Media Mentions

An op-ed by Hal Scott. All 34 of the largest banks in the United States, representing over 75 percent of U.S. banking assets, recently passed the Federal Reserve Board's annual stress tests for the first time since the tests were created in 2011. However, celebration is very premature. The Fed's stress tests require banks to have sufficient capital to withstand levels of losses greater than the losses they suffered in the 2008 crisis. This latest test, based on economic assumptions released in February 2017, assumed that quarterly GDP growth would fall by 10.6 percent and the unemployment rate would hit 10 percent by mid-2017. In actuality, GDP is growing at 2 percent annually and the unemployment rate is under 5 percent.

The Considine Family Foundation has endowed a Harvard Law School professorship in honor of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin G. Scalia, the school announced Friday. Scalia, who died last February, graduated magna cum laude from the Law School in 1960 and served as an editor of the Law Review. As an associate justice of the Supreme Court, he was known for his strict interpretations of the Constitution. His family pledged to donate a collection of his papers in March, and those papers will become a part of the Law School library’s collection.

The recent decision by a federal appeals court rejecting a challenge to Connecticut's solicitation for renewable energy has clarified the authority of states to favor certain types of generation resources over others. "The opinion is particularly significant because it is the first federal court decision to discuss the scope of the Supreme Court's 2016 Hughes decision," said Ari Peskoe, senior fellow in electricity law at Harvard Law School's Environmental Policy Initiative. Peskoe was referring to an April 2016 Supreme Court decision in the case of Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing LLC where the court unanimously struck down an effort by Maryland to promote new gas-fired generation. The court said the state strayed into federal regulators' exclusive jurisdiction over wholesale electricity markets.

It was 25 years ago this week that the Supreme Court found a South Carolina beach-erosion regulation amounted to a taking of private property. Property rights advocates hailed the 6-2 decision as a milestone in the fight against regulatory overreach, saying it showed that government couldn't use rules to take land without paying for it. But some legal scholars who have studied the effects of Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council say its impact hasn't been so sweeping. "It was of significance symbolically, but it didn't really prove when the rubber hit the road to lead to many takings findings, and actually might have ironically led to fewer," said Richard Lazarus, a professor at Harvard Law School.

I find the dates on food labels highly confusing. Why are there “sell by,” “display until,” “best before” and “use by” dates?...To understand this, Emily M. Broad Leib—Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Director of Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, and Deputy Director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation—believes consumers should first understand that none of these labels are regulated by federal law...Given there’s no federal regulation, consumers should be wary that these labels don’t necessarily offer a safe-to-eat date. “The reason companies are including dates at all comes from a valid business purpose in wanting consumers to eat food while the flavor is best,” said the legal expert.

Massachusetts recognizes the sacrifices of those who have been deployed in the military since 9/11 with a Welcome Home Bonus. It's a grant of up to $1,000 each time a service member serves honorably in Iraq or Afghanistan, and $500 to each service member who serves at least six months on active duty. But thousands of veterans have not received this bonus because of less-than-honorable discharges...Among them is Jeffrey Machado. He's one of two Massachusetts veterans now suing state Treasurer Deb Goldberg, saying that they were unjustly denied their bonuses after serving in Afghanistan...Dana Montalto, an attorney with Harvard Law School's Veterans Legal Clinic, is representing Machado and another Afghanistan veteran from Massachusetts suing for his bonus. "People can get a less-than-honorable discharge for a whole range of reasons, from really minor misconduct to things that are more serious," Montalto explained.

Two Army veterans, with the help of Harvard Law School, filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday against the Massachusetts treasury, claiming it was unrightfully denying “welcome home” bonuses to them and other veterans with other-than-honorable discharges...“Both of these members deployed and were honorably discharged and re-enlisted. From a plain reading of the statute, they should be eligible,” said Dana Montalto, the senior fellow at Harvard Law School’s Veterans Legal Clinic working on the case.

It’s hard to find defenders of impeachment—or at least, it’s hard to find good faith, consistent defenders of impeachment...Recent debates on this topic aren’t a symptom of a newly polarized age, and they aren’t a sign of national decline, the Harvard legal scholar (and former Obama adviser) Cass Sunstein said Wednesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic. “The very word impeachment sounds kind of unfamiliar and British and dusty,” he quipped, but in fact, impeachment is a fundamental part of the American project, spanning back to the Declaration of Independence, which stands as articles of impeachment for King George.

When the justices took their chairs last October, Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in for the presidency and Antonin Scalia’s seat seemed destined for a jurist who would anchor a liberal Supreme Court majority for the first time in almost five decades. Nine months later, as the justices wrapped up a largely uncontentious term, Neil Gorsuch, Donald Trump’s pick for Mr Scalia’s seat, seems poised to cement the court’s conservative tilt for the foreseeable future... In the eyes of Ian Samuel of Harvard Law School, who clerked for Scalia, the new justice “seems to combine Justice Thomas’s views with Scalia’s writing skill and assertiveness."

An op-ed by Jack Goldsmith. Many are debating the significance of today’s Per Curiam Supreme Court opinion that granted the government’s petitions for certiorari and its stay applications in part. Did the Court signal that it would uphold most elements of the decisions below, as some argued? Did it signal the opposite—that it would reverse most elements of the appellate court rulings? Will the case be moot by the fall? I think it is very hard to predict how the Court will decide the case next Term, except perhaps to say that if it reaches the merits, the claims of foreign nationals who lack a relevant relationship with a person or entity in the United States aren’t looking so good.

An interview with Mihir Desai. Does the world of finance and markets needs a good infusion of humanity? One book examines how how a wider reading of the humanities can help you understand finance and at the same time how finance can help you understand the human condition. It’s by economist and Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai. He joined Marketplace Morning Report host David Brancaccio to discuss his latest book, "The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return."

An op-ed by Philip Heymann. Denying that there was any evidence of his committing an obstruction of justice, President Trump has issued thinly veiled threats to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Like my mentor 45 years ago at Watergate, Archibald Cox, Mueller must take the Department of Justice investigation he heads wherever the relevant facts lead. Like Attorney General Elliot Richardson, Rod Rosenstein is right that, as deputy attorney general, he cannot agree to terminate the special counsel’s investigation without good reason simply because the continuing investigation makes the president uncomfortable or nervous.

An interview with Scott Michelman. A shocking lawsuit accuses the Washington, D.C., police of using sexual abuse as a form of punishment targeting people arrested during protests against President Donald Trump’s inauguration. A complaint by four plaintiffs charges officers stripped them, grabbed their genitalia and inserted fingers into their anuses while other officers laughed. We speak with Scott Michelman, a senior attorney at the ACLU of the District of Columbia and lecturer at Harvard Law School.

...Allco Financial, an affiliate of developer Allco Renewable Energy, was rebuffed twice by a federal court that ruled the company did not have the legal standing to bring the case. But Allco reframed its case and won an injunction in district court barring Connecticut from awarding contracts stemming from its renewable energy solicitation. The injunction was later lifted, but Allco appealed the district court ruling to the appeals court. The appeals court has now upheld the district court ruling. “The opinion is particularly significant because it is the first federal court decision to discuss the scope of the Supreme Court’s 2016 Hughes decision,” said Ari Peskoe, senior fellow in electricity law at Harvard Law School's Environmental Policy Initiative and manager of the State Power Project website.

Warning: Watching TV drug ads may put you to sleep. That’s no surprise to many of us who’ve heard about the countless ways prescription drugs can harm us. But now, the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether bombarding consumers with every last potential side effect might be overkill. The agency, which approves prescription drugs and oversees how they’re marketed, is proposing a new study to look at whether patients are being “over-warned” to the point that they stop paying attention. “You don’t even bat an eyelash that this product could kill you, which is kind of an indicator of how ubiquitous it is,” said Holly Fernandez Lynch, a bioethicist at Harvard Law School.

The Trump administration's travel restrictions blocking foreigners from six Muslim-majority countries and refugees fleeing persecution will take effect Thursday, following the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this week to temporarily uphold portions of the ban...The high court's ruling allowed President Donald Trump to place a 90-day ban on foreign travelers from six countries — Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen — as well as a 120-day ban on refugees fleeing persecution from any country when they have no "bona fide relationship" with an entity or person in the United States...Yet Gerald Neuman, co-director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School said whether relatives outside of an immediate family, for example, aunts and cousins, will be allowed to enter is an outstanding question. “I think there’s going to be a gray area and we’ll see how much disagreement there is about it and how people respond to it,” he said.

An op-ed by Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker. Two terms ago in Glossip v. Gross, Justice Stephen Breyer, dissenting from the Supreme Court’s rejection of a lethal-injection challenge, set forth a comprehensive case against the American death penalty, calling for the court to revisit the question of its basic constitutionality. Over the past 40 years, several justices have questioned the constitutional viability of the death penalty, but Breyer’s dissent seemed more significant because it came at a time when the death penalty appeared newly vulnerable.

An interview with Nancy Gertner. The U.S. Supreme Court said most of President Trump's controversial travel ban could go into effect until the high court takes up the case in the fall. So it's at least a partial and temporary victory for the president to finally make good on a major campaign promise.

...If the Supreme Court’s compromise decision Monday on the travel ban grabbed the headlines on the court’s final day, those who study the court were at least as focused on what they could learn about the 49-year-old Coloradan chosen by Trump to fill the seat of the late Antonin Scalia. The bottom line, according to most accounts, is that Gorsuch is a Scalia 2.0, perhaps further to the right...“He’s asserted himself in a way that is really without precedent for a justice in the modern court,” said Ian Samuel, a former Scalia clerk who teaches at Harvard Law School.

This month the Dutch government debated a proposal to suspend all shareholder rights for a year in the event of an unsolicited takeover bid. This move, which we view as a “backwards step”, is the latest in a salvo of proposals to curb engaged investors. But it is also part of a broader debate about the perceived short-termism in markets, the weaknesses in corporate governance and the role of activists which policymakers, boardrooms and investors wrestle with...So who is going to solve this? Rather than passing new laws, we should welcome activist and engaged investors which can be an important catalyst for change. The best academic study on activism suggests activists are not myopic. Harvard’s Lucian Bebchuk and colleagues looked at 2000 interventions by activists which showed that five years after activist intervention, their operating performance was materially improved.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. The executive branch under President Donald Trump is not issuing a lot of new regulations, but congressional Republicans, joined by some Democrats, have been thinking seriously about regulatory reform. They've produced an intelligent, constructive, complex, imperfect bill – the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017 – that deserves careful attention.