Media Mentions

An op-ed by Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs. For the past three years, the federal government has painstakingly built a case against the world’s second-largest private employer, McDonald’s, charging the company with illegally harassing and terminating employees who have gone on strike with the “Fight for $15″ campaign. There have been over 150 days of trial and hundreds of exhibits entered into the record. And though McDonald’s has aggressively fought to slow down the trial, attorneys at the National Labor Relations Board have continued to press the case. Until, that is, the Trump administration’s political appointees showed up for work.

Last Tuesday, Amazon, JP Morgan, and Berkshire Hathaway announced that they were coming together to do…something related to healthcare for their 1.2 million employees and could possibly expand to the public...Despite the fact that we have next to zero information about what AmazonCare would actually be, the news still sent healthcare stocks falling and led to optimistic predictions and double-takes from doubters...If Amazon had that authorization, it would be able to use people’s health information to nudge them toward specific products, says I. Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in health law policy and editor of the forthcoming book Big Data, Health Law, and Bioethics.

Have you heard that the Trump administration has told states to go ahead and request approval to add work requirements to Medicaid coverage? And that Indiana and Kentucky have already received approval from the feds to do so? Meanwhile, Utah, Arizona, Kansas, Arkansas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Maine are awaiting their approvals, while Alabama, Idaho, and South Dakota are considering putting in waivers for approval...Nonetheless, notes Phil Waters at Harvard Law's Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, "Even if people living with HIV are formally exempt from the requirement, the complexity involved with tracking and administering an exemption almost guarantees mistakes will be made and folks will end up punished."

As Harvard Law School celebrates its 200th year Professors and student activists gathered at Harvard Law School Wednesday night to debate the school's reported disconnect with public interest. The event, titled “Harvard Law and the Public Interest,” revolved largely around a report titled "Our Bicentennial Crisis" by Law student Pete D. Davis ’12 [`18]. Panelists Randall L. Kennedy, Carol S. Steiker ’82, Duncan Kennedy ’64, and Todd D. Rakoff ’67—all Law School professors—agreed that public interest law is essential for fighting inequality and that the Law School has the power to promote that interest.

State courts could be a new battleground for groups challenging voter maps after the U.S. Supreme Court opted against intervening in a partisan gerrymandering fight in Pennsylvania. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. refused Feb. 5 to set aside a Pennsylvania Supreme Court order striking down the state’s Republican-drawn congressional voting districts. GOP lawmakers had argued the state court usurped the General Assembly’s redistricting power in its Jan. 22 order...Alito’s move here also suggests the high court is hesitant to depart from its recent precedent and “thereby trigger something akin to another Bush v. Gore explosion in which the U.S. Supreme Court appears to be intruding on state sovereignty,” constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe, of Harvard Law School, told Bloomberg Law.

After repeated reports of “vandalism, theft, and destruction of property,” Winthrop House administrators sent multiple emails to House residents condemning the perpetrators and warning of potential consequences...Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. and Stephanie Robinson, Winthrop’s faculty deans, sent a more extensive email to Winthrop residents Monday afternoon, citing other instances of “vandalism” to Standish Hall in addition to those in the third floor bathrooms. According to the email, unidentified perpetrators threw toilet paper out of the hall’s windows to litter the courtyard below and also stole a wetsuit from one of the restrooms.

An op-ed by Susan Crawford. A hundred years ago, it was hard to imagine that domestic electricity could be good for anything beyond powering a few light bulbs in the front hall. That is, until refrigerators, washer-dryers, air-conditioners, and other high-capacity uses for electrical connections became popular and widely available. Today, fiberoptic connections present a similar conundrum. A giant middle class of consumers and producers will eventually be supported by the new businesses and new ways of thriving that very high-capacity networking will make possible.

Experts say a new labor accord granting German metals and electrical workers the right to a 28-hour week reflects a generational shift in how people balance their professional and outside lives...But but but ... don't look for such concessions to reach the U.S. any time soon, suggests Sharon Block, who runs the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. "It shows a growing divide between what is going on here and the rest of the industrialized world," she told Axios.

An interview with Alex Whiting. We begin with the amazingly successful smear campaign the Trump Administration and the Fox News echo chamber has done on fabricating a distraction from the Mueller probe by demonizing the DOJ and FBI to the point that 73% of Republicans believe these institutions that Trump controls are undermining his presidency. As recently as 2015, 84% of Republicans admired the FBI but today only 38% do and we will look into why Republicans have gone along with Trump in destroying one of the GOP’s major assets as the party of law and order.

A national group is focusing on Alaska in a bid to get the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit a 2010 decision that upended how campaigns are run in this country. The court decision paved the way for corporations and unions to make unlimited independent expenditures, and in Alaska, was viewed by state officials as likely rendering several provisions of law prohibiting or limiting certain contributions unconstitutional...Lawrence Lessig, founder of Equal Citizens, said his group believes the commission has sided with “what is a kind of conventional view among lawyers” that his group believes is incorrect. “What we’re trying to seek is clarification that the limits can be enforced,” he said. Equal Citizens zeroed in on Alaska, in part, because the state has a procedure in place that allows citizens “to force the state to explain why it’s not enforcing its own law,” he said.

Even in his hometown of Springfield, Mark Janus is a relatively unknown figure. Janus is a state employee who works in a nondescript office investigating child support claims. He’s also a divorced father of two adult children and he volunteers to help Boy Scouts. Until recently there was little in the 65-year-old man’s life that would indicate he would make history. But on Feb. 26 the United States Supreme Court will hear his case. At stake is whether government workers should, as a condition of employment, be compelled to pay money to a union. “I would say this case has the potential to be a landmark case,” Harvard University Law Professor Benjamin Sachs told Illinois Times. “Essentially, if the court rules in Mr. Janus’ favor, it would put every government worker in the United States under a right-to-work regime.”

Despite a global brand as a reckless Twitter addict and loudmouth, Donald Trump has a history of behaving himself in formal legal settings. Before he was president, the real estate heir was deposed dozens of times, mostly in various lawsuits related to his businesses, which have been accused of discriminating against black people, screwing over renters, and stiffing contractors. When pressed to tell the truth under penalty of perjury in formal depositions, Trump has tended to provide something resembling it...For some insight into how presidents have been compelled to testify in the past, what a Supreme Court ruling on a Trump subpoena might look like, and how the thorny question of his testimony is as much a political question as a legal one, I called up Noah Feldman, a legal historian at Harvard Law School.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. In the past, a president under investigation couldn’t afford to plead the Fifth Amendment. While it’s often a good strategy in a court of law -- especially since it can’t be used to infer guilt -- the court of public opinion is a different matter. What president would want to appear to be hiding guilt behind a legal technicality? All bets are off in the Donald Trump era. The president’s lawyers have reportedly advised him not to cooperate with any request from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team to question him. So far, Mueller has not forced the issue with a subpoena, but that could change in the coming days or weeks.

Paying union dues and baking a wedding cake may not seem like classic examples of free speech—except perhaps at the Supreme Court. This year, the high court is poised to announce its most significant expansion of the 1st Amendment since the Citizens United decision in 2010, which struck down laws that limited campaign spending by corporations, unions and the very wealthy...Harvard law professor Charles Fried, the U.S. solicitor general under President Reagan, filed a brief in the union case questioning how the court could say the 1st Amendment protects public employees from paying a union fee, but not for speaking out about problems in an agency.

The Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School has partnered with the Thailand Institute of Justice to launch workshops focused on strengthening the rule of law and sustainable development around the world. The most recent collaboration, held in Bangkok last month, comprised three sessions designed for faculty and scholars titled “TIJ Workshop for Emerging Leaders on the Rule of Law and Policy,” “IGLP Workshop for Scholars,” and “Student Workshop for Next-Gen Global Leaders.”...Law School professor David W. Kennedy, who serves as the director of the Institute for Global Law and Policy, said both institutes—at Harvard and in Thailand—bring something to the table in developing legal education around the world. “They [TIJ] offer their own programs and workshops for emerging leaders from the region and we [IGLP] provide them with some of the curriculum and offer them some of our faculty to help them implement their workshops,” Kennedy said.

Steve Wynn resigned yesterday as the C.E.O. of Wynn Resorts after allegations of sexual misconduct. Those accusations have created an important test for corporate America. In recent months, many powerful men have had to step down from senior positions as they have faced accusations of sexual harassment, but none were the head of a public company like Mr. Wynn. How would the board, shareholders, regulators, customers and unions react?...In an email exchange with me, Lucian Bebchuk, a Harvard law professor and an expert in corporate governance, asked why the board did not suspend Mr. Wynn from his position pending the investigation, or demand that he not interact with Wynn Resorts employees, a step that would have limited his ability to influence the board investigation. In fact, the board, in its statement, sounded somewhat saddened by Mr. Wynn’s departure, saying it had “reluctantly” accepted his resignation.

As Congress moves to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, University President Drew G. Faust raised concerns about the bill’s impact on federal financial aid at a Faculty meeting Tuesday evening...Faust told Faculty members that the Act would reduce student aid and support for work study...Kenneth H. Lafler, an assistant dean for student financial services at the Law School, said he thinks the changes to the Higher Education Act would have a relatively limited effect on Law School students, but would impact graduate students outside of Harvard. The Law School has its own loan repayment program, the Low Income Protection Plan, that is independent of federal loan forgiveness. Lafler said 681 graduates were enrolled in LIPP in last year. “Most law schools around the country changed the way they provide loan assistance to integrate with the public service loan forgiveness program. So, the cancellation of that program would be a significant change for those schools, because they’re really dependent on that program,” Lafler said.

Students, professors, and legal experts discussed the direction the nation should take following the national spotlight on the #MeToo movement at a Tuesday evening panel...Panelists included Law School Professor Diane Rosenfeld, Massachusetts Legislative Aide Preyel Patel, University of Massachusetts-Boston Professor J. Shoshanna Ehrlich, and Know Your IX Policy and Advocacy Coordinator Sejal Singh [`20]...A central theme in the panelists’ responses was the call for intersectionality within the movement, and advocacy for marginalized groups. “I can’t speak for a trans woman, but I can hold a space for her,” Rosenfeld said. Panelists also called for individuals to not shy away from difficult conversations with their peers.

An op-ed by Jack Goldsmith. The Nunes memo was thoroughly debunked less than 12 hours after its publication. The sources of this debunking transcended politics, and ranged from The Intercept and Marcy Wheeler to Paul Rosenzweig and David French. I want to focus here on two other writings related to the memo: The cover letter to the release of the Nunes memo written by White House Counsel Donald McGahn, and President Trump’s Friday morning tweet.

The world may have turned its attention to rampant sexual harassment and assault in 2017, but activists on college campuses have waged this battle for decades. Their work has not only foretold today’s Me Too movement but has also laid the foundation for cultural changes necessary to curb workplace harassment. Harvard-trained lawyer Diane Rosenfeld is at the heart of this movement. Her work focuses on a single question: How do we create a culture of sexual respect on, and beyond, college campuses?...In an interview with Quartz, Rosenfeld spoke about strong female alliances, how teaching breathed new life into her career, and the wonders of “smooth aggressiveness.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The Democrats are right to press for the release of their own House Intelligence Committee memo to counteract the Republican memo about the Russia investigation that was released to great fanfare last week. But the truth is, it doesn’t much matter what the Democrats’ memo says. President Donald Trump has already won this round, even though the Republican memo wasn’t earth-shaking. Trump and the House Republicans have only one goal, which is to refocus the whole conversation around special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation on the issue of partisanship, not the Trump campaign’s conduct.