Skip to content

Harvard Law School Rappaport Forum

Designed to promote and model full, vigorous, and civil discourse on critical and complicated issues facing our community, our nation, and our world.

Professor Jeannie Suk Gersen speaking
Three panelists laughing at Harvard Law School Rappaport Forum

History of the Rappaport Forum

The Harvard Law School Forum was born in 1946, when Jerome “Jerry” Rappaport approached HLS Dean James Landis with an idea: What if Harvard Law School sponsored a speaker series on issues that would shape the post-war world? Decades later, Rappaport felt that the media and political landscape had once again changed: “We’ve lost any sense of national dialogue, of discussion and debate as a means for deepening our understanding and pursuit of the truth.” That view motivated the launch of the Harvard Law School Rappaport Forum. Funded by the Phyllis & Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation, it is designed to promote and model civil discourse on complex and challenging issues facing our community, our nation, and our world.

Rule by One Judge: The Question of Universal Injunctions


Does the 14th Amendment Bar Donald Trump from Running for President?


Intellectual Property and the Dawn of Generative AI


Censorship, Content Moderation, and the First Amendment


Who Cares About Tradition? Constitutionalism After Dobbs and Bruen


Stare Decisis and Roe v. Wade


Should Congress Enact H.R. 1?


Reform of the Supreme Court?


When is Speech Violence? And Other Questions About Campus Speech