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  • Analysis: Trump’s ‘America First’ Vision Could Upend Postwar Consensus

    February 2, 2017

    In his first two weeks in office, President Donald Trump's "America First" pledge has proven more than an idle slogan. In word and deed, the White House has signaled an aggressive unilateral stance toward the world that's antagonized allies abroad and divided supporters at home..."Treating the system like its optional, or that it doesn't have any important function at the moment, is more dangerous than trying to destroy it deliberately," Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of international affairs at Princeton University [and visiting professor at HLS], said. "He doesn't use the international system to signal to others 'Hey, this is serious, this is not so serious,' so he becomes extremely unpredictable on the world scene."

  • Report: Populist leaders often add to corruption they vow to remove from governments

    February 2, 2017

    From the Philippines to Britain, 2016 was a year of political shake-ups, with voters in several countries across the globe ushering populist candidates or policies into office to combat inequality and "politics as usual," often highlighting corruption in the "insider" system they opposed. But in the push to reform their countries, such politicians can play a role in further corrupting government offices, a new report cautions, leading to continued social disparities and decreased transparency...“We’re seeing a wave of voter anger sweeping across a lot of democratic systems,” Kim Lane Scheppele, a sociology and international affairs professor at Princeton University [and visiting HLS professor], tells the Monitor. “Sometimes they’re upset with corruption, sometimes it’s deadlock, sometimes the sense that whoever they vote for, nothing changes. Then, they become willing to vote for the appeals of these populist leaders who say, ‘I am the state, I am your voice.’ ”

  • The Flight 216 Selection

    February 2, 2017

    An op-ed by Adrian Vermeule. Judge Neil Gorsuch is a walking, talking Hollywood writer's pitch: “I've got it! Antonin Scalia meets Jimmy Stewart!” Gorsuch, who famously resembles Stewart, complete with lanky charm, also has the intelligence, skills, and pen of a worthy successor to Scalia. His opinions are clear, amusing, pointed, and legally acute. Scalia could reach greater heights of prose style, sometimes with an acid brilliance that Gorsuch is perhaps too courtly to employ. On the other hand, lower-court judging is a cramped stage, and a Justice Gorsuch would have more scope to unfurl his indisputable talents.

  • Gorsuch forecast: A more serene Supreme

    February 2, 2017

    Much of the response to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch for the Supreme Court has centered on the 1991 Harvard Law School grad’s similarity to the justice he would replace, Antonin Scalia, who died last year. But the two diverge in at least one important respect, says Charles Fried, the Beneficial Professor of Law. “You won’t get any of the personalized attacks that Scalia was famous for,” said Fried. “He [Gorsuch] is not sarcastic and he is certainly not further to the right than Scalia was … his manner is much less aggressive and much more respectful of the people he disagrees with.”...Jane Nitze, J.D.’08, Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at HLS, clerked for Gorsuch from 2008 to 2009, getting to know both his judicial philosophy and his character. “What struck me was his real, genuine reverence for the Constitution and the rule of law that came through on a daily basis,” said Nitze...For Richard Lazarus, Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law, Gorsuch was “the single most qualified person” on Trump’s list of 21 potential nominees, a judge “who is smart and has integrity.”

  • Democrats face a tough battle on Gorsuch

    February 2, 2017

    Revealing a scary judicial wolf under Mr. Nice Guy robes won’t be easy....Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge and Harvard Law School professor, said she fears Gorsuch will get the same treatment that Chief Justice John Roberts got during his confirmation hearings. She said his “ostensible nice demeanor caused the Democrats to pull their punches.” With Gorsuch, said Gertner, Democrats “need to stand up and do a searching confirmation process’’ — not just oppose, as Republicans did when they refused to hold hearings for Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the seat.

  • Gorsuch Could (But Might Not) Spell Trouble for Environmental Rules

    February 2, 2017

    U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch has opposed giving broad deference to the EPA and other federal agencies during a decade on the federal bench, but his track record also indicates a reluctance to support “heavy-handed rollbacks” of Obama-era environmental rules, legal experts told Bloomberg BNA...And if confirmed, Gorsuch could also—if consistent in his reasonings—upend regulations promulgated by the Trump administration, Harvard Law School professor Richard J. Lazarus told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail. “The challenge … is to have judges who in fact apply the doctrine in an even-handed way even when it goes against the policies they might personally favor or be favored by those who have nominated them to the Court,” Lazarus said...The cases in which he has made decisions on environmental or public lands issues are really more about his administrative law views, Harvard Law School professor Jody Freeman told Bloomberg BNA. “He seems to come down on both sides depending on the particulars of the case.”

  • Red State, Blue City

    February 2, 2017

    The United States now has its most metropolitan president in recent memory: a Queens-bred, skyscraper-building, apartment-dwelling Manhattanite. Yet it was rural America that carried Donald Trump to victory; the president got trounced in cities...American cities seem to be cleaving from the rest of the country, and the temptation for liberals is to try to embrace that trend...Some states delegate certain powers to cities, but states remain the higher authority, even if city dwellers don’t realize it. “Most people think, We have an election here, we elect a mayor and our city council, we organize our democracy—we should have a right to control our own city in our own way,” says Gerald Frug, a Harvard Law professor and an expert on local government. “You go to any place in America and ask, ‘Do you think this city can control its own destiny?’ ‘Of course it can!’ The popular conception of what cities do runs in direct conflict with the legal reality.”

  • A Law School Resume That Made the Cut

    February 2, 2017

    When applying to law school, chances are good the competition will be strong students with impressive accomplishments. The challenge of the admissions process is to stand out. One way to distinguish yourself is to craft an exceptional resume that tells your story in an eloquent way...Cameron Clark, a second-year student at Harvard Law School, provided U.S. News with a copy of the resume he used in his successful application. He used colorful wording in the resume to elicit interest from admissions officers and spark a conversation with his law school interviewer. Here is an annotated copy of Clark's resume, with his comments explaining its structure and feedback from experts about its pluses and minuses.

  • Surviving The Next Housing-Market Hurricane

    February 2, 2017

    An op-ed by Mark Roe...Since the financial crisis, regulators in the United States and elsewhere have been preparing banks to weather a banking crisis like that of 2008 and 2009. They are now justifiably more confident that a troubled bank can be restructured effectively, and that depositors and other short-term creditors would not trigger a collapse by hastily withdrawing their money. Long-term creditors, they are confident, would take the hit. But disturbing evidence has emerged suggesting that, overall, the global financial system is no safer today than it was in 2007. When the 2008 global financial crisis erupted, America’s red-hot housing market had been operating as a money market for years. Companies’ chief financial officers (and others with excess, temporary cash) were using their cash to purchase securities backed by pools of mortgages, which they would sell back to the bank the following day, reaping attractive interest gains. This overnight market was – and remains – huge, rivaling the size of the entire deposit-based banking system.

  • Reader Questions Answered on Trump’s Travel Ban

    February 2, 2017

    ...But, as Gerald Neuman — law professor and co-director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School — points out, that’s just one piece of the puzzle. The Immigration and Nationality Act has been updated since then, and the courts have long held that the Constitution applies to immigration matters, including the Establishment Clause (which prevents discrimination on the basis of religion) and the Equal Protection Clause (which guarantees the equal protection of law to all)...Some scholars argue the president’s order also violates the Constitution. In weighing that question, “it’s helpful to view the order in the context of the history that led up to it,” said Neuman, the Harvard Law School professor. “What the president said about the policies he wanted to adopt before the fact; the fact that there is no new emergency or change of circumstances that require such a change; the fact that procedures by which this were adopted were not the normal procedures by which executive orders are adopted; and the enormous contrast in magnitude between the number of people who are affected by this change and the size of the problem it’s allegedly dealing with.”

  • Laurence Tribe: Is Donald Trump Leading Us to a Constitutional Crisis? (audio)

    February 2, 2017

    Laurence Tribe a Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School explains the reasons for the foreign emoluments clause. The lawsuit against the Trump Administration focusing on the emoluments clause. The favors Trump receives from abroad and why that is an ongoing constitutional violation. What happens when the President does not follow the law? Why discriminating on the basis of religion is unconstitutional. The many ways the Muslim ban is unconstitutional. At what point are we in a constitutional crisis? Is impeachment the only answer.

  • Immigration Experts Counsel Affiliates Impacted by Trump Order

    February 2, 2017

    Affiliates from across Harvard affected by President Donald Trump’s immigration order voiced concerns and posed questions to University administrators and staff at a town hall event Wednesday...Martin and Jason M. Corral, an immigration attorney, fielded questions from the audience. Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinic recently hired Corral to offer legal counsel to those impacted by Trump’s immigration policies—a part of a series of steps Faust laid out in November to bolster resources for Harvard affiliates...“We’ll try to be as transparent as possible, but at the same time respect individuals and preserve confidentiality,” Corral said when asked about whether the University would communicate with the Harvard community about the status of affected individuals. Corral offered up his business card and pledged to continue working with clients even after they graduate.

  • A Progressive Guide to Deploying Trump Outrage

    February 1, 2017

    An op-ed by Noah Feldman. It’s been deeply heartening to see the intensity and enthusiasm of the resistance to President Donald Trump’s executive order freezing immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. But precisely the intensity of the effort, complete with all-night lawyers at major airports, poses a challenge: Generating -- and maintaining -- a heightened sense of panic and outrage at every Trump policy move will be unsustainable over four years. If political energy isn’t expended wisely, it will dissipate quickly, and opposition will gradually fade. What’s needed is a guideline to know when to declare that the sky is falling -- and when to express measured, reasoned disagreement with policies that progressives consider mistaken.

  • Neil Gorsuch: Stellar résumé and Scalia-like legal philosophy

    February 1, 2017

    When Donald Trump released his first list of 11 potential Supreme Court nominees last May, many legal scholars were surprised Neil Gorsuch did not make the cut. They needn’t have worried...Harvard Law School lecturer Jane Nitze recalls interviewing with Gorsuch in 2007 for a law clerk's position and "coming away with an impression that this is not just an incredibly brilliant person, but he is just the nicest guy out there" -- someone who takes his former law clerks on annual skip trips in the Colorado mountains.

  • Neil Gorsuch, Elite Conservative

    February 1, 2017

    An op-ed by Noah Feldman. “Was that a surprise?” asked President Donald Trump on Tuesday night after the pseudo-drama of the reality-show-style bakeoff between two finalists whittled down from a list of 21. Well, no. Trump’s Supreme Court pick was resoundingly predictable. I say that simply because I did predict the selection of Judge Neil Gorsuch back on Nov. 16 -- based on his close fit to the profile sought by conservative legal elites. There was nothing very deep about my prediction. Having promised to leave the decision to the Federalist Society, Trump did exactly that. He gave them an intellectual who went to Harvard Law School like Justice Antonin Scalia (and five other members of the current court); studied in Oxford as a Marshall scholar like Justice Stephen Breyer; clerked on the Supreme Court like three other sitting justices; and has been reliably conservative for years. He even looks like the TV version of a Supreme Court justice, complete with silver hair and a firm jaw.

  • A critic’s guide: Five ways Trump may have violated the Constitution

    February 1, 2017

    Less than two weeks ago, Donald Trump stood in the shadow of the US Capitol and took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Now, 11 days later, critics steeped in constitutional law from across the ideological spectrum are already saying the new president has violated sections of that document...“I wouldn’t say he’s bumping into the Constitution, he’s crashing through it,” said Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, who has joined litigation against the new president on a separate matter. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime.”

  • Legal Community Reacts to the Nomination

    February 1, 2017

    The nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to be the next Supreme Court justice came as little surprise Tuesday night after days of speculation that he was the president’s leading candidate...Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe said via email of the nominee “that he’s extremely smart, knows federal law and procedure inside and out, writes elegantly and with nuance, is at the top of his game analytically, and totally idolizes the late Justice Scalia and what he identifies as Scalia’s almost regal indifference to the practical human consequences of his rulings.”

  • Will Shrine circuses adapt or perish?

    January 31, 2017

    An op-ed by fellow Delcianna Winders. Ringling Bros. is shuttering, and more and more people are realizing — and eschewing — the abuse inherent in forcing wild animals to perform tricks. But it’s business as usual for the Al Chymia Shrine Circus, which will haul suffering, dangerous animals to Memphis’ Agricenter Showplace Arena in a few weeks. It’s time for Shrines to reevaluate their fundraising methods and join the 21st century.

  • Will Ringling’s closure clear the way for federal circus legislation?

    January 31, 2017

    An op-ed by fellow Delcianna J. Winders. With Ringling Bros.—the most active and spendthrift opponent of legislation to protect circus animals—shuttering, it may finally be possible for bipartisan public safety and animal welfare efforts to succeed. Introduced by Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Ryan Costello (R-Pa.), the Traveling Exotic Animal & Public Safety Protection Act, H.R. 6342, would ban traveling wild animal acts given their risks to humans and animals alike. While political debates rage, this simple, important measure—one that countries across the world have already taken—should be a no-brainer.

  • Sifting data, seeking justice

    January 31, 2017

    Growing up in Mexico City as a self-proclaimed geek, Paola Villarreal first realized the power of data after she arrived at a public bike-share station and discovered that all the bikes were taken. Villarreal, then 26 and a self-taught computer programmer, used information the bike-share program had posted online, albeit in an obscure format, to develop a mobile application. The app allowed her to check her phone for sites on the program’s citywide network that had bikes available. She shared the app with her friends, and before long it became so popular city officials sought to buy it, paying Villarreal six digits...Villarreal, now 32 and a fellow with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, continues to advocate for open source, but has made room for a new crusade: free access to public information. With open source, citizens can view, modify, and share source code. But they should also have access to data produced by the government, she says.

  • Trump threatens independence of Justice Department with firing (video)

    January 31, 2017

    Laurence Tribe, professor of constitutional law at Harvard, talks with Rachel Maddow about the remarkable nature of Donald Trump's firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates, and the threat Trump's action represents to the independence of the Department of Justice.