Sanford Levinson

A bipartisan commission appointed by President Biden unanimously adopted a report detailing controversies over the Supreme Court and assessing proposals to address them, but few expected the 294-page document to resolve political divisions concerning the judiciary that have intensified in recent years. At Tuesday’s meeting, members of the commission universally praised the report-writing process for its civil dialogue and regard for all views. However, the final report was neither designed to nor did it produce consensus or any recommendations. ... “The report is so measured in tone that it would make an excellent basis for classroom discussion, which is a mixed compliment,” said University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson. “Its obvious concern with being relatively impartial means that it is unlikely to generate any genuine political movement.” ... “There has never been so comprehensive and careful a study of ways to reform the Supreme Court; the history and legality of various reforms; and the pluses and minuses of each,” said a liberal commissioner, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe. “But in voting to submit this report to the president, I am not casting a vote of confidence in the court’s basic legitimacy. I no longer have that confidence,” he said, citing “the dubious way some justices got there” and “the anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian direction of its decisions about matters like voting rights, gerrymandering, and the corrupting effects of dark money,” all areas where conservative views prevailed. Mr. Tribe said the process had persuaded him to endorse expanding the court, a position he previously had viewed skeptically.

A letter to the editor by Sanford Levinson. With regard to Arizona’s affinity for President Trump and its rejection of political liberalism, one might at least point out that Arizona flourishes only as a result of handsome federal subsidies by and large financed by strapped taxpayers living elsewhere. In fact, in 2014, the Grand Canyon State received about 43 percent of its operating funds from the national government, the highest ratio in the country. Perhaps the most dismaying failure of liberal Democrats is their consistent inability to hammer home the extent that would-be rugged individualists (most of them white and disdainful of “welfare”) are in fact dependent on the kindness of strangers.

Four professors debated the First Amendment implications of the College’s plan to penalize members of single-gender social organizations on Tuesday, reframing a controversial campus issue in constitutional terms...David L. Howell, a professor of Japanese history, and Diane L. Rosenfeld, a lecturer at the Law School and founding director of the Gender Violence Program, argued in favor of the constitutionality of the policy at the debate, while computer science professor and former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 and visiting Harvard Law professor Sanford V. Levinson argued the sanctions violated First Amendment values.

A Harvard Law School visiting professor says he was stumped this week when he received a postcard full of virulently anti-Semitic rhetoric that seems to have been mailed to him all the way from England. The note, written in black ink, was sent to professor Sanford Levinson’s Cambridge office, he said. It also said, “We’re going to drain the swamp,” at the law school, a reference to a slogan of president-elect Donald Trump’s campaign. “It certainly is as hostile as it could be. But I don’t know what to make of it,” said Levinson, 75, in a telephone interview. “It was a card apparently mailed from the [United Kingdom], and, you know, it’s a bit odd that it was mailed to me here at Harvard.”