Charles Fried

On Nov. 18, as part of the 2010 National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C., HLS Professor Chares Fried participated in a debate on the constitutionality of the federal health care legislation—the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—signed into law by President Barack Obama ’91 last March.

Philosophy must engage the issues of its day, says Suffolk University Professor Gregory Fried, co-author with his father, Harvard Law Professor Charles Fried, of the new book “Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy, and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror “(Norton 2010).

“Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror” (Norton, 2010) by father-and-son authors Charles Fried and Gregory Fried, explores three issues presented by Bush administration policies, primarily from ethical but also from historical and legal perspectives: torture; eavesdropping, surveillance and the right to privacy; and executive prerogative.

In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 last June that a public law school did not violate the First Amendment by withdrawing recognition from a Christian student group that excluded gay students. On Sept. 8, the Harvard Federalist Society sponsored a discussion of Martinez and its implications for religious freedom.

Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried appeared on the August 19, 2010 edition of the WBUR program “Radio Boston” with his son and co-author, Gregory Fried, to discuss their new book, “Because it is Wrong: Torture, Privacy, and Presidential Power in the age of Terror.”

In a Boston Globe op-ed, “Obama should give Warren a recess appointment,” HLS Professor Charles Fried supports an interim appointment for Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Fried served as solicitor general in the second Reagan administration and as a justice on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. His op-ed appeared in the July 29, 2010, edition of the Boston Globe.

The op-ed “Health care law’s enemies have no ally in Constitution” was written by Harvard Law School Professor Charles Fried. It appeared in the May 21, 2010, edition of the Boston Globe.

In the following op-eds, HLS professors Charles Fried, Randall L. Kennedy, Lawrence Lessig, Charles Ogletree, Ronald S. Sullivan, Visiting Lecturer Tom Goldstein, and former HLS Dean Robert C. Clark write in support of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, former HLS Dean and current Solicitor General.

In The New Republic,  HLS Professor Charles Fried wrote "Everyone's Dean: Why Elena Kagan has earned the respect of conservatives, like me," an article which appeared in the April 19 edition of the magazine.  Fried teaches constitutional law and contracts at HLS, and he was solicitor general of the United States during the second Reagan administration.

HLS Professor and former Solicitor General ('85-'89) Charles Fried co-wrote an op-ed “What Liz doesn’t get about lawyers,” with Gregory Fried, chairman of the philosophy department at Suffolk University. Their op-ed, which appeared March 15, 2010, on The Daily Beast, criticizes Liz Cheney’s group, Keep America Safe, for unfairly attacking the lawyers who have defended terrorists. 

Harvard Law School Professor Charles Fried will serve as one of two Republican co-chairs of a new bi-partisan ABA Administrative Law Section task force examining possible improvements to lobbying regulation. The task force will look at deficiencies in current rules governing lobbying and suggest ways to strengthen the rules.

The resilience of the U.S. Constitution, the nation’s founding document, was put to the test Sept. 17 by a number of scholars who challenged its legacy and effectiveness.

The U.S. Constitution, the cornerstone of the American federal system of government, will be under close scrutiny at Harvard on Thursday (Sept. 17) as a collection of scholars examines both its merits and shortcomings. A live webcast of the event will be available beginning at 1 p.m.

The following commentary is excerpted from the New York Times blog, Room for Debate:

As the global economy continues to reel, the key question is how to prevent a crash from happening again. Accountability is key, experts agree, and HLS faculty have been quoted daily in newspapers and online over the past few months on how to keep the economy out of trouble in the future.

The following op-ed written by Harvard Law School Professor Charles Fried, “Another predictable Supreme Court,” appeared in the June 19, 2009, edition of the Boston Globe.

The following is excerpted from a March 17, 2009, post entitled, “When Bonus Contracts Can be Broken,” which appeared on the New York Times Blog, “Room for Debate: A Running Commentary on the News.”

In March 2009, HLS Dean Elena Kagan ’86 was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the 44th solicitor general of the United States. Kagan, the first woman to hold this position, joins a long line of solicitors general with ties to Harvard Law School.

On executive power, war and anti-terrorism, scholars have a lot to say--and lawmakers are listening.

The following op-ed, The limits of law, written by HLS Professor Charles Fried, was published in The Boston Globe on October 23, 2007.

What [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s conference [of Holocaust deniers] proclaims is that truth has no place in the world of politics; that if your ends are just, you can say anything, no matter how far-fetched.