Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice

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.

The Harvard Law School Library has been chosen as a steward of the papers of Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., the celebrated and influential Harvard Law professor and civil rights scholar.

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.

Guy-Uriel Charles will join the Harvard Law faculty as the inaugural Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. Professor of Law, effective July 1. He will also serve as faculty director of HLS’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice recently co-authored amicus curiae briefs in two Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cases with significant impact on racial profiling.

In a July 2019 Q&A, David Harris, managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, discussed the annual public reading of Douglass’ speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, virtual this year for the first time in its 12-year history.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin spoke with Harvard Law Today about the history of Juneteenth and its particular relevance more than 150 years later.

Charles Hamilton Houston was an inspiring figure in American legal history, and a sometimes controversial one as well. Both sides of his legacy were examined in a lively lecture and Q&A discussion at Harvard Law School this week, to coincide with the 124th anniversary of his birth on September 3, 1895.

On July 2nd, people from across Massachusetts will gather at noon in Boston Common near the State House for the 11th annual public reading of Frederick Douglass’s historic address, "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?"

Harvard Law School recently hosted Judge Richard Gergel, U.S. District Judge of the U. S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, for a talk on his book, "Unexampled Courage,” and a discussion with HLS professors Randall Kennedy, Kenneth Mack and Mark Tushnet.

In October, David J. Harris, managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, received the Massachusetts Governor's Award in the Humanities. Harris was one of four leaders recognized for their "public actions, grounded in an appreciation of the humanities, to enhance civic life in the Commonwealth."

On the HLS campus this past fall, eminent friends, students, and colleagues gathered to celebrate a man the world knows as a leading force for racial equality and social justice, and the Harvard community knows affectionately as Tree.

On the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Harvard Gazette sat down with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School and faculty director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, to discuss Houston’s role and influence in the Civil Rights Movement.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, a leading historian on law and society as well as an authority on constitutional and education law and policy, has been named dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard President Drew Faust announced today.

“Disabling Punishment: The Need for Remedies to the Disparate Loss of Instruction Experience by Black Students with Disabilities,” a new report from the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law and UCLA’s Center for Civil Rights Remedies, finds dramatic racial discipline disparities between black children with disabilities and their white peers.

On Jan. 5, New England Patriots Defensive Captain Devin McCourty, teammates Johnson Bademosi, Matthew Slater and Duron Harmon, and team president Jonathan Kraft participated in a 'Listen and Learn' event at HLS, organized by the Fair Punishment Project and the Office of Public Interest Advising, featuring panel discussions on inequities in the criminal justice system.

It took an all-star team of panelists to honor the scope and influence of Charles Ogletree’s career last week at HLS—eminent friends, students and colleagues all paying tribute to a man that the world knows as a leading force for racial equality and social justice, and that the Harvard community knows affectionately as Tree.

Hundreds of friends, former students, colleagues, and well-wishers gathered last Monday in a joyful celebration of the life and career of Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, advocate for Civil Rights, author of books on race and justice, and mentor to former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.