,” it concluded.

The university had postponed a Monday-evening event in which Mr. Scaramucci was set to appear after he threatened legal action against a student newspaper for “defamatory public statements.” The university said at the time that it was delaying the event “until these pending legal matters are resolved.”

Several opinion pieces in The Tufts Daily, an independent student newspaper, irked Mr. Scaramucci so much that he threatened legal action against the newspaper and the author of the commentaries, Camilo Caballero, a Fletcher School graduate student.

Mr. Caballero criticized Mr. Scaramucci’s character and his involvement on the board, saying at one point that he had “sold his soul in contradiction to his own purported beliefs for a seat in that White House.”

Mr. Caballero wasn’t the only one calling for Mr. Scaramucci’s ouster. A petition for the cause has hundreds of signatures, and a group of student senators was drafting a resolution calling for his removal from the board.

On Monday, Mr. Scaramucci fought back against the criticisms lodged against him with an open letter to the Tufts community, methodically analyzing Mr. Caballero’s criticisms and offering counterarguments.

As of Tuesday morning it was unclear if Mr. Scaramucci still intended to proceed with the legal action against the student newspaper and its writer. A call to Mr. Scaramucci was not immediately returned. The ACLU of Massachusetts has offered legal counsel to Mr. Caballero.