Media Mentions

At least three dozen so-called sanctuary cities across the country are standing firm against President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to crack down on them, according to a Politico analysis...Phil Torrey, a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the supervising attorney of the Harvard Immigration Project, explained that the Tenth Amendment gives broad powers to the states that include the ability to set policy agendas for local law enforcement, while it gives broad powers to the federal government to decide how to tax and spend dollars. The Supreme Court comes in when these powers collide, and the court has established precedent that the federal government cannot be overly coercive, Torrey said.

Way back in 2001, in China’s view, the United States promised it would treat the Asian country as a “market economy” starting in December 2016. President-elect Donald Trump indicated on Dec. 8 that “China is not a market economy,” and the issue could escalate already-tense trade relations between Beijing and Washington...Many others, including the U.S. government, argue that China’s economic transformation has not gone far enough. Mark Wu, a Harvard law professor, describes how a “China Inc.” has emerged. The Chinese government and the Communist Party have made strategic adjustments but remain actively involved in banking, energy and raw materials — and this allows them to implicitly subsidize other sectors of the economy.

After Donald Trump’s election, some universities echoed with primal howls. Faculty members canceled classes for weeping, terrified students who asked: How could this possibly be happening? I share apprehensions about President-elect Trump, but I also fear the reaction was evidence of how insular universities have become...Whatever our politics, inhabiting a bubble makes us more shrill. Cass Sunstein, a Harvard professor, conducted a fascinating study of how groupthink shapes federal judges when they are randomly assigned to three-judge panels...The weakest argument against intellectual diversity is that conservatives or evangelicals have nothing to add to the conversation. “The idea that conservative ideas are dumb is so preposterous that you have to live in an echo chamber to think of it,” Sunstein told me.

On Jan. 20, 2017, the following words are likely to be uttered, "I, Donald J. Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."...And two prominent Constitutional Law professors told me that a Muslim registry would violate that amendment. According to my interview with Laurence Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University professor and professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, implementing a Muslim registry would violate the First Amendment. What's more, Mr. Tribe believes that Mr. Trump would violate the First Amendment whether he signed a law sent to him by Congress that created a Muslim registry or implemented one through an executive order. And Mr. Tribe believes that Congress and/or the courts would have the power to stop such an executive order if Mr. Trump issued it.

Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig will support members of the Electoral College who don't cast their vote the president-elect. NPR's Scott Simon asks him why he's decided to take up this cause..."What we're trying to do is to give counsel to electors who are trying to exercise what the constitution gives them the right to exercise, which is, as Justice Jackson said, independent, nonpartisan judgment when they decide who to elect and who to vote for."

Hidden amid the labyrinthine stacks in the basement of Widener Library, more than a dozen machines slowly transform books and artifacts into digital files available for download. Librarians stand next to the hulking machines for hours, painstakingly scanning more than 7,000 pages every day. They take care not to damage the delicate binding of the original books. This process—digitizing library collections—occurs across the Harvard Library System, which includes 79 libraries...“If there are stakeholders who want all of the stuff online, Harvard is not really inclined to put its own money to that enterprise. What you want to do is to find money outside of Harvard, and then you’re good to go,” said Stephen Chapman, manager of digital strategy for Collections at the Harvard Law School library...At Harvard Law School, librarians are digitizing 40 million pages of court decisions after Ravel Law, a startup that posts legal documents online, provided the funding. The project, called Caselaw Access Project, will make United States case law available on Ravel’s website.

Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump's pick to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has fought President Barack Obama’s measures to curb climate change at every turn as attorney general of Oklahoma. Now he is hoping to take apart Obama's environmental legacy from the inside out, a task that could prove tougher than it sounds...Jody Freeman, a law professor at Harvard University, said such a move could create complications for the EPA, however, as it may be required legally to explain and support the change in direction.

...Same-sex marriage, which has been legal in all 50 states since the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, was not one of the key issues raised by President-elect Donald J. Trump during the 2016 campaign...Yet one could forgive these couples for thinking Mr. Trump may be of two minds about gay marriage...Laurence H. Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, called the Obergefell ruling, “a decision as close to being etched in stone as any Supreme Court decision in recent years.”

In a report released today, Harvard University details the path it took to achieving its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2016 from a 2006 baseline, inclusive of campus growth....Harvard is funding a three-year, multidisciplinary graduate-level Climate Solutions Living Lab course as well as research projects to design and analyze various off-site means to achieve carbon neutrality. Research findings will inform the University’s approach to coupling off-campus emissions reduction opportunities with on-campus efforts to meet its long-term climate commitment.“Not only will this course and others like it provide students with the opportunity explore real law and policy challenges related to climate change, it will be a model for collaborative learning by leveraging the expertise of faculty, students, and staff across our many Schools to devise solutions together,” said Martha Minow, the Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

If Donald Trump decides not to give up ownership of his businesses, he could be at risk of violating the U.S. Constitution as soon as he’s sworn in...Constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe argues that Trump is set to become “a walking, talking violation of the Constitution” if he doesn’t give up his businesses. “From the very moment he takes the oath, he will be violating a provision of the Constitution that he takes an oath to uphold every minute of every day,” said Tribe, a professor at Harvard University.

For communities hoping to expand broadband connectivity, President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for a major infrastructure spending bill could create huge changes, a panel of broadband pundits said...“This is a moment for the happy warriors of telecom policy to get out there and organize and be a part of the infrastructure deal for the Trump administration,” said Susan Crawford, Harvard University law professor and co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. “As we build roads and bridges and tunnels, we can include fiber that’s open access. That’s what I’m dreaming of, and that’s where we need to go.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Do you ever call or e-mail abroad? If so, be aware: The government could be listening, and it can use the content of those conversations against you -- without ever getting a warrant. That’s the upshot of an appeals court holding in the case of Mohamed Mohamud, who was convicted of an attempted bombing in Portland, Oregon. The decision is doubtful as a matter of constitutional law, and sooner or later, the U.S. Supreme Court will have to weigh in on the issue.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Those who support aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gases fear that the Donald Trump administration will undo all or most of President Barack Obama’s climate change initiatives. But those fears are probably unwarranted. A good guess, based on a close look at the regulations that matter most, is that the Obama administration’s work on climate is more secure than most people realize; for the most part, Trump is unlikely to revisit it.

Are you a Florida presidential elector? Thinking of not voting for Donald Trump? Larry Lessig wants to have a word with you. “Our view is that it doesn’t make sense for an elector to stand out if you’re number 5 standing out,” Lessig said. “But if you’re number 39 standing out? That’s important.” Lessig, a Harvard Law School professor and activist who briefly ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2015, is offering to provide free, confidential legal advice to presidential electors about the legal ramifications of not voting for Trump – even if their state voted for him, as Florida did...“The Constitution creates electors and protects them to have the freedom to vote their conscience once selected by a state,” Lessig said in a phone interview Wednesday with the Orlando Sentinel.

A federal court in New York is scheduled to hold a hearing Friday on a case that could have implications for the legal boundaries between federal and state authority regarding energy policy....“If the court reaches the merits, it will likely be the first to opine on the meaning of Hughes,” said Ari Peskoe, senior fellow in electricity law at the Environmental Policy Initiative at Harvard Law School and the manager of the Initiative’s State Power Project website.

WBUR legal analyst Nancy Gertner looks at the ongoing legal battles between Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and ExxonMobil, as well as how President-elect Donald Trump could reshape the Supreme Court, and what that could mean for Massachusetts.

Two-thirds of US states saw their economies grow while they reduced their carbon-dioxide emissions from 2000 to 2014. They did this by relying more on natural gas and nuclear energy for electricity production and less on coal, according to a report published Thursday by the Brookings Institution...Ari Peskoe, a senior fellow in electricity law at Harvard Law School, tells the Monitor in an email that state policy has been a major driver in the growth of renewable energy. He cites the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, which found that more than half of all growth in renewable electricity generation since 2000 is associated with state's Renewable Portfolio Standards requirements. But federal policies, he added, such as renewable energy tax credits, appliance efficiency standards, and Environmental Protection Agency regulations, probably contributed too.

Lawyers will make more money if they work together — but only if they do it the right way. That’s the premise of Heidi Gardner’s forthcoming book, “Smart Collaboration,” which is set to be released Jan. 3. Gardner, a former McKinsey consultant, has spent more than a year analyzing data from time sheets and personnel records of several law firms to dig into that hypothesis. She came to the conclusion: “Collaboration doesn’t just increase revenues, but profits, too.”...Gardner, who studies the legal profession and lectures at Harvard Law School, caught up with Big Law Business for an interview. She spoke about what “smart collaboration” means for big law firms, the research that went into her new book and what she learned from some of the country’s top lawyers along the way.

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks to Mark Wu, assistant professor at Harvard Law School and a former U.S. trade negotiator, about how Trump would impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods, as he has promised..."There are certain things that would require additional congressional authority - for example, if he wanted to impose a blanket, across-the-board 45 percent tariff. But there's a number of different ways he could impose a tariff without going back to Congress. One would be to do this on a temporary basis, but only up to 15 percent for up to 150 days. Another would be to use existing trade remedies laws to go back at specific Chinese products on a case-by-case basis where the president or a U.S. industry is asserting that China is dumping its goods into the U.S. market or benefiting from illegal subsidies.

Donald Trump loves to tweet. Sure he stopped for a few days before the election but now that he is President-Elect, his tweets are back and some of them are moving stock prices. Should you trade on Trump's tweets? Probably not...According to a December 7 interview with Allen Ferrell, Harvey Greenfield Professor of Securities Law at Harvard Law School, "As I read the STOCK Act, the President is subject to insider trading law."...Ferrell thinks that this rule most likely applies to the President if the tweet is market-moving. "Executive branch employees is defined to include the President in the Act. The question would then be whether he obtained the information "from such person's position as an executive branch employee" -- I think there would be an argument that the answer to that is yes. There is a materiality requirement so this information would have to be sufficiently important," he said.

Donald Trump has given every indication that he wants to dismantle the multitude of environmental rules that President Obama has put in place in the last eight years...Jody Freeman, a Harvard law school professor and former climate adviser to Obama, has been looking at this question extensively. Her view is that this won’t actually be easy for Trump — at least not without substantial help from Congress...I talked with Freeman about the mechanics of a potential Trump administration: how agency rulemaking works, what it would take to revamp Obama’s EPA regulations, why some environmental rules are much more vulnerable than others, and why Trump may not be able to undo everything Obama has done on climate.