Skip to content

People

Ruth Greenwood

  • The ‘sleeper case’ trying to stop Trump and the RNC from intimidating voters and poll workers

    September 12, 2024

    A nearly four-year-old legal effort by Black voters to convince a court to prevent former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party from potentially intimidating…

  • TrueViews launch event.

    Truth in advertising, and now in politics

    September 11, 2024

    “TrueViews,” a new public opinion data tool designed by Harvard experts, could reduce political polarization by educating politicians about what their constituents actually believe.

  • Supreme Court petition targets ‘relic of Jim Crow’ in Georgia

    May 20, 2024

    A legal fight over how Georgia elects its utility regulators may soon come before the nation’s highest court in a case that could reverberate beyond…

  • Ruth Greenwood

    Greenwood named assistant clinical professor of law

    February 9, 2024

    Ruth Greenwood, a visiting assistant clinical professor of law and the director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, was appointed an assistant clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School, effective Jan. 1. 

  • Guy-Uriel Charles.

    Lani Guinier: The principle underlying her work was the principle of fair play

    September 27, 2023

    A two-day conference, hosted by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Social Justice, examined election law and electoral systems impact communities of color

  • Lawsuit seeks Wisconsin Supreme Court’s help on changing GOP-drawn legislative voting maps

    August 4, 2023

    Another battle over legislative district voting maps is underway in Wisconsin. A liberal-leaning legal coalition representing 19 state residents has filed a lawsuit. The suit…

  • If Democrats Win Back the House, They Will Have John Roberts to Thank

    June 14, 2023

    A credible case can be made that the Supreme Court’s decision last June to eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion was crucial to the…

  • 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.

  • Voting rights activist Rosemary McCoy stands in front of a blue sign that reads

    A matter of ‘life or death’

    February 7, 2023

    Harvard Law School’s Election Law Clinic partners with organizers in Jacksonville, Florida to score important victories for voting rights.

  • Members of the Election Law Clinic with organizers from Jacksonville.

    Election Law Clinic presents oral arguments in Jacksonville racial gerrymandering case

    September 26, 2022

    On Friday, September 16, Election Law Clinic clinical instructor Daniel Hessel led the plaintiff’s oral arguments during Jacksonville Branch of the NAACP v. City of Jacksonville’s preliminary injunction hearing, arguing against the use of racially biased redistricting maps in the 2023 and 2024 city council and school board elections.  

  • Detail of Langdell Hall in autumn

    A Focus on Democracy: HLS Clinics and Classes

    July 15, 2022

    The Election Law Clinic, led by Ruth Greenwood, visiting assistant clinical professor, focuses on voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the challenges money poses to democratic participation.

  • Two people walking in a hallway with other people walking along behind and next to them.

    Weighing President Biden’s first year

    January 18, 2022

    In this series, Harvard Law experts turn a critical eye to the Biden administration’s efforts on health care, the economy, criminal justice reform, and other areas important to Americans — and share their thoughts on its agenda for the future.

  • Man voting

    Weighing President Biden’s first year: Voting and elections

    January 11, 2022

    Harvard Law School election law expert Ruth Greenwood applauds the Biden administration’s support for new voting legislation, but says the filibuster remains an obstacle to finishing the job.

  • Challenges to the Voting Rights Act far from over

    December 2, 2021

    When the U.S. Supreme Court decided an important voting rights case earlier this year, its ruling made it more difficult for voters to challenge restrictive state voting laws.  Now, the state of Texas is making an argument that, if adopted, would further hobble use of what remains of the Voting Rights Act. ...In a one-paragraph concurring opinion in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the voting rights case decided last summer, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch said the court’s previous cases assumed that private parties had the right to bring lawsuits challenging state election laws under Section 2 of the VRA, but it was an “open question” the Supreme Court had not yet decided. Justice Clarence Thomas was the only other member to sign on to Gorsuch’s concurrence.  “If it hadn’t been for the Gorsuch line in Brnovich, I would have thought it was kind of a crazy argument,” said Ruth Greenwood, director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, of the Texas brief.

  • Tony Evers’ redistricting proposal narrows, but maintains GOP majorities

    November 3, 2021

    The final proposal for Wisconsin’s next political maps from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ redistricting commission would narrow, but still maintain, Republican legislative and congressional majorities in the state. ... Ruth Greenwood, director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, said she doesn’t believe the commission’s maps are fair for Democratic voters, adding that predicted efficiency gaps “show a large and durable skew in favor of Republican voters” for both the Assembly and Senate map proposals. PlanScore, a program that predicts precinct-level votes for districts based on past election results and U.S. Census data led by the Campaign Legal Center, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for nonpartisan maps, found that under the commission’s proposal Democratic candidates would take 35% of state Senate seats and 39% of Assembly seats with a near 50-50 Democratic and Republican vote share. Greenwood said this may be due to the commission’s prioritization of compactness over partisan fairness. Greenwood noted that the first priority Evers listed in his original executive order creating the commission was that maps shall, whenever possible, be “free from partisan bias and partisan advantage.” “That is not reflected in the resulting plans,” Greenwood said. Greenwood said last month Republicans’ proposal “essentially bakes in almost the same level of partisan advantage” as current districts.

  • Senate committee holds public hearing on GOP-drawn maps

    October 28, 2021

    A Senate committee will take public comment Thursday on the Republican proposal for [Wisconsin's] next 10-year political boundaries, maps that would likely ensure another decade of GOP majorities in the state Legislature. For Republicans, the GOP proposal for the state's legislative and congressional boundaries aligns with plans to retain the core of existing districts, but for Democrats and those seeking nonpartisan maps, the offering is just more of the same. ... PlanScore, a program that predicts precinct-level votes for districts based on past election results and U.S. Census data led by the Campaign Legal Center, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for nonpartisan maps, found the GOP proposal "essentially bakes in almost the same level of partisan advantage" as current districts, said Ruth Greenwood, director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School.

  • Just how partisan are the GOP ‘nonpartisan’ maps?

    October 22, 2021

    Republican legislative leaders unveiled their proposed redistricting maps Wednesday, as did the People’s Maps Commission, which provided updated versions of draft maps it had previously released. Both the GOP and the commission — formed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers but made up of a diverse group of community members who drew on extensive public input — say their maps are fair and nonpartisan. Democrats jumped on Republicans’ maps, put forward in a redistricting bill, as being overtly partisan and even more gerrymandered than the maps that have been in place for the last decade. Over the past 10 years, Republicans in the Assembly, who received less than half of the total votes statewide, secured around two-thirds of the districts thanks to the maps they drew after the last census. ... Ruth Greenwood, director of Harvard Law School’s Election Law Clinic and a self-declared “map enthusiast” and “political junkie” used the PlanScore and said that the Legislature’s maps “would almost certainly ensure a GOP majority in the Legislature for another decade.” Greenwood ran the GOP-drawn maps through PlanScore — a program that predicts precinct-level votes for districts based on past election results and U.S. Census data — and labeled the maps as unfair. PlanScore uses four metrics, and the Wisconsin GOP’s legislative maps in all four categories were labeled as having “a Republican skew.”

  • Republicans unveil proposed redistricting maps based largely on existing boundaries

    October 21, 2021

    Republican leaders on Wednesday unveiled their proposal for legislative and congressional district maps, which received immediate criticism for being based largely on existing GOP-drawn districts that have helped Republicans hold strong majorities in both chambers. As Republicans had promised, the GOP proposal would largely align with existing boundaries for legislative and congressional districts, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau. The Legislature must redraw political lines every decade based on the latest population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. The mapmaking process can provide an advantage for the majority party based on how district lines are drawn. ... The proposed maps would almost certainly ensure a GOP majority in the Legislature for another decade, said Ruth Greenwood, director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School. Greenwood ran the GOP-drawn maps through PlanScore — a program that predicts precinct-level votes for districts based on past election results and U.S. Census data. “I’d say it’s as extreme as the gerrymander for the last 10 years,” Greenwood said. “It essentially bakes in almost the same level of partisan advantage and so we would expect to see another decade where it wouldn’t matter whether more people voted for Democrats than Republicans, Republicans would still maintain control.”