Laurence Tribe

An op-ed by Laurence H. Tribe. Most people don’t associate freedom of speech with a deregulatory economic agenda. But that agenda is an untold story of the Roberts court, and it’s vital to understanding this morning’s decision in Harris v. Quinn.

Governor Deval Patrick and Attorney General Martha Coakley, responding to last week’s Supreme Court decision striking down the state’s buffer zone law, called Wednesday for legislation to crack down on harassment and obstruction outside abortion clinics…But Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said that any effort to narrowly tailor the legislation could go too far and appear to target antiabortion protesters for the content of their speech. Crafting “a package that is limited to the abortion situation just raises the suspicion that these are all indirect ways of suppressing antiabortion speech,” he said.

An op-ed by Laurence H. Tribe. Even as a committed supporter of a woman’s — increasingly imperiled — right to choose, I must acknowledge that the Supreme Court got it right on Thursday. In McCullen v. Coakley, the Court unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law setting a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics. While the buffer zone was enacted to ensure the safety of women seeking abortions, it also restricted the peaceful activities of the plaintiff, Eleanor McCullen, and other opponents of abortion, who sought to stand on the sidewalk and urge those women not to make what they see as a tremendous mistake.

An op-ed by Laurence H. Tribe. We know, or at least think we know, how Supreme Court terms are supposed to end: with a string of high-profile, divided decisions. That's certainly what happened last term. Ten of the court’s final 12 decisions of the term featured dissenting opinions—including 5–4 decisions (along what some describe as “party lines”) about gay marriage, the Voting Rights Act, and employment discrimination. This term, however, something very different is happening. With only two cases remaining to be handed down, a trend has already appeared: This is the term for high-profile unanimous decisions.

An op-ed by Laurence H. Tribe. …Wednesday’s decision—remarkable in its unanimity—was only superficially about cellphones. As Chief Justice John Roberts said, the term cellphone is “itself misleading shorthand; many of these devices are in fact minicomputers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone.” He added, “They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has always been riven and 5-4 rulings under Chief Justice John G. Roberts on issues including prayers at government meetings and federal recognition of same-sex marriage isn’t a new phenomenon, high-court scholar Laurence Tribe said in an interview. Roberts’s predecessors heading the court managed to persuade their colleagues more often to hide those divisions, Tribe said in a Bloomberg Radio interview today. Tribe is a Harvard University law professor and author of “Uncertain Justice,” a book examining the work of the court under Roberts.

Picking up a book entitled Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution, it is reasonable to assume that the book is critical: the title promises to damn the Court as not reliable in delivering justice, or, at the very least, as a little wobbly and tentative when it does justice. It’s a tantalizing title, since there is nothing more appealing to legal pundits (and by extension book publishers) than a scathing critique of a court that has lost its way. The fact that one of the authors, Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School, is among the nation’s most celebrated legal scholars raises the stakes that much more.

The 2005 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of John Roberts to be chief justice is best remembered for his oft-quoted assertion that “judges are like umpires.” Few remember the line that preceded it: “A certain humility should characterize the judicial role.” The Supreme Court will soon complete its ninth term with Roberts at the helm. In “Uncertain Justice,” Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe and his former student Joshua Matz find much to analyze and explain in the “wondrous complexity” of the Roberts court. Their well-told story is not one of judicial modesty, however, either for the aspirations of the Roberts court or for its impact on American life.

The U.S. Supreme Court is majestic, immensely powerful and deceptively fragile. It commands by the power of reason, and its justices are, as the great Robert Jackson once observed, not "final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." And yet Americans today increasingly regard the court in an unfavorable light. In 2001, almost two-thirds of Americans approved of the court's work; by last year, that number had dropped to less than half. "Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution" takes the measure of the court at this puzzling juncture. The book is full of bright and unconventional wisdom, as one might expect from its author, the venerable law professor Laurence Tribe, here teamed with a young collaborator, Joshua Matz. They portray a court tip-toeing into new areas of constitutional law, divided and without a clear sense of mission or purpose.

We are a nation of law. Change the law, change the country. The ultimate arbiter is the Supreme Court. Under Chief Justice John Roberts, the country is changing. On campaign finance. Money politics. Corporate power. Unions. Guns. Health care. Gay marriage. Race. In 5-4 decision after decision, the Roberts court is changing the country. Critics call it a politicized high court, not above polarization but part of it. My guest today, constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe, says it’s more subtle than that. More interesting. This hour On Point: the Roberts court, and where it is taking the country.

An op-ed by Charles Fried and Laurence H. Tribe. Although the two of us frequently approach legal questions from different perspectives, and just as often disagree about the best answers to those questions, we share a respect for our Constitution and a reverence for the judicial process. That’s why, in spite of our disagreements, we agree that Harvard Law School professor David Barron is exceptionally well-qualified to hold a seat on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and that the Senate should promptly confirm him.

Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe ’66 will be awarded the American Philosophical Society’s Henry M. Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence, which recognizes outstanding lifetime contributions to the field of jurisprudence. Tribe will be honored at the Society’s annual gathering on Nov. 15, in Philadelphia.

Two cases regarding gay marriage, Hollingsworth v. Perry (challenging California’s Proposition 8) and United States v. Windsor (challenging the Defense of Marriage Act), were argued this term in front of the Supreme Court. The Justices are expected to reach a ruling by July 2013. In light of these arguments, The Harvard Law Bulletin asked Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe '66 to offer some predictions for how the two cases might be decided.

Professor Laurence Tribe ‘66, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor, will be recognized by Columbia University with an honorary Doctor of Letters at the school’s commencement exercises on May 22, 2013.

In 1983, Evan Wolfson ’83 authored a prescient third year paper titled “Samesex Marriage and Morality: The Human Rights Vision of the Constitution.” Thirty years…