Media Mentions

University of Chicago Philosophy Professor Martha C. Nussbaum said that society should grant enhanced legal protections for animals and reconsider the ethical principles governing human-animal interactions at a Friday talk in Boylston Hall...Man Ha Tse, an S.J.D. candidate studying at Harvard Law School, also said he found the talk worthwhile. “I think, probably, a majority of the population doesn’t even think of this as an issue that is worthy of serious scholarly intention,” she said, “So I always think it’s important to have serious scholars like Martha Nussbaum putting forward these ideas.

...In the new book “Tough Cases,” 13 trial judges from criminal, civil, probate, and family courts wrote candid and poignant firsthand accounts of the trials they can’t forget, giving readers a rare glimpse into their chambers. The book was the subject of a lively discussion at a panel sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library...“I don’t think I had ever really heard judges speak or write publicly about their thought processes and their tough cases the way this book captures,” said Andrew Crespo ’05, J.D. ’08, an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School (HLS) and one of the panelists...Charles Fried, the Beneficial Professor of Law, said trial judges bear a heavy burden, not only because their work is lonely but because they have to steer their way through all facets of the human condition...For retired judge and HLS lecturer Nancy Gertner, “Tough Cases” reveals the challenges judges face and the need for the public to learn about them.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: I’m not proud of it. But I am one of those people who are more viscerally upset by the allegations that journalist Jamal Khashoggi died a brutal death at the hands of Saudi secret police than by the deaths of thousands of people under Saudi bombardment in Yemen. The reason isn’t that Khashoggi was a journalist or that he was a legal U.S. resident or that he may have been dismembered, possibly while still alive. It’s much simpler and much less principled than that: It’s because I knew him.

...Some observers, like Harvard Law’s Jeannie Suk Gersen, argue that Burroughs’s determination on that matter doesn’t necessarily need to include a broader ruling on affirmative action. But because the case is likely to be appealed, the case could have a drastic effect on how elite schools use race in admissions.

...Some legal experts do believe that the judiciary is feeling bolder than it once did, perhaps because of what they see as presidential overreach, perhaps because of Trump’s open hostility to the federal courts, reflected in his comment in 2017 about the “so-called” judge who first ruled against his travel ban and his reference to U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s “Mexican heritage” when he was presiding over a case against Trump University. “Context matters,” as former federal judge and now Harvard Law School’s Nancy Gertner wrote in an article called “Judging in a Time of Trump.”

The C.L.O., a cousin of the mortgage-related product that malfunctioned a decade ago, has become one of the hottest investments on Wall Street. ...“If there turns out to be an issue, this is where the unfinished business of the post-crisis financial reform efforts is going to be revealed,” said Daniel K. Tarullo, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former oversight governor for bank regulation at the Fed.

The Harvard Kennedy School received $7.5 million for a student fellowship program for U.S. veterans and active duty military members Thursday, according to a press release from the school. The donation, which came from the Debra and Leon Black Family Foundation, will cover attendance costs for up to 25 graduate students annually—starting with those matriculating in fall 2019—across the Kennedy School, Harvard Business School, and Harvard Law School.

...Most advocates of election reform are similarly positive about ranked-choice voting. But they don’t agree on the best way forward. “I’m a big supporter of ranked-choice voting,” says Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School. “But I think one of the mistakes they’ve made is that they pursued it from the bottom up when a much better strategy is to do it from the top down.” In other words, start with the presidential race.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. This column is really good. Actually it’s amazing. In less than 650 words, it will explain the success of President Donald Trump -- and also show how to beat him...One of the least well-known rules of thumb is called the “confidence heuristic,” which was initially explored in 1995. The central idea is simple. When people express beliefs to one another, their level of confidence usually reflects how certain they are. It tells us how much information they have. When we are listening to others, we are more likely to be persuaded by people who seem really confident.

...This month, The Intercept published an article about the history of this Israeli legal effort. In the story, Harvard law professor Gabriella Blum explained how, when she was a young lawyer working for the Israel Defense Forces, she and her team sought to give a legal justification for Israel’s burgeoning assassination program.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s view on affirmative action and employee rights to band together could see a dramatic shift under the court’s newly reconstituted conservative majority, legal scholars told Bloomberg Law...But the Trump administration filed a brief in Epic Systems suggesting that the NLRA’s safeguards for collective worker action only covers group conduct related to self-organization or collective bargaining. “That to me is the most serious and real area to think about an even more conservative Supreme Court changing the law,” Sharon Block, executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, told Bloomberg Law. “In a world where 94 percent of the private sector isn’t engaged in activities related to collective bargaining, that would be a devastating development.”

Donald Trump is back in the place he loves best: the campaign trail. The president is logging thousands of miles on Air Force One with the midterm elections approaching Nov. 6. He is fighting to prevent a Democratic takeover of Congress, which would derail much of his legislative agenda and open the door to multiple investigations of his presidency...Democrats say Trump and the Kavanaugh issue are also motivating anti-Trump voters. Many Democratic voters were frustrated to see Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court, despite allegations from Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations. "I think it's more likely to be a plus for the Democrats," said Lawrence Lessig, professor at Harvard Law School, former Democratic presidential candidate, and founder of the organization EqualCitizens.US. "Their anger is more visceral."

An op-ed by Richard Sun `20. Millennials are on the cusp of being the largest generation by population size. Our strength in numbers will give us meaningful influence on the 2018 midterm elections as a voting bloc. However, that influence only works if we do and we show up to vote. But the reality is, is that we don't have a great track record on that front. According to the Census Bureau, only 23 percent of millennials voted in the 2014 midterm elections compared to 39 percent of the population as a whole. That means other people in other age groups are about twice as likely to vote as we are. We are punching well below our weight. There are serious and meaningful consequences to low millennial voter turnout.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Not for the first time, the First Amendment has saved Donald Trump. A federal district court in California was correct Monday to dismiss Stormy Daniels’s libel suit against the president for using the phrase “total con job” to describe her allegation of being threatened by an unknown man in a parking lot. Not only that, the judge was probably right to make Daniels (or her supporters on CrowdJustice) pay Trump’s legal fees. The president’s style of discourse, with its constant insistence that everyone else is a liar, is path-breaking in its coarseness. But it’s now legitimately part of public rhetoric. Denying Daniels’s claim (with ridicule thrown in) doesn’t come close to the kind of libelous speech that is exempt from First Amendment protection.

A couple of liberal Harvard law professors are lending their name to a new campaign to build support for expanding the Supreme Court by four justices in 2021. The campaign, calling itself the 1.20.21 Project and being launched Wednesday, also wants to increase the size of the lower federal courts to counteract what it terms "Republican obstruction, theft and procedural abuse" of the federal judiciary...Harvard professors Mark Tushnet and Laurence Tribe are joining an effort being led by political scientist Aaron Belkin. He was a prominent advocate for repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibited LGBT people from serving openly in the military..."The time is overdue for a seriously considered plan of action by those of us who believe that McConnell Republicans, abetted by and abetting the Trump Movement, have prioritized the expansion of their own power over the safeguarding of American democracy and the protection of the most vulnerable among us," Tribe said.

A long-delayed federal rule intended to protect student loan borrowers who were defrauded by their schools went into effect on Tuesday, after a judge rejected an industry challenge and the Education Department ended efforts to stall it any longer...“We’re really gratified,” said Eileen Connor, the director of litigation at Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which represented several student borrowers who challenged the department’s delay. “These regulations have a lot of critical protections in them for student borrowers and taxpayers.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. In theory, taking a DNA test to reveal your ancestry is optional. But it’s on its way to becoming obligatory. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren announced Monday that she had submitted her DNA to ascertain that she does in fact have Native American ancestry — after President Donald Trump had taunted her by saying he would throw a testing kit at her. For those of us not in national politics, a study in the journal Science last week claimed that within a few years, it will be possible to identify some 90 percent of white Americans by using genetic databases that include their cousins. Even if you don’t take the test yourself, someone has taken it for you.

Months after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a hefty blow to teachers’ unions, a rash of new lawsuits has emerged that could further damage these labor groups...“Everybody knows where the end of this litigation road is, which is the Supreme Court,” said Sharon Block, the executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. “Janus is sadly not the end of the road. This road just got a lot harder.”

More than 100,000 students defrauded by Corinthian Colleges can team up to sue Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for rolling back Obama-era rules that provided full debt forgiveness, a federal judge ruled Monday. U.S. District Judge Sallie Kim certified a nationwide class of approximately 110,000 students who claim the Education Department improperly used their private data to create a new Average Earnings rule that forces students to pay off at least some loan debt. “It’s a recognition by the court that in fact this whole group of people was affected in the same way,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Toby Merrill, with the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

When the Trudeau government agreed to a revised North American free trade deal, the Americans said Canada also agreed to something else: joining Donald Trump's trade war on China...."Although free trade agreements regularly require consultations on a variety of issues, they are typically on more narrow regulatory matters," said Mark Wu, an international trade professor at Harvard Law School who specializes in Chinese trade issues. "Article 32.10 of the USMCA represents a novel and unprecedented approach," he said. And reiterating the six-month notice language in this part of the text is "particularly extraordinary."

An op-ed by Samuel Garcia `19. Julia* is a dreamer under DACA, which means that she is in the United States under DACA protection and is allowed to enroll in college despite her immigration status. She attended high school in McAllen, Texas and is now a student at the University of Texas at Austin. However, her older brother, who was once also in the United States under the protection of DACA, made much different choices than she did...After a few encounters with the police and ensuing arrests, Julia’s family tried to engage him in serious conversations about stopping his drug use, but those proved to be ineffective...their search for help revealed a legal system that is not flexible enough to allow immigrants who are impacted by the disease of addiction to seek help without fear of being removed from the United States.