Michael Klarman

Whatever success Republicans have amassed in taking control of all three branches of U.S. government, and whatever fate awaits them as midterm elections near, some on the right are working to cement change by amending the Constitution. And to the mounting alarm of others on all parts of the spectrum, they want to bypass the usual process...But convention opponents have always feared that once one has been launched, it could tear up the Constitutions in all sorts of ways. What's to stop a convention from passing an abhorrent affront to the Founders, like an outright ban on Muslims, asks constitutional law professor Michael Klarman of Harvard University. He points to a 2009 Swiss referendum that resulted in outlawing the construction of minarets, the towers found beside mosques.

President Trump’s pledge to sign an executive order in an effort to abolish the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship has focused attention on the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone born in the country is an American citizen....“The idea that the president has the power to end birthright citizenship, plainly protected by Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, by executive order is preposterous,” said Michael Klarman, a professor at Harvard Law School. “Constitutional scholars who agree about little else have agreed about this for over a century.”

The 2018 midterm elections are on November 6 and will give voters the opportunity to weigh in on what’s going on in Washington...According to [Professor Michael Klarman, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, Democrats swept the 1874 midterms, essentially ending Reconstruction. The period following was sometimes referred to as “deconstruction,” which Klarman tells Teen Vogue “virtually ensured the demise of Reconstruction” and meant “no new civil rights legislation.”

An op-ed by Michael Klarman. Despite Democrats’ having won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections, the Supreme Court has not had a liberal majority since 1969. Because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell straight-out stole the seat vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia early in 2016, a seat that should have been filled by President Barack Obama’s nominee (Merrick Garland), liberals are unlikely to control the Court for at least another couple of decades. As has been frequently noted, recently appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were nominated to the Court by a president who lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes, and were then confirmed by a majority of senators who represented minorities of the American population.

..."They’re following a precedent from Great Britain, which was followed by most but not all of the states, which is the idea of tenure during good behavior," said Harvard Law Professor Michael Klarman, author of "Constitutional Convention." Klarman said the reason for that lifetime appointment was simple: To cultivate judicial independence. If you never have to worry about being re-elected or re-appointed then, "there’s no reason to tailor your decisions to the pleasure of the institution that does the appointing," Klarman said.

According to Professor Michael Klarman “it is important to tell the story of the Constitution’s origins in a way that demystifies it. Impressive as they were, the men who wrote the Constitution were not demigods; they had interests, prejudices, and moral blind spots.” Invocations of divine inspiration for the Constitution by supporters of ratification were, at least in part, a conscious political strategy to maximize the chances of ratifying it.

Several Harvard Law School professors said they were troubled by the sexual assault allegations recently levelled against Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh and called for further investigation into his alleged misbehavior...Law School Professor Michael J. Klarman, a constitutional law scholar, wrote in an email Sunday that, while some have argued that Kavanaugh’s actions as a 17-year-old are not relevant to the judge's ability to serve on the Court, he does not buy that reasoning.“I certainly agree with the idea that we should be pretty forgiving toward youthful mistakes. But attempted rape is a really serious charge. And serving on the Supreme Court is a privilege, not a right,” Klarman wrote...Law Professor Laurence H. Tribe ’62 took his views on the Kavanaugh confirmation process to Twitter Monday. “Closing ranks around Kavanaugh even before Dr.Blasey Ford testifies is proof positive that these Trumpsters either (1) don’t regard an attempted rape and a nominee’s false denials as relevant and/or (2) are ready to disbelieve her without listening,” Tribe wrote. Tribe expanded on his thoughts in an email to The Crimson...Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholet ’62 wrote via email that the Thursday hearings should be postponed pending an investigation.

It’s of little worry for Republicans or solace for Democrats bracing for battle over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Yet history suggests that if President Donald Trump cements an assertively conservative court for a generation, the GOP may ultimately pay a political price...“In a democracy, what matters is winning votes,” said Michael Klarman, a Harvard Law School professor who has studied constitutional history. “And you shouldn’t trust the courts to win your battles for you, because there’s going to be a backlash if they go too far, too fast.“

...Monday’s seminar was part of the Warrior-Scholar Project, an academic boot camp intended to help provide members of the armed forces or those recently discharged with the skills and confidence to transition to top-tier colleges. This marks the fifth year that Harvard has been a host of the summertime program that is offered at 17 major universities nationwide...Michael J. Klarman, the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Harvard Law School, is now in his third year teaching a boot camp seminar. He said the experience has been rewarding.“The Warrior/Scholars are engaged, well-prepared, intellectually curious, and full of interesting ideas and questions,” he said by email.

The Presidential pardon power is as old as the United States itself. But few Presidents — if any — have thrown this constitutionally enshrined power into the spotlight like Donald Trump. In recent weeks Trump and his lawyers have even suggested he has the power to pardon himself. All this talk got me curious. Just why was the president given the power to pardon in the first place? As Harvard Law School’s Michael Klarman explained to me, it goes back to the 55 men who met in Philadelphia to create the U.S. Constitution. "The main model they have is Great Britain," he explained. "There are lots of things in the Constitution that are directly derived from British practice."

Almost 50 years after former University President Derek C. Bok’s administration instituted a novel framework for promoting racial diversity throughout the University’s schools, the question of whether Harvard can—or should—pursue race-conscious admissions policies remains unanswered in the national discourse. As the University faces a lawsuit in federal court over their admissions policies from one direction and an investigation led by the Justice Department into these policies from another, the legacy of Bok’s efforts at diversification is on the line, according to University lawyers and affiliates...Michael J. Klarman, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, said the department’s public, formal intervention in a high-profile affirmative action case is in line with previous Justice Department actions. “I don’t think it’s unusual for an administration to weigh in on an important affirmative action case,” Klarman said. “The Reagan administration certainly weighed in against race-based affirmative action. The Carter administration had a decision on Bakke, which was the first of the affirmative action cases of the Supreme Court.”

After 30 years of pivotal decisions on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy is about to make his biggest one yet. For the second straight year, Kennedy, 81, is the focus of retirement speculation as the court approaches the late-June end of its term. A retirement by the court’s swing justice would give President Donald Trump his second Supreme Court vacancy to fill before Republicans’ Senate majority goes on the November election ballot..."Justice Kennedy is the most influential justice in the history of the Supreme Court, and it’s probably not even close," said Michael Klarman, who teaches constitutional history at Harvard Law School. "It’s almost hard to think of areas where the court divides 5-4 and Justice Kennedy is not the deciding vote."

Gavin Newsom was a fresh-faced mayor a week into his job when he walked into the House of Representatives chamber for the State of the Union address in January 2004. While he watched from the balcony, President George W. Bush declared his support for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex unions — inspiring a political gamble that would change lives and transform Newsom’s career...Newsom quickly decided to throw himself into the maelstrom of America’s culture wars, violating state law by granting the first official marriage licenses to same-sex couples 14 years ago Monday...That meant Bush got to appoint two Supreme Court justices, Harvard Law School Professor Michael Klarman pointed out. On the other hand, “the fact that you actually had weddings in San Francisco was incredibly inspiring for a lot of people and activists,” he said, and sparked conversations that changed peoples’ minds on the issue. “Newsom was putting himself on the wrong side of the law, but it was the right side of history.”

After taking the oath of office a year ago, President Donald Trump turned west to offer a preview of his presidency. “From this moment on, it’s going to be America first,” he declared from the Capitol steps. To many Californians, however, Trump’s turbulent first year in office has felt as if it’s come with a different mantra: California last...The sustained resistance from California during Trump’s first year in office represents the most vigorous dispute between a state and the federal government since Southern politicians fought desegregation measures in the 1960s, said Michael Klarman, a Harvard Law School professor who’s written several books about the civil rights movement. “There hasn’t been anything else like it in these last 50 years,” he said.

Bill Cosby goes back to court in April, but his retrial on sexual assault charges will unfold in a very different America than his first. Since then, the #MeToo movement has established that women who individually once feared their accusations would be discounted or dismissed can find corroboration and power when they come forward as a group...There has long been a debate on just how much judges are, or should be, swayed by public opinion...Others, such as the Harvard law professor Michael Klarman have argued that certain landmark rulings like Brown v. Board of Education would never have been possible if judges had not been reflecting shifting social mores. In some ways, Mr. Cosby paved the way for the #MeToo moment as he battled accusations for years that he had hidden a history of mistreating women behind his comforting pose as America’s Dad.