Media Mentions

Earlier this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed a crowd gathered for the second summit of his signature infrastructure policy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)...With the BRI, Xi is signaling China’s readiness to reprise a more proactive geopolitical role, according to Harvard Law professor and international trade expert Mark Wu. “President Xi, much more than his predecessors, is assertive of this idea of the China dream — part of [which] is about national rejuvenation and China rightfully stepping back onto the global stage,” he said.

U.S. Route 285, cutting through the Texas-New Mexico border, is perilous...The remote highway is bustling, often dangerously so, because the U.S. fracking revolution is in high gear, and nearly-endless bounties of liquid gold lie beneath the West Texas ground. Overall, U.S. crude oil production and exports have both hit record highs. America is also now the world leader in natural gas production..."Natural gas really is a double-edged sword," said Joe Goffman, a former EPA senior counsel in the Office of Air and Radiation. The gas has unquestionably helped wean the U.S. off coal — the dirtiest fossil fuel — but left the country still emitting loads of heat-trapping carbon. "It presents a significant threat to climate and the environment," Goffman, now the executive director of Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law Program," added. "It really poses a riddle for policymakers right now."

Alicia Davis feels like she was scammed. As a student at Florida Metropolitan University from 2006 to 2008, she said she was told the cost of her online criminal justice program would be covered by Pell grants and scholarships. She was told her credits could be transferred to other schools. Graduating from the school, a subsidiary of the for-profit Corinthian Colleges, would lead to a job and a decent wage. None of it was true, said Davis, who accrued more than $22,000 in student loans from FMU. The 36-year-old is now one of seven plaintiffs suing the U.S. Department of Education and its chief, Betsy DeVos, for allegedly failing to offer relief to more than 158,000 student-loan borrowers who claim they were defrauded by for-profit colleges...Harvard Law School's Project on Predatory Student Lending, which filed the case on behalf of the plaintiffs, said the Department of Education has illegally halted processing forgiveness applications under DeVos's tenure, neither rejecting nor approving any claims. According to the complaint, the department "intentionally adopted a policy of inaction and obfuscation." The Education Department last approved a borrower-defense application in June 2018. "The Department of Education has knowingly enabled for-profit colleges to defraud students," Eileen Connor, legal director at the Project on Predatory Student Lending, said in a statement. "It recklessly continued to act as a loan broker for disreputable schools despite clear records of abuse and misconduct," Connor added.

Mark Zuckerberg can't think of a single reason to break up Facebook, even as lawmakers call to dismantle or regulate major US tech platforms. In a conversation Wednesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Zuckerberg said being big is actually a benefit in the fight to prevent the spread of misinformation and deal with election interference. "The question that I think we have to grapple with is that breaking up these companies wouldn't make any of those problems better," Zuckerberg said in a conversation with Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein. "The amount that we're investing in safety and security is greater than the whole revenue of our company was earlier this decade when we went public, so it just would not have been possible to do the things we're doing at a smaller scale."

The body representing America’s lawyers has staked out an eye-opening position in recent years—lobbying against efforts in Congress to close a loophole that enables terrorism, human trafficking, money laundering, and a host of other crimes. The legislation would force the owners of US companies to disclose their identities to the authorities. The move would make it much harder for criminals to hide their money in shell companies with anodyne names; something anti-corruption experts and law enforcement say is a crucial step in fighting financial crime and ending America’s status as the world’s biggest tax haven...The ABA declined to comment on the record for this piece, but has said it objects to the legislation because, they argue, it would burden small businesses and pose privacy concerns for entrepreneurs. In a recent letter of opposition, the ABA’s president said the organization supports “reasonable and necessary” measures to fight money laundering and terrorist financing, and offered to discuss other solutions with lawmakers. These arguments are met with deep cynicism among corruption scholars and pro-transparency advocates. While describing the ABA’s case in a blog post earlier this year, Harvard law professor Matthew Stephenson wrote, “I’m trying to find a polite euphemism for ‘self-serving and intellectually bankrupt,’ but I’m having trouble.”

As public trust in Facebook’s ability to wield its power responsibly has fractured in the face of a series of privacy breaches and other scandals, the company has been facing fresh calls for regulation from numerous quarters of the federal government. But on one of the biggest issues leading to that breakdown of trust, its response to foreign election interference, Facebook has made significant progress, according to Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who made a rare public appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Wednesday...In a discussion with Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein, Zuckerberg invited regulators to set industrywide privacy standards and take a harder line with foreign interference in elections while pushing back against calls to break up Facebook.

The U.S. Department of Education is violating federal law by refusing to make decisions on applications to cancel federal loans from more than 158,000 students who attended for-profit colleges, a new proposed class action claims. The Massachusetts-based Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School announced the former students' suit on Tuesday, the latest in a string of cases against the department and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over Obama-era student loan protections. The complaint, filed in California federal court, says that even though students are able to cancel any federal loans they might have if their schools defraud them, the department hasn’t made a decision since June of last year on any applications to cancel those loans. “The Department of Education has knowingly enabled for-profit colleges to defraud students,” Eileen Connor, the legal director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending, which is affiliated with the Legal Services Center, said in a statement. “It recklessly continued to act as a loan broker for disreputable schools despite clear records of abuse and misconduct, and now the department refuses to acknowledge the damage it has done by issuing these predatory loans to students, at taxpayers’ expense.”

My daughter and I were tossing a football back and forth while also flinging around arguments about free speech, sexual assault, youthful intolerance and paternal insensitivity. We were discussing a Harvard law professor, Ronald Sullivan. He had been pushed out of his secondary job as head of Harvard College’s Winthrop House after he helped give Harvey Weinstein, accused of sexual assault, the legal representation every defendant is entitled to. To me, as a progressive baby boomer, this was a violation of hard-won liberal values, a troubling example of a university monoculture nurturing liberal intolerance. Of course no professor should be penalized for accepting an unpopular client. To my daughter, of course a house dean should not defend a notorious alleged rapist. As she saw it, any professor is welcome to represent any felon, but not while caring for undergraduates: How can a house leader support students traumatized by sexual assault when he is also defending someone accused of rape?

A class action lawsuit filed in California Tuesday claims the U.S. Department of Education is "intentionally" not processing debt relief claims by students who were defrauded by for-profit colleges. "They don't have any timetable to resolve these claims and it's pretty clear that they don't have any intention to," said Eileen Connor, legal director for the Project on Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center at Harvard Law School, which brought the suit with the California-based legal service organization Housing and Economic Rights Advocates.

Last month, Harvard College told Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., and his wife that it would not renew their contracts as faculty deans of Winthrop House, one of the school's 12 residential communities. They had held their positions for ten years. When appointed, they were the first African-Americans to be named faculty deans at Harvard...In a Newsweek exclusive, Sullivan gives his first interview since his ouster. In it, he defends his decision to take the case and accuses Rakesh Khurana, the Dean of Harvard College, of "cower[ing]" and "capitulating" to the "loudest voices in the room."

After working as a bartender for years, Alicia Davis decided in 2006 that she wanted to take steps towards starting a career in law enforcement by getting her bachelor’s degree. It’s a decision that’s haunted her ever since...Now Davis is fighting back. She’s part of a class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday, accusing the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, and the Department of Education of illegally stalling their decision on at least 158,000 borrower defense claims filed by people like Davis...“The law is really clear, but the Department of Education has ignored their claims,” said Eileen Connor, legal director at Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which is representing the borrowers. “Students are coming forward today to say enough is enough.”

More than 150,000 former students of for-profit colleges filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday, claiming the agency is depriving them of the student debt relief to which they’re legally entitled. The plaintiffs, represented by Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending and Housing & Economic Rights Advocates, accuse the Department of Education under DeVos of failing to implement an Obama-era regulation known as “borrower defense, ” which allows students to have their federal student loans cancelled if their school misled them or engaged in other misconduct. “The law is clear: Students who experienced fraud should not be required to pay back federal loans that should never have been made by the Department in the first place,” said Toby Merrill, director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending.

As a union boss, Mark Erlich became known for his efforts to help authorities crack down on construction companies for labor abuses such as misclassifying workers as independent contractors or illegally paying them under the table. Some of those bad actors must have breathed a sigh of relief two years ago. That’s when Erlich finally retired from his influential job running the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, and moved on to the confines of academia. Maybe they shouldn’t get too comfortable. Erlich quietly continued his crusade, though it no longer involves picket-line signs or giant inflatable rats. Erlich instead spent the past year researching and writing a report on payroll fraud with coauthor Terri Gerstein, a former labor law enforcer in New York, for Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program.

Here’s some cool news. Harvard Law School has become the first law school to join VetLink, a group of top colleges and graduate programs actively seeking to increase their veteran enrollment. VetLink is an initiative of Service to School—a nonprofit that aims to help veterans get into those schools by offering free application counseling and peer guidance to veterans. (It was co-founded by Anna Ivey, a former admissions dean at the University of Chicago Law School.) Until recently, VetLink focused on undergraduate programs. But the George Washington University School of Political Management and Harvard Law are now the first two graduate programs to join the initiative. Here’s what Harvard’s assistant dean for admissions, Kristi Jobsen, had to say about the new collaboration: “Today, we are proud to host one of the largest communities of U.S. military veterans of any law school in the country. Harvard Law School is excited to form this new partnership with Service to School, and to add the VetLink program to our many efforts to connect with veterans thinking about a career in the law.” So just how is Harvard doing when it comes to veteran enrollment? Well, last year vets numbered 45 out of about 2,000 students. That figure is poised to grow, with 20 more veterans expected in the incoming class.

Facebook Inc. appears to be moving ahead with the Supreme Court-like content oversight board it has been discussing for a year. It’s a worthy step but also a 1% solution for a unimaginably vast problem...Facebook has solicited feedback on the structure for this Supreme Court-like body, and Bloomberg News on Monday described some of the company's deliberations to come up with the best structure and policies. (Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor and Bloomberg Opinion columnist, pitched the concept of an independent oversight board to Facebook. I haven’t spoken with him about this oversight body.)

Courts have sided repeatedly with student loan borrowers demanding the U.S. Education Department process their applications for debt relief, yet more than 180,000 people are still waiting for a decision. Now, some of them are again turning to the courts for help. On Tuesday, seven borrowers sued Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her agency after the department failed to take action on their applications, some of which have languished for years...“It’s not like they’re working through the backlog and it’s just taking time. The department doesn’t think they have to do anything with these claims, and that’s why people are coming forward,” said Eileen Connor, an attorney representing the borrowers. “What they want is for the court to tell the department: ‘You have to do something. You can deny them. You can grant them. But you have to do something.’”...Connor, director of litigation at the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School, argues that the court injunction does not prevent the Education Department from creating a new methodology to deny claims or grant full relief. The Project on Predatory Student Lending brought the California case.

President Trump said Thursday that he is seeking to delay the constitutionally mandated census to give administration officials time to come up with a better explanation for why it should include a citizenship question. Trump’s announcement, in tweets sent from Japan, came hours after the Supreme Court put on hold his administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, saying it had provided a “contrived” reason for wanting the information. ... Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, said Trump did not appear to be suggesting a marginal adjustment of the census schedule for purposes of litigation but rather was trying try to mold the process to his needs. Tribe called it an indication of “the administration’s contempt of the rule of law.” “The combination of the president’s abject ignorance and manipulative flexibility on these matters is, at a minimum, quite telling,” Tribe said. “It suggests all matters — constitutional and legal — are subject to his whim.”

A hot real estate market in Boston and surrounding cities is fueling rent hikes and evictions in what has long been one of the cheapest housing options in poor neighborhoods — rooming houses. Housing advocates say rooming houses — also known as SROs, meaning 'single room occupancy' — are a vital source of affordable shelter for minimum-wage workers, the elderly and people with disabilities or mental illness. But as urban real estate values surge, some investors and property owners are raising rents, evicting tenants and trying to shift away from low-income residents. “People are being thrown out, and that's happening across the city, because these properties are now so valued,” said Eloise Lawrence, an attorney at Harvard Law School's Legal Aid Bureau who has defended tenants. “What was once considered housing at the last resort is now seen as desired and profitable.”

Rejecting a request from President Trump, a federal judge in Washington on Tuesday cleared the way for nearly 200 Democrats in Congress to continue their lawsuit against him alleging that his private business violates an anti-corruption provision of the Constitution. ...Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe expressed delight upon hearing of the ruling: “That is splendid news for the Emoluments Clause cases — and for the rule of law.” He added, “Today’s ruling confirms that the Trump strategy of denying, delaying, deflecting, and dissembling while continuing to defy the Constitution has all but run its course and that the chickens are finally coming home to roost.”

President Trump said Thursday that he is seeking to delay the constitutionally mandated census to give administration officials time to come up with a better explanation for why it should include a citizenship question. ...Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, said that Trump did not appear to be suggesting a marginal adjustment of the census schedule for purposes of litigation but rather was trying try to mold the process to his needs. He called it an indication of “the administration’s contempt of the rule of law.” “The combination of the president’s abject ignorance and manipulative flexibility on these matters is, at a minimum, quite telling,” Tribe said. “It suggests all matters — constitutional and legal — are subject to his whim.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: The U.S. Supreme Court issued an important decision Wednesday narrowly declining to overrule an important doctrine of administrative law, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberal justices solely on the basis of stare decisis — the principle that precedent should be respected, even if you don’t agree with it. For those who care deeply about the future of the administrative state, the first half of that sentence is the interesting one. The court is now fully engaged in an epic battle over whether to dismantle administrative law as we know it.