Media Mentions

...For [Yee] Htun, teaching Myanmar human rights advocacy to Law School students is a full-circle experience. “Growing up in a refugee camp in Thailand, I was exposed to humanitarian work and service,” said Htun, now a clinical instructor and lecturer on law. “There is no doubt in my mind that my formative childhood shaped me and made me believe in the need to serve and use our freedom and privileges to make a contribution.”

An article by Yochai Benkler. The inadvertent disclosure of the likely existence of a sealed indictment against Julian Assange raises the question of what the constitutional implications of such an indictment might be. Only an indictment narrowly focused on knowing collaboration with a foreign intelligence agency, if in fact the evidence supports such a finding, would avoid the broad threat that such a prosecution would otherwise pose to First Amendment rights and press freedoms.

An article by Michelle Melton `19. For more than a decade, the national security agencies of the federal government have repeatedly recognized climate change as a national security threat. Since 2010, the Department of Defense has published at least 35 products explicitly addressing the threat of climate change. The intelligence community has produced at least a dozen more. These national security reports, and related comments by prominent military officials, reflect a consensus among national security stakeholders that climate change is a critical national security issue. The consensus continues in the Trump administration even though the president himself remains skeptical of climate change.

An op-ed by Lawrence Lessig. On Thursday, election officials in Maine declared Democrat Jared Golden to be the first member of Congress elected by “ranked-choice voting” (“RCV”). Maine’s idea should now be adopted by New Hampshire for its presidential primary, and by battleground states for the general election as well.

Jack Goldsmith is a professor of law at Harvard University and served as Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel (2003-2004). In this Conversation, Goldsmith shares his perspective on America’s vulnerabilities to cyber attack—the complex and systemic threats to our digital and physical infrastructures, as well as to our politics via hacking and digital espionage. As Goldsmith explains, we have not done nearly enough to counter cyber threats through better defense or employment of countermeasures against adversaries. Finally, Kristol and Goldsmith consider what the government and private sector can do to improve our cybersecurity.

A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to restore the press credentials of Jim Acosta of CNN, handing the cable network an early win in its lawsuit against the president and members of his administration...“This ruling is not saying that what Acosta did was the right thing or the wrong thing,” said Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge and a Harvard Law School professor. “The judge ruled that the president can’t revoke his credentials without due process: a statement of what he did wrong, an opportunity to respond, a final decision. The ruling leaves those issues and his First Amendment challenge for another day.”

The disclosure that federal prosecutors have brought an unidentified criminal charge against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader, follows years of government deliberations over the dilemma raised by competing desires to put him out of business and fears that doing so could create a precedent that would undermine press freedoms....Yochai Benkler, a Harvard Law School professor who testified at Ms. Manning’s court-martial in 2013 that WikiLeaks played a watchdog journalism role, denounced any charging of Mr. Assange for his work with Ms. Manning and Mr. Snowden. Mr. Benkler described Ms. Manning and Mr. Snowden as “patriots” and “whistle-blowers” and who, even if one did not agree with their actions, “are clearly trying to do something to keep the government accountable.” But, he said, if there turns out to be evidence that Mr. Assange knowingly coordinated with a Russian intelligence agency trying to undermine democracy, “I don’t think you have the same kind of protections from prosecution.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon believes the entire human rights movement has fallen victim to a new form of skepticism that risks bringing it to collapse, with religious freedom being in the most precarious position. Currently a law professor at Harvard University, Glendon told Crux in an interview that “a new skepticism” is developing in society which, differently from the deep-rooted suspicion of the modern age towards most things, is specifically targeting the human rights movement. “Human rights activists are worried that the cause they gave their life to is falling apart. Human rights specialists are writing books about the end-times of human rights, so where does that come from?” she asked.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie.” Those words, attributed to George Washington at the age of 6, appeared in the fifth edition of Mason Locke Weems’s “The Life of Washington,” published in 1806. In case you’ve forgotten the details of the story: Young George cut down a cherry tree, and when confronted by his father, he confessed, “I did cut it with my hatchet.” Even as a kid, the nation’s first president knew that lying was wrong. He told the truth. It doesn’t matter that the story was a myth. What matters is that it resonated: Lying was taboo.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The word-processing error that unintentionally revealed the Justice Department’s sealed charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is fascinating, not least because analogous mistakes can be found in texts going all the way back to the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. It also raises important legal policy questions: In a free, open society, what justifies the use of secret indictments? Are they a nefarious tool of the deep state, like secret trials? Or are they a valuable mechanism for allowing law enforcement to do its job?

The Department of Education released proposed regulations Friday meant to reshape how colleges handle allegations of sexual misconduct — Harvard among them. The long-anticipated proposal — which was announced alongside a statement by United States Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — provides a new framework for implementing Title IX, an anti-sex discrimination law that guides universities’ approach to handling sexual assault...Law School Professor Diane L. Rosenfeld, who teaches a course on Title IX, said the new guidance is “an attempt to make [schools] not responsible for off-campus” sexual assault and harassment...Law School professor Janet E. Halley said she plans to write a formal comment to the Department advocating for policies similar to the ones currently in place at Harvard Law School, which mandate a different hearing process than the one the government has put forth. She said she thinks the new proposal contains both necessary improvements and “disastrous” flaws. “A lot of my issues are my concern for the accused, but a lot of my issues are my concern for the complainant,” she said. “There’s good things and bad things for both sides here, so the public furor is pretty idiotic.”

An op-ed by Terri Gerstein, director of the Project on State and Local Enforcement at the Labor and Worklife Program...Technology companies pride themselves on their cutting-edge, visionary nature. Now that they’ve taken the first step, here’s an opportunity for them to be early adopters, and national leaders, by making an even more impactful move: ending forced arbitration in relation to all employment-related disputes, not just sexual harassment. And given the extensive reach of these companies through their multitude of contractors, they should prohibit their contractors from forcing employees into arbitration, as well.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. It’s on. Maryland filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming that Matthew Whitaker can’t lawfully be acting U.S. attorney general because he has never been confirmed by the U.S. Senate. On Wednesday, the Department of Justice published its explanation for why Whitaker’s temporary appointment is lawful under the Vacancies Reform Act and the U.S. Constitution. Because the statutory and constitutional issues are technical and complex, you may well be asking yourself: What am I supposed to think? I’m here to give you an answer, albeit one that might frustrate you.

...In a recent article written with Maria Jose Estaban, David Wilkins, director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, declared: “Reports of the death of the Big Four’s legal ambitions have been greatly exaggerated.” For one thing, as Prof Wilkins points out, we have been here before. In the 1990s, the then Big Five (today’s Big Four, plus Arthur Andersen) made a concerted effort to move into the legal market. That attempt foundered in the wake of the Enron scandal, in which Arthur Andersen was centrally implicated and which led to its disintegration in 2002. The so-called Magic Circle law firms grew rapidly as the remaining Big Four drew in their horns. “The legal profession thought they’d banished [the Big Four] to Middle Earth,” Prof Wilkins says. “But in fact they reformulated their strategy to take advantage of changing dynamics.”

Louisiana’s on its way to abolishing split jury verdicts in criminal trials, but that won’t help convicts like Evangelisto Ramos unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in. The court’s been reluctant to take up the issue that’s again before it after Louisiana voted to abolish the practice Nov. 6, leaving Oregon alone in permitting it. But the new Louisiana law that applies to offenses committed beginning in January doesn’t apply retroactively...“The fact that unanimity still is not a requirement for the states is a very bizarre historical outlier that’s overdue for correction,” Thomas Frampton, Climenko Fellow and lecturer at Harvard Law School, told Bloomberg Law. “We’ve reached a point now where almost every other piece of the Bill of Rights is understood to apply not just to the federal government but also to the states,” said Frampton, a former public defender who recently published a law review article on the jury issue.

...Thirty-one years later, the prevailing hiring bonus for Supreme Court clerks is $400,000—up from $300,000 in 2015. And that does not include salaries. If the trend continues, the clerk bonus will soon approach twice the annual salary of the justices they work for. Associate justices are paid $235,000, and the chief justice gets $267,000...“When the numbers get so high—in terms of the bonus itself and the numbers of hires going to one firm—it unavoidably raises concerns about what is being purchased and the meaning of public service,” Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus said in 2015. Lazarus, reached this week, said he stands by those remarks, adding that “a vast majority” of the Jones Day hires are likely to leave the firm in a few years. “Jones Day is paying a lot of money for a photograph,” he said.

Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 unveiled a new building slated to house several clinics, programs, and faculty offices at a reception early last week...D. James Greiner, a Law professor and Faculty Director of the Access of Justice Lab, said he is excited to move out of Wasserstein and into the much-needed new space. The new building is in part meant to accommodate the tremendous growth of clinical learning programs in recent years. "We’re currently in two different, small, basement offices, so the new office space is welcome,” Greiner wrote in an email. “We work with about 60 law, undergraduate, and graduate students at any one time, so the meeting spaces the new building offers are also quite welcome.”

...The Federalist Society, a conservative and libertarian organization designed to counter “orthodox liberal ideology” within the American legal system, has built a sizable web of chapters in cities and law schools across the U.S. — including at Harvard Law School...In the Trump era, though, the Harvard Law chapter is maintaining its distance from the controversial president. Instead, the group is centering its focus on campus and on providing a space for students who find themselves at odds with Harvard’s liberal-leaning legal luminaries...Law School Professor Charles Fried said that, when the society first came into being, it primarily served as a community for students who fell to the right on the political spectrum. Fried said he has been involved with the Harvard chapter for decades...Annika M. Boone, third-year Law student and president of the Harvard Federalist Society, said the chapter mainly focuses on bringing in speakers for debates. “First and foremost, we’re a debating society,” Boone said. “Those were our earliest roots when we got founded, gosh, about 40 years ago.”

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor made an impassioned plea Tuesday afternoon for “serious thinking” among judges to find ways to come together more often, and to fight the effects of partisan polarization. “For decades, the court has always managed to maintain the public’s respect, in large part because the public has perceived it as less partisan than other institutions,” Sotomayor said in a conversation with Andrew Crespo, assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School (HLS) before a room filled with law students...For Marvellous Iheukwumere, J.D. ’21, the talk was inspiring. “It was very stimulating, as a woman of color, to hear Justice Sotomayor,” said Iheukwumere. “It motivates me to keep focusing on my goals in the legal field.”

The number of criminal defendants who are challenging their waivers to their right to appeal is increasing throughout New York’s appeals courts, and appellate justices in Brooklyn are calling on trial judges to take greater care to ensure that defendants understand what they’re getting themselves into. ...Among them is Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge who is on the faculty at Harvard Law School, who said the right to appeal should be as sacrosanct in the criminal justice system as the right to counsel and that it should be taken off the table for plea deals, especially at a time when the vast majority of criminal cases are resolved through plea deals. As for reducing backlog, Gertner said that justice should take priority over case management. “The more the criminal justice system becomes a mill, the more you see it taking in people who are one, innocent; two, poor; and three, black,” Gertner said.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. CNN is going to win the First Amendment lawsuit it filed Tuesday against President Donald Trump’s White House for taking away reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass. And the sad truth is that Trump won’t mind at all. As the president has shown repeatedly, he doesn’t especially care if, after he violates the Constitution, the courts reverse his action. Instead of understanding judicial repudiation as a defeat, Trump sees the whole episode as a victory.