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Martha Minow

  • A woman speaking

    ‘Without Precedent: The Supreme Life of Rosalie Abella’

    October 11, 2023

    On Oct. 5, Harvard Law School hosted a special screening of "Without Precedent," a documentary about the life of former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella.

  • Harvard Law’s First Amendment experts rally to Stanford professor’s defense

    August 11, 2023

    Two of the nation’s best-known legal scholars and authorities on the First Amendment joined in the defense this week of embattled Stanford University professor of…

  • Charles Ogletree Jr. : 1952-2023

    August 5, 2023

    Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. ‘78, or Tree, as he was affectionately known, the celebrated, influential, and beloved Harvard Law professor and civil rights scholar, died peacefully on August 4 in his home in Odenton, Maryland, from the natural progression of Alzheimer's disease.

  • A seedling planted in a pot.

    Public Service Venture Fund selection committee members discuss Harvard Law’s student pipeline to public interest law

    May 31, 2023

    Recipients of Harvard Law School’s Public Service Venture Fund organization-based fellowships are making their marks all around the world. 

  • She ran Harvard Law School and mentored future politicians. Now she wants them to get along

    May 11, 2023

    In February 2020, Martha Minow stepped up to the podium at a U.S. State Department conference to address a task force assembled by Secretary of…

  • ‘Why is it so hard to make environmental law?’

    April 18, 2023

    Harvard Law School Professor Professor Richard Lazarus tells the story of challenges and hope inherent in environmental law.

  • Two people at a table in a library having a conversation

    Notes and Comment

    March 29, 2023

    At this spring's Notes and Comment event, dozens of Harvard Law students working on writing projects met with faculty experts for advice and commentary on their work.

  • A multimedia print with a guillotine as the focus

    Scholars and artists discuss the death penalty

    March 17, 2023

    On March 7, the Harvard Law School Library kicked off a series of events on the subject of capital punishment in connection with their exhibit Visualizing Capital Punishment: Spectacle, Shame, and Sympathy.

  • Kimberly Jenkins Robinson standing in a hallway

    ‘A Civil Rights Issue of Our Time’

    February 14, 2023

    Kimberly J. Robinson argues for a federal right to education

  • headshot Andrew Stobo Sniderman

    Separate but Unequal

    February 14, 2023

    A new book co-written by Harvard Law School alumnus Andrew Stobo Sniderman LL.M. ’22, spotlights inequities in Canada’s Indigenous communities — and a path toward justice

  • John Jay Osborn Jr. ' 70

    ‘You come in here with a skull full of mush. You leave thinking like a lawyer’

    October 28, 2022

    In Memoriam: John Jay Osborn Jr. ’70, author of "The Paper Chase, 1945-2022

  • University appoints Richard Cellini to lead Legacy of Slavery remembrance program

    October 27, 2022

    … An implementation committee, led by Martha Minow, Harvard Law School’s 300th Anniversary University Professor and a member of the Presidential Committee that produced the…

  • A drawing of Harvard Yard at its founding

    Reckoning with a Painful Legacy

    July 14, 2022

    Harvard issues a report on the university’s connections to slavery and its long history of discrimination against Black people long after slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment.

  • Illustration of people looking up at a tree with pink leaves growing from a seed in the ground.

    Public Service Venture Fund at 10

    July 13, 2022

    Harvard Law School’s fellowship and seed grant program celebrates a decade of exponential impact for public interest careers, nonprofits, and the world.

  • Stephen Breyer seated in a red armchair

    Justice Stephen Breyer returns to Harvard Law School

    July 2, 2022

    Retired United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer ’64 is returning to Harvard Law School, where he will teach seminars and reading groups, write, and produce scholarship.

  • An orange striped towel rests on the arm of a wooden beach chair that's on the sand facing the ocean. A book and sunglasses on the sand next to the chair.

    Summer 2022 beach reads

    June 26, 2022

    Harvard Law faculty and staff share their reading lists for beachside, poolside, or inside with the AC.

  • New Harvard Law banners hanging on Langdell Hall

    Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery

    April 28, 2022

    A report issued by the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery recounts the many ways Harvard University participated in, and profited from, slavery. Harvard leaders and scholars examine the report and its implications for the future.

  • Harvard Law School unveils memorial honoring enslaved people who enabled its founding

    Understanding the legacy of slavery

    April 28, 2022

    Following the release of a report by the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery, Harvard Law Dean John F. Manning has announced initiatives to honor the enslaved people whose labor generated wealth that contributed to Harvard Law School’s founding.

  • Martha Minow is the new chair of the MacArthur Foundation — some of her first work in Chicago was as a copy clerk alongside Royko

    April 7, 2022

    On the March morning she officially became the chair of the board of directors of the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation, Martha Minow sat on a couch in the handsomely appointed apartment of her father and remembered the past. “In the summer after my freshman year at college, I worked as a copy clerk for the Sun-Times and Daily News,” she says, talking about the building that housed both newspapers, now the site of Trump Tower. “It was fascinating, carrying papers, learning layout. I was able to write a couple of obituaries. And I met so many great people, Lois Wille among them. And I used to get coffee for Mike Royko. He was fine but I think I did hear him growl once.”

  • When justice isn’t served, how do we find forgiveness?

    March 21, 2022

    On a cold day in March 2021, Delores White entered a courtroom in Erie, Pennsylvania. Delores, who was 67 years old, was dressed in a white blazer and glasses, her gray hair pulled into a low ponytail and a surgical mask covering her face. The courtroom was large, and Covid-19 restrictions on attendance made it feel empty. As others trickled into the room, Delores sat quietly, occasionally leaning over to confer with her lawyers or wave at family members. She remained composed until her daughter, Jamesha, entered the room. When she saw her, Delores began to cry. ... Forgiveness is not the primary purpose of the law — justice is. But the US legal system is a distinctively unforgiving one. “The United States is particularly punitive in defining, prosecuting, and punishing crimes, especially if the accused is a member of a racial minority,” writes Martha Minow, a professor at Harvard Law and author of the book When Should Law Forgive?

  • Black and white portrait of a man in his office

    Remembering Alan Stone 1929–2022

    February 4, 2022

    Alan A. Stone, the Touroff- Glueck Professor of Law and Psychiatry Emeritus in the faculty of law and the faculty of medicine at Harvard, died Jan. 23. He was 92.