Media Mentions

Boston city officials are seeking community input on a body camera pilot program for the Boston Police Department and will hold three community forums this week to discuss the initiative with residents...One hundred officers across the city would wear the cameras, Evans said. His department has worked with city officials, a legal team at Harvard, academics, and the Social Justice Task Force, which includes clergy and community leaders, to develop the plan...The ACLU, which also worked with the Boston Police Camera Action Team, the Boston branch of the NAACP, and the Harvard Black Law Students Association on their proposed policy, recommends prohibiting recording without notice and consent, a ban on surveillance of activists, and prompt deletion of a video that doesn’t involve the use of force, a complaint, a detention, or an arrest.

President Obama’s signature climate change initiative is about to face its biggest challenge yet. Time is running out on Obama’s second term in the White House, and the president could leave office next January with his Clean Power Plan stuck in legal limbo. The rule, which would require power plants to cut their carbon dioxide output, is the centerpiece of Obama’s efforts to use executive power to slow U.S. contributions to global warming...“I think that people shouldn’t be too pessimistic or optimistic either way,” said Jody Freeman, director of Harvard Law School’s environmental law program and a former counselor to Obama. She filed a legal brief backing the plan on behalf of two former Republican EPA chiefs.

When a Connecticut judge last week allowed family members of Sandy Hook Elementary shooting victims to continue their lawsuit against a gun manufacturer, experts saw the decision as a means to put off deciding the legal merits of the case...Bushmaster almost certainly doesn't have to worry about losing the case, but it also wants to avoid a major settlement and any negative publicity around the case that could sour public opinion toward them, according to John Goldberg, a tort law expert at Harvard Law School. "The gun manufacturers are going to have to weigh risks against other risks," Goldberg told Mashable. "If they do end up settling this, then that's a signal to other plaintiffs out there that if they get a somewhat favorable ruling from a judge, then they can succeed as well."

An op-ed by Tommy Tobin `17. The N.C. Supreme Court ruled this month on an important constitutional challenge that may shape the future of teacher tenure in the United States. While the national media have focused on a California case upholding teacher tenure there, advocates on each side should instead be focused on Raleigh...Instead of focusing on students’ rights, the N.C. case concerned the contract rights of teachers. Writing for the court, Justice Robert Edmunds found that the state’s repeal of teacher tenure in 2013 violated the constitutional rights of the teachers themselves.

Violence children see at home can affect their chances for success in school and later in life. That's why the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, based at Harvard Law School in Massachusetts, advocates for trauma-sensitive schools to help children impacted by trauma to feel safe at school. There are six attributes of a trauma sensitive school that are explained in the initiative's book, "Helping Traumatized Children Learn II: Creating and Advocating for Trauma Sensitive Schools." Those attributes came from work done in schools in Brockton, Mass., and other places, and describe what a trauma sensitive school looks and feels like, said Michael Gregory, a senior attorney with the initiative and a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School.

The membership of the Harvard Black Law Students Association has elected Kristin A. Turner, ’17, as its president. As the organization news its 50th anniversary, Turner says she is committed to ushering the organization into a new age by “shaping its future while honoring its past."

Thomas Jefferson stature as one of America’s most beloved founding fathers has taken some hits recently. Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence, espoused ideals of equality, and called slavery “an abominable crime,” yet he was also a slaveholder his entire life and fathered children with the enslaved woman Sally Hemings who he never freed. Renowned Jefferson scholars Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf have written a new biography of Jefferson that comes to terms with this flawed but brilliant man called “Most Blessed of Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of Imagination. Guest host Marty Cummings-Jordan speaks with Gordon-Reed and Onuf about their book and how they understand this paradoxical figure in our history.

Conservative claims that Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland’s rulings prove he is anti-business are "silly" "nonsense," according to administrative law experts...“If you look at cases involving direct regulation by government agencies, his pattern of voting in those cases is entirely standard,” said Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School. “It’s the common approach because ever since the Chevron decision the idea has been that Congress can’t always address all of the details that arise in the regulatory state so they give a lot of leeway to expert agencies in deciding how best to carry out the underlying purpose that Congress had in enacting statutes. Therefore, the idea is when agencies resolve those ambiguities in ways that are at least rational and don’t cross any boundaries that are laid down, federal judges usually defer.”

An op-ed by Jack Goldsmith and Curtis Bradley. There has been much debate about whether a bill advancing through Congress that aims to expose Saudi Arabia to lawsuits in American courts for its alleged connection to the 9/11 attacks would unduly harm diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries. But the bill’s potential for harm extends far beyond bilateral relations with one ally. It would also violate a core principle of international law, and it would jeopardize the effectiveness of American foreign aid and the legitimacy of the United States’ actions in the war on terrorism.

For decades, law schools have specialized in teaching students how to interpret and practice law, but recently many J.D. programs have increased their focus on helping students develop business savvy. In addition to offering J.D.-MBA programs, schools have created new ways for law students to learn the fundamentals of business in a semester or two. ...Harvard Business School launched the HBX Credential of Readiness Program in June 2014, which allows incoming law students to take courses in subjects like business analytics the summer before starting law classes.

We're all guilty of searching the refrigerator for that one item. Once you find it, you notice it's past the expiration date. What do you do now? ...  A report released by the Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy Clinic says more than 90 percent of Americans toss food out because they misinterpret food labels as indicators of food safety. ... Experts say that waste contributes to the billions of pounds of food filling our landfills and polluting the air. So the next time you consider tossing food out that isn't quite expired, maybe you should think twice.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in favor of terror victims and against the Central Bank of Iran. That came as no surprise. But what’s remarkable about the case, which raised important separation-of-powers concerns, is that the court reached its 6-to-2 decision over a stinging dissent by the conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. And that his dissent was joined by the court’s most liberal member, Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: Can you be charged with a crime for refusing to take a Breathalyzer test when stopped on suspicion of drunken driving? It’s hard to think of a constitutional rights question that affects more people. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will take it up, considering whether the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure protects your breath and your blood from a warrantless search. Two different states involved in the case offer different constitutional reasons for their practices -- a sure sign that something is fishy here. The bottom line is that mandating a search without a warrant violates the Constitution, and the court should say so, regardless of the legitimate importance of combating drunken driving.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein: Having spoken contemptuously about “New York values,” Senator Ted Cruz had a catastrophic election night in New York. So it’s fitting that just one day after the primary, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that Alexander Hamilton -- the founder of New York values -- will remain on the $10 bill. It’s also fitting that in the same week Hamilton, the musical, a joyful celebration of New York values, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

A Harvard Law student called former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni“smelly” during a recent forum, drawing a broad condemnation of anti-Semitism from administrators, faculty, and a Jewish student group. The student, who school officials have not identified, made the statement last Thursday during a question and answer period following a panel discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict organized by the school.

Women students continue to fall behind men in select indicators of academic performance at the Law School, according to a recent report from the Harvard Women’s Law Association. The report focuses on two metrics to assess student performance: membership in selective student organizations seen as de facto “honor societies” at the school, and receiving Latin honors upon graduation...First-year Law student and Shatter the Ceiling committee member Mollie Swears looked at publicly-available membership records of three extracurricular groups—the Harvard Law Review, Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, and the Board of Student Advisers— for the classes of 2016 and 2017. Swears cross-referenced a list of 2015 Latin honors recipients with biographical information to determine the gender breakdown of awardees...Law Review President Michael L. Zuckerman ’10 suggested in the report he thinks persisting disparities are likely due to women opting out of going through the selection process, rather than the process itself.

An op-ed by Susan Crawford. Welcome to Western Massachusetts: gently rolling hills, spreading trees, small and mid-size towns (many of them struggling), and adorable clusters of wood-frame houses pressing right up against the roads. It’s a place with a determined, gritty American sensibility. All very attractive. But the region is at risk of losing its younger generations and having its small towns fade even more fully into the past. Why? Because you can’t be part of the information economy in Western Mass: Tens of thousands of residents are forced to rely on satellite or awful DSL connections. Based on a thorough report out today from Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the dismal Internet access story for Western Mass isn’t going to change any time soon.

Political disagreements have snarled plans to connect Western Massachusetts with high-speed Internet, but state officials could break the logjam by working with two dozen towns that want to build their own local broadband utility, Harvard researchers said Wednesday. The report from Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society highlights nagging gaps in Massachusetts’ modern Internet infrastructure, which researchers said “is fast becoming a basic need like electricity or water.”...Berkman researcher Susan Crawford, however, called the lack of progress in Western Massachusetts “embarrassing.” “This whole situation is a tragic political mess,” Crawford wrote in a blog post accompanying the study. “The real victims, as always, are the people whose day-to-day lives (and property values) are blighted by the absence of world-class connectivity in their homes and businesses.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, a survivor of the Holocaust and director of the Harvard Hillel for some 30 years, has died at 93. His eulogists will emphasize his sociological contribution: Under his guidance, Jewish life became a sanctioned part of a flagship university campus where its presence had previously been tenuous. But what makes Gold’s life most distinctive, and his passing so noteworthy, is his complex connection to the lost world of the pre-war European yeshivas and the way he tried to reconfigure his religious worldview after the Holocaust made him lose his traditional faith in a personal God.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Ever wanted to sue the tax man? Usually you can’t -- but Gilbert Hyatt found a loophole, and the Supreme Court gave him a symbolic victory Tuesday while depriving him of most actual damages. Acting out the fantasies of anyone who’s ever been audited, Hyatt sued the California tax authorities in a Nevada court and won a jury verdict of $388 million, later reduced to $1 million. The high court justices split 4-4 on whether his suit should’ve been permitted at all -- a tie that allowed Hyatt’s moral victory to stand. But then they said the Constitution restricted his damages to $50,000, the maximum he could have gotten if he had sued a Nevada official in Nevada court.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. How should the government police the health-care industry? That question is before the Supreme Court on Tuesday as the justices hear arguments in an important case about the False Claims Act. Under the law as interpreted in most of the country, any time a health-care provider submits a bill to the government -- which is to say, millions of times a day -- the provider can be sued for a false claim if it’s failed to follow any of the myriad state and federal regulations governing the field. The law is meant to encourage citizens to blow the whistle on fraud, so it lets anyone bring a claim with the promise of receiving statutory damages up to three times the cost of the violation.