Faculty Bibliography
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In the Supreme Court’s tariffs case, the conservative Justices will weigh two conflicting impulses regarding Presidential authority.
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Congress wrote statutes with the apparent assumption that whoever held the office of the Presidency would use the powers they granted in good faith.
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A resounding win for the university in court still leaves the Trump Administration with plenty of ways to force schools into submission.
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The convicted sex offender is raising an important legal question—about whether an agreement by one federal prosecutor binds his colleagues across the country.
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How we got to a situation where a President can reasonably claim that it is lawful, without congressional approval, to bomb a country that has not attacked the U.S.
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The Supreme Court was unlikely to strike down a state ban on some pediatric medical treatments, but the Biden Justice Department’s strategy made it even more improbable.
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From the daily newsletter: a reality check from a very emotional graduation day in Cambridge.
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His jurisprudence has been overshadowed by that of his showier colleagues but was a model of principled restraint.
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Universities are accustomed to acquiescing to the government, but Trump made Harvard an offer it couldn’t not refuse.
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Jeannie Suk Gersen, The Strategy Behind Trump’s Defiance of the Law, The New Yorker (Feb. 13, 2025).
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His violations follow an old playbook—trigger lawsuits, giving the Supreme Court a chance to declare statutes unconstitutional.
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In his executive orders, Trump repeatedly asserted that he can make and interpret law, alongside Congress and the courts.
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His war on the “deep state” ties into a long debate about the power of bureaucrats to thwart the President’s agenda.
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The President-elect is on the verge of beating most, if not all, of the criminal charges against him. What will be the consequences of having brought them in the first place?
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Jeannie Suk Gersen, Converting to Judaism in the Wake of October 7th, The New Yorker (Dec. 2, 2024).
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For decades, I maintained a status quo of living like a Jew without being one. When I finally pursued conversion, I discovered that I was part of a larger movement born of crisis.
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Schools are testing how much they can shape the racial outcomes of admissions without being accused of practicing affirmative action.
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The anxiety about distinguishing a President from a king, which framed this Court term, is inextricably intertwined with the end-of-democracy theme of the 2024 Presidential race.
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If Joe Biden doesn’t willingly resign, there’s another solution, which would allow Democrats to unite around a new incumbent.
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For years, universities have been less inclined to protect speech and quicker to sanction it. After this spring’s protests, it will be difficult to turn back.
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In arguments about Presidential immunity, the conservative Justices, who avoided mentioning Trump, made clear that they are less concerned with holding him accountable than with shielding former Presidents from retribution.
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In his first interview after the release of his controversial report, the former special counsel insists that it was not his job to write for the public.
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The Justices seem to want to avoid a major decision about whether Trump can serve as President—but if they do so they may set off a national crisis.
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As the Israel-Hamas war provokes claims about unacceptable speech, the ability to debate difficult subjects is in renewed peril.
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Senate Republicans’ brief in the Supreme Court surprisingly argues just that.
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For decades, college-admissions offices have quietly imposed higher standards on female applicants.
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Under the Court’s new rules, the Justices appear not to have made any mistakes.
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No case in our system of justice could more directly and fundamentally address the stakes of American democracy and the rule of law.
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A conservative Court holds that student-body diversity is not a “compelling interest.”
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The next big question for school admissions will likely be the legality of “race-neutral” methods that are designed with the continuing goal of producing diverse student bodies.
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Twenty years ago, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote, in a draft opinion, that white applicants could not be favored over Asian Americans. Why did she delete those lines—and why did Justice Clarence Thomas adopt them in his own opinion?
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It gives Trump a compelling reason to persevere in his campaign, and to sow doubt about the criminal process.
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Jeannie Suk Gersen, The Real Scandal Surrounding Clarence Thomas's Gifts, New Yorker (May 14, 2023).
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Supreme Court Justices, alone in our system, are not truly regulated by anyone other than themselves.
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A revered Supreme Court ruling protected the robust debate vital to democracy—but made it harder to constrain misinformation. Can we do better?
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In the midst of the #MeToo movement, California voters recalled a judge for being lenient on sexual assault. As a new documentary argues, that recall campaign had unintended results.
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A federal official wrote a parody of Harvard’s attitude toward Asian Americans and shared it with the dean of admissions. Why did a judge try to hide that from the public?
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Republican state attorneys general are threatening action against pharmacies that dispense it, as a federal lawsuit challenges the F.D.A.’s authority to approve it.
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The lawyer who wrote Texas’s abortion ban has a bigger project—disempowering the judiciary—that may appeal to liberals, too.
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After the Dobbs decision, soul-searching about the rule of law has rarely been as cynical or as fundamental.
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It favors the rights of religious groups over those of gay couples—and, if Obergefell were to be overruled, it would create two classes of marriage.
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Students for Fair Admissions is one of only a few Supreme Court cases about the rights of Asian Americans. But what will it achieve on their behalf?
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The Supreme Court hears a challenge to affirmative action this week—and will likely overrule more than four decades of precedents on college admissions.
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In a copyright case, the Justices revealed their own anxieties about interpreting precedents.
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So far, the evidence of what Trump didn’t do on January 6th holds the strongest potential for making a successful criminal case against him.
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But what if their big and fast moves, eviscerating some constitutional rights and inflating others, are bound for collision?
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The crude reality of the political machinations involved in overruling Roe v. Wade makes it galling to read the Court’s self-portrayal as a picture of proper judicial restraint.
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Academic freedom is under attack from both the left and the right. The very notion of academic freedom is at stake as liberals and conservatives attack exercises of it that do not align with their political goals. Moreover, those who purport to champion academic freedom frequently end up attempting to restrict it. This trend has accompanied an atmosphere of fear about speaking freely. At this moment, we desperately need explicit discussions about academic freedom. Those who believe in the value of academic freedom must wrest it from disingenuous invocations and truly defend it by wrestling with its genuine difficulties, including by acknowledging the tensions it may create with evolving antidiscrimination principles and practices.
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The fragility of the right to an abortion has become synonymous with the fragility of the Court’s legitimacy.