Media Mentions

The first six agenda items for next month’s Vanguard shareholder meeting cover riveting topics such as the appointment of trustees, service agreements, and the investment objectives of certain index funds. The seventh and final item concerns genocide. That got serious in a hurry. A group of activists is asking Vanguard to adopt a new policy to avoid buying stock in companies that “substantially contribute to genocide or crimes against humanity.”...“This meeting and this resolution comes at a unique moment,” said Stephen Davis, associate director of Harvard Law School’s Programs on Corporate Governance and Institutional Investors. Vanguard and its competitors “have really begun to take environmental, social, and governance issues seriously as investment risks.”

The role of general counsel has evolved to the point now where they have “the access, influence, power and resources” to advance social justice causes, Kim Rivera, chief legal officer and general counsel of HP Inc., said Friday at a Harvard Law School bicentennial event. But that wasn’t always the case...During a panel discussion titled “In-House Revolution,” Rivera and general counsels Horacio Gutierrez of Spotify, Deirdre Stanley of Thomson Reuters and Laura Stein of The Clorox Co., said encouraging their legal teams and the law firms with whom they work to get involved in social justice issues is “the right thing to do.”

We’re treated to fresh reports nearly every day about how Facebook Inc.’s efforts to keep bad actors from abusing its platform fall short...While the current Congress is loath to mint new regulations, that hasn’t stopped Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.), Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) and Mark Warner (D., Va.) from proposing the Honest Ads Act, which would force internet companies to tell users who funded political ads...The new bill is an obvious way to bring the tech giants in line with other media, with whom they clearly now compete, says Yochai Benkler, a Harvard Law School professor and co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

There are 194 Democrats in the House, and another 46 Democrats in the Senate. But since Donald Trump took office, 22 state attorneys general have played among the most pivotal roles slowing and stopping the march of the Trump agenda. Nineteen state AGs sued to stop the administration from withholding Obamacare subsidies from states, 16 to halt the rollback of environmental regulations, and 20 to reverse its decision to rescind a program that had protected young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children from deportation..."The more AGs act like congressmen, the more they'll be treated like congressmen," says James Tierney, a former Democratic attorney general of Maine and a lecturer at Harvard Law School who's carved a niche consulting both Republican and Democratic AGs and studying the office he once held. "It's endangering the very function of attorney general."

...More than 400,000 Americans die annually in part because of avoidable medical errors, according to a 2013 estimate published in the Journal of Patient Safety. In 2008, the most recent year studied, medical errors cost the country $19.5 billion, most of which was spent on extra care and medication, according to another report. If a problem such as Thompson's stemmed from negligence, a malpractice lawsuit may be an option. But lawyers who collect only when there's a settlement or a victory may not take on a case unless it's exceptionally clear that the doctor or hospital was at fault. That creates a Catch-22, said John Goldberg, a professor at Harvard Law School and an expert in tort law. "We'll never know if something has happened because of malpractice," he said, "because it's not financially viable to bring a lawsuit." That leaves the patient responsible for extra costs.

Harvard Law School has produced 20 Supreme Court justices in its storied history and six of them traveled to Boston on Thursday for a lively and at times buoyant celebration.It wasn't lost on Chief Justice John Roberts that a majority of the current court hails from one elite law school."A minority of my colleagues send their regrets," Roberts joked to the audience.The Chief was joined on stage by Justices Anthony Kennedy ('61), Stephen Breyer ('64), Elena Kagan ('86), Neil Gorsuch ('91) as well as retired Justice David Souter ('66).Between them, they have covered a four-decade span at the school and they had some stories to tell...John F. Manning, the Dean of the School, posed questions to the group, and saved a lightning round for the end that featured everything from Gorsuch's revelation about a former pet goat named "Nibbles," to an unfortunate summer job when a youthful Justice Kennedy mistakenly nailed his work glove to a post.

This week on Freak Out And Carry On, recorded live in front of an audience at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ron Suskind and Heather Cox Richardson talk with Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig. They discuss reforming the electoral college, the gerrymandering case in front of the Supreme Court, and how to get money out of politics. They look back on the four presidents who won the electoral college but lost the popular vote and detail the 2000 Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore.

Six members of the Supreme Court—one former and five current Justices—kicked off a marquee event of the Law School’s year-long bicentennial celebrations Thursday in Sanders Theatre. The Justices, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. ’76 and former Law School dean Elena Kagan, all attended the Law School as students and returned for the evening. The event, billed “HLS in the World,” featured remarks and a question and answer session between the Justices and current Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82. Manning, who introduced the Justices, spoke about the school’s outsized presence on the Court and in other high-profile institutions. “Our alumni are leaders in area after area, field after field, year after year, and now we can say century after century,” Manning said.

When a law school has educated one of every six justices to ever serve on the Supreme Court, and its alums make up a majority of the current court, a certain amount of gasconade — to use a Harvard word — is to be expected. So the audience was appreciative Thursday when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took the stage at Harvard Law School with one former and four current Supreme Court justices and announced: “A minority of my colleagues send their regrets.” The boastful gathering of justices marked the 200th anniversary of the law school: HLS in the World—The Harvard Bicentennial is the rather grand name of the summit...In a “lightning round” of questions, [John] Manning brought up little-known facts about the justices: Kennedy once worked on oil rigs in Canada and Louisiana. Roberts had a summer job in the steel mills. Souter was injured at Harvard in a mock duel, when his friend’s saber slashed his hand.

...Five current and one former justice took part in the unusual public discussion at Sanders Theatre to mark the law school’s bicentennial. Court observers said such a conversation among six justices was unprecedented in recent memory. The discussion showcased the justices in a less formal and often jovial setting, as they laughed frequently and talked about their favorite professors and the challenges of serving on the nation’s highest court. “Nothing prepares you for the Supreme Court,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer told the audience of students, professors, and alumni, recalling that Justice Harry Blackmun once told him, “You’re going to find this an unusual experience.”

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Just a few days after Richard Thaler won the Nobel Prize in economics earlier this month, the U.K.’s Behavioural Insights Team released its annual report. What good timing! Thaler helped inspire the creation of the Behavioural Insights Team in 2010, not only with his academic work, but also by numerous (and continuing) discussions with the team.

An op-ed by Susan Crawford. Last week, San Francisco became the first major city in America to pledge to connect all of its homes and businesses to a fiber optic network. I urge you to read that sentence again. It’s a ray of light. In an era of short-term, deeply partisan do-nothing-ism, the city's straightforward, deeply practical determination shines. Americans, it turns out, are capable of great things—even if only at the city level these days.

Several justices on the nation's highest court are heading to Massachusetts to celebrate the bicentennial of Harvard Law School. Chief Justice John Roberts will be joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and retired Justice David Souter at Thursday's event on campus...Roberts is expected to give remarks. Harvard Law School Dean John Manning will then lead a conversation with the justices...Other speakers on Friday include former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.

Dozens of students gathered Wednesday to discuss a lawsuit challenging Harvard’s affirmative action admissions policy and explore equity in education more broadly...K. Sabeel Rahman, a visiting professor at the Law School, was the event's keynote speaker. In his introduction, Rahman highlighted the debate over affirmative action policies as “just a small slice” of the larger puzzle of diversity in America. “If we are trying to think about how we make a more inclusive, broader-opportunity society, affirmative action is part of that story,” Rahman said, “But it’s a relatively small part of that story, relative to the scale of the problem.”

Many companies collect metrics on employee training, fatalities, and other aspects of so-called human capital, but they often don’t report that information publicly, according to an Oct. 23 study from Harvard Law School. The study said institutional investors that are increasingly interested in this data could use its findings as a road map for seeking disclosure on topics that companies are already tracking...“Companies recognize this stuff is important and it’s important enough to collect information about it,” Larry Beeferman, who directs the school’s Pensions and Capital Stewardship Project, told Bloomberg Law. “The issue is whether they publicly report it or not.”

In a rare joint venture, six U.S. Supreme Court justices who graduated from Harvard Law School will return to the campus Thursday to join the law school’s bicentennial celebration...The six alums—Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and retired Justice David Souter—will participate in a conversation with the law school’s dean, John Manning, in Sanders Theatre...The theme of the bicentennial celebration is Harvard Law School in the World...Among the programs is a reargument Friday of the landmark 1803 case, Marbury v. Madison, that established the power of the federal judiciary to strike down unconstitutional acts of Congress. Harvard Law’s Laurence Tribe and former Harvard Law professor and Stanford Law dean Kathleen Sullivan of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan will face off.

The N.A.A.C.P. on Tuesday warned African-Americans to exercise caution when traveling on American Airlines, citing a pattern of “disrespectful” and “discriminatory” behavior from the company. The organization’s warning came in the form of a travel advisory that described four recent times when black passengers were said to have been discriminated against...Ms. [Briana] Williams [`18] said that she believed the pilot’s actions were racially motivated based on the language he used with her, particularly since he referred to her as “belligerent” and “a threat” even as she was holding her infant daughter. She called for the airline to grant pilots less discretion, saying that it would make it harder for their biases to affect passengers. “Because they’re allowed to do whatever they want to, then if a pilot does have racist or misogynist or homophobic characteristics, then they’re able to utilize them to further oppress members of disenfranchised groups,” she said.

An op-ed by Susan Crawford. Last week, San Francisco became the first major city in America to pledge to connect all of its homes and businesses to a fiber optic network. I urge you to read that sentence again. It’s a ray of light. In an era of short-term, deeply partisan do-nothing-ism, the city's straightforward, deeply practical determination shines. Americans, it turns out, are capable of great things—even if only at the city level these days.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The most important constitutional amendment of 2017 isn’t to the constitution of a country: It’s the amendment approved Tuesday to the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, which enshrines President Xi Jinping’s “philosophy” alongside the thought of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Talk about a sign of the times. Around the world, from Poland to Spain to Turkey, Israel, India and the U.S., constitutional democracy is undergoing a stress test. Buffeted by the forces of nationalism and populism, democratic institutions are struggling.

Harvard Law School is set to conduct a mental health survey of its students in November, part of a trend in which legal educators are playing a larger role in the well-being of their J.D.-hopefuls...“We recognize it as a first step in not only helping our students, but hoping to effectuate some change in reporting in the legal and professional community,” said Amanda Lee [`18], vice president of Harvard Law’s student government...Harvard law dean of students Marcia Sells said that the school on Nov. 1 would email a link to the online survey to just over 1,800 law students and give them about three weeks to respond...“What are the things we can do to provide more support or to understand when those points of challenge for students happen,” Sells said. “What can we do to support them?”...Student Government President Adrian Perkins [`18] said that he and Lee ran for their positions on a platform that included putting students first by creating a healthy environment at school. “The student body absolutely has been one of our priorities,” Perkins said.

Nathaniel A. Raymond, director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, called for the refocusing of humanitarian relief from technology and data science back to the issue of human rights in a lecture at the Law School Tuesday...Ying Li [LL.M. `18], a student at the Law School who attended the talk, reflected afterwards about the recent popularization of digital technology in humanitarian work. “When I learned international humanitarian law, we covered how to coordinate all the resources from all the stakeholders, private and public, to better respond to crises," she said. "But back then, in 2013, we didn’t touch upon digital philanthropy." Suchana Seth, a visiting fellow at the Berkman Klein Center, echoed similar thoughts on the role of technology in her work. “As a data scientist and as a part of communities like that, I do see the transformative power of tech,” Seth said.