Media Mentions

...A group of scientists and bioethicists is concerned with how one new reproduction technology in particular might make a future of designer babies far more relevant...“What does IVG change? It is really its combination with CRISPR gene editing,” said Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law professor and one of the authors of a new editorial in Science Translational Medicine that warns IVG may be the bearer of a set of “vexing policy challenges” and ethical dilemmas. “Right now CRISPR is still very much in its infancy, but one could potentially imagine a future a long way off where it was much more sure fire at selecting traits.” IVG, he said, might allow you to very easily produce a large number of embryos, and CRISPR might allow you to then easily edit those eggs and simply select the most attractive genetic options prior to implantation. “It is a little like the difference between Michelangelo painting the sistine chapel, and someone trying to create a similar piece of art on their computer with Photoshop,” Cohen told Gizmodo.

An essay by Samuel Moyn. The foreign policy consequences of Donald Trump’s election are agonizingly unpredictable. As with any schoolyard braggart, Trump says so much that nobody can ever know which parts he might actually mean. Unlike the devil we knew, Trump defies any attempt to forecast his choices, and therefore to anticipate a response. But if progressives stick to a popular front strategy, uniting in a grand coalition allowing liberals and neoconservatives to define a more responsible approach to Trump’s foreign policy, they could miss the ripest opportunity they have had in a generation to indict the Democratic Party’s profound mistakes.

Sugar was in the dock at Harvard Law School this week, accused of a prime role in the twin epidemics of obesity and diabetes sweeping the country. Science journalist and author Gary Taubes ’77 made his case that sugar consumption — which has risen dramatically over the last century — drives metabolic dysfunction that makes people sick. The hour-long talk was sponsored by the Food Law and Policy Clinic and drawn from Taubes’ new book, “The Case Against Sugar.”

Staffers from Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinic clarified definitions of “sanctuary” spaces in an online seminar Wednesday, offering Harvard’s undocumented students individual legal consultation as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office. Philip L. Torrey, a Law School lecturer who led the seminar, said the label “sanctuary” could mean a number of things in practice, ranging from the physical prevention of immigration enforcement officials from entering a space to the guarantee that those officials have valid warrants before entering. “The term ‘sanctuary’ has no specific legal definition,” Torrey said...Torrey and fellow Law School lecturer Sabrineh Ardalan also briefed attendees on how to navigate immigration issues as Trump transitions to the White House.

Past comments by President-elect Donald Trump are prompting some to think that his administration may lessen enforcement of laws prohibiting bribery of foreign officials. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, enacted in 1977, generally prohibits paying bribes to foreign officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. For the last five years, biopharmas have been in the cross-hairs of the Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission, which jointly enforce the FCPA...What will Trump advocate once he is sworn in as president? Matthew Stephenson, a law professor at Harvard University, told me in an interview for my special report that he was more pessimistic than others. "I don’t expect much to change in the short term, but I am concerned about the mid- and long-term. There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty,” he said.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The U.S. Supreme Court took up this challenging policy question Wednesday: How much is a school district obligated to educate a disabled child? The justices will have to choose from a smorgasbord of options offered by the lower courts, the Department of Justice, and the parents and schools in the case. The choices range from just a little more than nothing to the same level of education available to other kids. The outcome will have major consequences for tens of thousands of students -- and for the schools where they study.

Well-known legal scholar, recognized constitutional law expert and member of the faculty at Harvard Law School, Professor Laurence Tribe, went on a Twitter rampage for the ages on Wednesday. It was all in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s major press conference at which his lawyer, Sheri Dillon, was tasked with explaining the plan devised by Trump’s legal team for how his businesses will be run while he is serving as president. Tribe even went on to tell LawNewz.com that “the whole phony setup would make President Trump a living, walking, talking, tweeting violation of the Emoluments Clause each time banks or funds linked to foreign sovereigns are allowed to take steps that Trump will necessarily know are enriching the total value of his family’s mega-business.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday that he’ll transfer management of his business empire to his sons — but will not divest the assets — won’t ease concerns about his conflicts of interest, say legal specialists...“It does not solve any of the problems,’’ Harvard Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe said of the plan. “It’s a complete ruse.”...Harvard’s Tribe, a constitutional law professor, said Trump’s trust plan still allows foreign governments to curry favor with the president and enhance his wealth, in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. This is a provision that bars presidents from receiving funds from foreign governments. “Everyone in the world knows when they play golf at one of his courses or pay a lot of money at one of his hotels, that they are benefiting him and benefiting his brand,’’ Tribe said.

The director of the US Office of Government Ethics has criticised Donald Trump's plan to hand control of his business empire to his sons before his inauguration on 20 January..."As I listened, my jaw dropped. Trump's workaround is a totally fraudulent runaround," tweeted Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard University, one of the leading constitutional lawyers in the US. "Trump's announced structure is cleverly designed to dazzle and deceive, but it solves none of the serious ethical or legal issues. Trump's lawyer would flunk constitutional law at any halfway decent law school. At least if the lawyer wasn't just joking."

President-elect Donald Trump’s strategy on addressing his conflicts of interest seemed to be to throw out as many bells and whistles as possible, sprinkle some remarks from highly compensated lawyers and hope he could muscle his way through concerns that he is setting up a scheme that will invite corruption and run afoul of the Constitution...His lawyer also claimed that the emoluments clause does not cover arm’s-length transactions. This is blatantly false. In a detailed legal memo prepared by Laurence Tribe, Richard Painter and Norman Eisen, they found: To start, the text supports this conclusion; since emoluments are properly defined as including “profit” from any employment, as well as “salary,” it is clear that even remuneration fairly earned in commerce can qualify...Tribe separately commented to me, “The steps he is taking constitute at best a Potemkin trust, to coin a phrase. He remains a walking, tweeting violation of the Emoluments Clause from the moment he takes office.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. In New York and nine other states, merchants are barred from charging credit-card purchasers a surcharge, but are allowed to offer discounts for paying in cash. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday took up the fascinating question of whether this requirement violates the merchants’ freedom of speech. It’s a juicy constitutional question: Are prices subject to the First Amendment at all? And it sweetens the pot with an intellectual problem in law and economics: Given that we know customers react differently to surcharges and discounts, even when they’re economically equivalent, should the state be allowed to ban one and require the other?

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. U.S. law can reach American sex offenders abroad so long as they haven’t resettled in another country, according to a federal appeals court. The decision, issued last week, extends U.S. law beyond its borders through an expansive interpretation of Congress’s authority under the Constitution’s commerce clause. It bucks the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent trend of limiting laws’ reach abroad, at least in part because of the powerful desire to condemn sex with minors. But as a precedent, the decision will apply to other, more ordinary crimes committed by Americans abroad, with potentially troubling consequences.

President Obama will deliver his farewell address to the nation this evening before a room full of supporters in Chicago. We discuss a little of the Obama legacy and look ahead to tonight’s speech with two historians, “NewsHour” regular Michael Beschloss, and Annette Gordon-Reed of Harvard University..."This is a chance to cement his legacy and talk about the kinds of things that he wanted to do as president. And he is facing a situation where people might try to undo a good amount of that. So, I think this is a good way for him to sort of lay a template, perhaps, for historians later on, even though that’s almost an impossible thing to do. But I think it’s a way for him to talk about his legacy, to sort of say to the American people what was important to him, what he thinks he accomplished as president."

Researchers from Harvard and MIT and philanthropists including the founders of LinkedIn and eBay are teaming up in a multimillion-dollar effort to make sure artificial intelligence is designed and used to make the world a better place...The Knight Foundation, the MIT Media Lab, Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar have combined to create a $27 million fund called the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund that will support research and development to make AI beneficial for humans. The Media Lab and Berkman Klein Center are the first “anchor institutions”...“There’s definitely urgency,” said Urs Gasser, executive director of the Berkman Klein Center. The concerns, Gasser said, are less a robot uprising and more about whether AI understands the concept of fairness.

Tonight President Obama will deliver his farewell address. He will use the opportunity to remind the nation of what he accomplished during eight difficult but historic years in office...I thought of this while waiting at a White House reception in September for the president to dedicate the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. I found myself with Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, who represented Anita Hill during her testimony to the Senate confirmation committee and who taught both President and First Lady Obama when they were in law school. Ogletree had recently gone public about his Alzheimer's diagnosis and its effects were becoming apparent. When the Marine Corps Band started to play "Hail to the Chief," everyone in the large crowd pressed forward, but Ogletree was the only one the president and first lady stopped to greet. The professor immediately assumed the role of teacher—speaking clearly, cogently, and with composure during his brief personal encounter with the Obamas.

They said they were defrauded, and now they want a seat at the table. Last week, a group of former ITT Tech students moved to establish themselves as creditors in the school's bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana...The Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School is representing the students. Eileen Connor, director of litigation for the center's Project on Predatory Student Lending, is the lead attorney representing the students. She was unavailable for comment.

Some Harvard Law School alumni and officials are confident that the school’s fundraising success will continue “unabated” after Law School Dean Martha L. Minow steps down at the end of the academic year, building on momentum that has already carried the school past its capital campaign goal of $305 million....In an email, Steven Oliveira, the Law School’s dean for alumni affairs and development, declined to disclose the exact amount the Law School has raised in its campaign so far. He said the school “will not be setting a new goal but will continue to raise money for our ongoing campaign priorities.”

An essay by Norman Eisen, Richard W. Painter and Laurence H. Tribe. Never in American history has a president-elect posed more conflict-of-interest and foreign-entanglement questions than Donald J. Trump. Trump, the owner of a large real estate and licensing business with holdings around the world, has promised that on January 11, less than two weeks before he takes office, he will announce his plan to separate himself from his businesses. After repeatedly hesitating and delaying, will he finally do the right thing? Here are five key questions we must ask to evaluate whether the plan truly mitigates the risk of corruption and scandal.

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman are among the backers of a new $27 million fund, announced today, that’s aiming to promote research into artificial intelligence in the public interest. Concern about the societal impact of AI is rising up political agendas as it becomes clearer how much power autonomous technologies have to shape behavior and outcomes at scale...the initiative will support an inaugural class of joint AI Fellows across the Berkman Klein Center and the MIT Media Lab...The MIT Media Lab and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University will serve as founding academic institutions for the new AI research fund initiative — meaning they will collaborate on research initiatives that could be funded. The aim is also for the fund to “complement and collaborate with” existing relevant efforts at the institutions, they say.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court on Monday decided a police immunity case that sounds small but carries a larger significance. The narrow holding was that a police officer who arrived late at the scene of a confrontation and then shot and killed the suspect without having heard other officers issue a warning is protected from a lawsuit. What really mattered was the reasoning: The court said the officer couldn’t be sued because there was no case on the books finding an officer liable under the exact same circumstances. This decision makes it much harder to sue the police, because almost all confrontations have unique features that could be used to block lawsuits. In essence, the court is signaling that it wants fewer suits against officers in the lower courts, and is chiding the appellate courts for allowing such suits.

At this time last year, all signs were pointing to a for-profit college industry in crisis, if not the death throes...In this context, James Tierney, a former Maine attorney general and now a Harvard Law School professor, called cash awards for individual students “a bonus.” Tierney said predatory industries practice “conscious and rational avoidance of strong enforcement,” meaning they hop across state lines to avoid lawsuits.