Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice

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.

The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School joined forces with the ACLU of Massachusetts to host a daylong conference at Harvard Law School in June, titled “Redefining the Role of the Prosecutor within the Community.”

The HLS Fair Punishment Project’s Legal Advisory Council has issued an issue brief arguing that a sentencer may impose a life without parole sentence upon a juvenile only after concluding that the child is “the rare juvenile offender who exhibits such irretrievable depravity that rehabilitation is impossible.”

HLS Professor Charles Ogletree ’78 announced this summer that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and said he will work to raise awareness of the disease and its disproportionate effect on African-Americans. In sharing his story and putting a spotlight on this disease, he is continuing his lifelong efforts to help others.

Charles Ogletree '78, the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law and director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, recently announced that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He said he will work to raise awareness of the disease and its disproportionate effect on African Americans.

Since graduating from Harvard College in 1985 and then getting his law degree, Alan Jenkins '89 had been on a career fast track, but he felt frustrated about the forces of injustice and inequality he saw around him.

In 2015, America had the lowest number of executions in 25 years, according to a new report released by Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice. But of the 28 people executed, 68% suffered from severe mental disabilities or experienced extreme childhood trauma and abuse.

Supreme Court justices, performance art, student protests and a vice president. A look back at 2015, highlights of the people who visited, events that took place and everyday life at Harvard Law School.

The Harvard Law School Association presented its highest award this past spring to William P. Alford ’77 and Charles J. Ogletree ’78 —two of Harvard Law School's most distinguished professors, mentors to generations of jurists, advisers to senators, presidents and world leaders, and celebrated doers of good works—and longtime friends.

The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School has released a report, authored by Chike Croslin '16, Justin Dews, and Jaimie McFarlin '15 of the Harvard Black Law Students Association, titled Independent Lens: Toward Transparency, Accountability, and Effectiveness in Police Tactics. The report explores the potential and limitations of body-worn cameras for police.

In March, Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice sponsored a dance performance at HLS titled “Dying While Black and Brown.” Presented one day before the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march, it dramatized the disproportionate incarceration and execution of people of color.

On March 6, Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice hosted Dying While Black and Brown, a dance performance focused on capital punishment and the disproportionate numbers of incarcerated people of color. The performance was first commissioned by the San Francisco Equal Justice Society as part of the society’s campaign to restore 14th Amendment protections for victims of discrimination, including those on death row.

And discussions have continued into the new year about the policy and procedures of police, prosecutors and the community at large.

Equity advocates from around Greater Boston gathered at Harvard Law School on July 11 for a discussion about the region’s key priorities in promoting opportunity for people of all backgrounds. The event included speeches, panels and the release of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council’s “State of Equity in Metro Boston” Policy Agenda.

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down aggregate campaign contribution limits, in a ruling that frees individuals to donate to as many candidates as they wish. Harvard Law School’s Noah Feldman, Bemis Professor of International Law, spoke with the Harvard Gazette about the ruling, and what it means for elections and for the future of campaign-finance reform.

A panel of scholars gathered at Harvard Law School March 14 to examine the legacy of Nelson Mandela with a discussion about the use of violence for political or social change.

Credit: Lolita Parker Jr. Richard Ross is a photographer and professor of art based in Santa Barbara, California. His photo project, Juvenile In Justice, turns…

A selection of photographs from photographer Richard Ross' haunting collection, "Juvenile in Justice," is on display at Harvard Law School, on the 3rd floor of Wasserstein Hall, from March 21 to April 11. The exhibit is sponsored by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice.

Read more about what compelled Jonathan Nomamiukor ’13 to take a break from law school, his work with Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic on the issue of fully autonomous weapons, and the mentorship he received from Clinical Instructor Bonnie Docherty.

On March 12 at Harvard Law School, award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns joined Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree and two Central Park Five members for a film screening and panel discussion of his new documentary “The Central Park Five,” which tells the story of five Black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly convicted of raping and beating a white woman in New York City’s Central Park in 1989. The event was co-sponsored by Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice and the Prison Studies Project and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

In commemoration of Black History Month, Harvard Law School Professors Lani Guinier and Charles Ogletree ’78 were recognized by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education as two of 28 noteworthy African-Americans who have contributed to the “world of words.”

In October, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice sponsored a two-day conference looking back at Cooper v. Aaron and the impact it’s had on law and education over the course of 55 years. The event brought together legal scholars, students, and civil-rights lawyers and featured a moot-court proceeding involving U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and nine appellate judges, to revisit the legal questions raised by Cooper.

An array of legal scholars, judges, practitioners and community leaders gathered at Harvard Law School on June 14 to discuss implicit racial bias, its presence in society and the law and new ideas about reducing its negative impact on disadvantaged groups.

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) has released a summary of “The State of Equity in Metro Boston,” a report studying the ways that inequity affects the residents of greater Boston. The full report was released on Tuesday, Dec. 13 at an event co-hosted by Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

Harvard Law School was founded with a bequest from Isaac Royall, a brutal slave owner. Two centuries later, the first black President of the U.S. and first black First Lady are HLS alumni.

Abolitionist Wendell Phillips, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1833, was a nationally know celebrity during his lifetime. On the bicentennial of his birth, a symposium held at HLS June 2-4, cosponsored by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, focused on the life and legacy of the social reformer, and the questions they raise for those working for social justice today.

Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (CHHIRJ) and the Pioneer Institute have jointly published the first comprehensive review in nearly a decade of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), the nation’s second-longest running voluntary school desegregation program.

"Washington walks Ugandan tightrope," an op-ed co-authored by Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree and University of Richmond School of Law Professor Jonathan Stubbs LL.M. ’79, was featured in the Opinion section of the April 27 edition of Politico.

The continuing debate over Brown v. Board of Education's effects was forcefully illustrated on Tuesday, Sept. 28, by a panel discussion of Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow’s new book, “In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark,” the first in a series of events on faculty-authored books sponsored by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice and HLS.

HLS Professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. co-wrote an op-ed, “After Shirley Sherrod, we all need to slow down and listen,” with Johanna Wald, that appeared in the July 25, 2010, edition of the Washington Post. Ogletree is the executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice and the author most recently of "The Presumptions of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America." Johanna Wald is director of strategic planning at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

For ten of thousands of young people, childhood can consist of a pipeline to prison. On Thursday, April 29, 2010, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School hosted a conference addressing the issue locally: “Coming Together to Dismantle the Cradle to Prison Pipeline in Massachusetts: A Half-Day Summit of Community, Faith and Policy Leaders.”

On May 16, 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that juveniles who commit crimes in which no one is killed may not be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Justice Anthony Kennedy ’61 wrote the opinion for a 6-3 Court, citing a brief submitted by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute at HLS, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

The HLS Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice recently filed, along with a host of other organizations, an amicus curiae brief in the North Carolina Supreme Court on a school-to-prison pipeline case.