Media Mentions

An op-ed by Susan Crawford. In January of 2014, three weeks after Bill de Blasio was sworn in as New York City Mayor, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton sent his first tweet. Bratton had just finished updating his staff about CompStat, a system he’d launched years before to follow crime spikes and allow police leaders to direct their resources accordingly...The action might seem slight, but inside the NYPD the tweet had significant impact. In the past, police were expected to refrain from sharing information with the public.

A desire to learn more about three subjects led me to read the five new books I most enjoyed this year. In this moment of high anxiety about the state of American politics one can receive useful perspective by studying Michael Klarman’s magisterial “The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution.”

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Presidents should generally be allowed to choose their own employees. Unless nominees fall below reasonable standards for honesty and competence, senators should vote to confirm them, even if they disagree intensely with their views. Obstructionism makes it hard for the executive branch to function; it also discourages good people from entering public service. But that doesn't mean the Senate should give a blank check to Donald Trump. Senators should not confirm nominees who reject the mission of the very department they seek to lead.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Last week, the Ohio legislature passed a law banning abortion after the first fetal heartbeat can be heard. Texas enacted rules requiring that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated. And in Louisiana, a private trust purporting to act on behalf of 5-day-old frozen embryos sued the actress Sofia Vergara demanding that they be implanted in a uterus so they could be born. All three developments are legally questionable, to say the least. The Ohio bill is clearly unconstitutional, the Texas law may be, and the Louisiana lawsuit would cause upheaval in the assisted reproduction community should it succeed. Yet all three signal the durability of the idea that the unborn have legal rights -- a position the U.S. Supreme Court has never adopted.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Here’s a surprising headline you could have written this week: “Judge on Trump’s Supreme Court List Allows Gay-Straight Alliance in Middle Schools.” Yet remarkably, it’s true. Judge William Pryor wrote an appellate opinion holding that Florida middle schools (grades 6-8) offer “secondary” education, and are therefore bound by a federal law that requires them to allow equal access to all extracurricular groups, including GSAs.

For over a year, a global mystery has been growing: Why are so many governments around the world collapsing amid corruption scandals? Attention is now focused on South Korea, where the Parliament voted Friday to impeach President Park Geun-hye...“The normal institutions of justice — the courts, the prosecutors, the auditors, the ombudsmen, you name it — are themselves so thoroughly corrupted that you can steal with impunity,” said Matthew C. Stephenson, a professor at Harvard Law School who studies corruption. That batters public trust, and strengthens the perception that corruption is universal and unavoidable.

President-elect Donald Trump refused to release his tax returns during the campaign and there is no sign that he will, ever. He broke longstanding tradition and set a terrible precedent for future presidential candidates. Good government groups have been wringing their hands about what to do. Now comes an excellent idea from a New York State senator, Brad Hoylman, a Democrat from Manhattan, that would could force candidates to disclose their tax returns by making it a requirement for getting on the ballot...As drafted, the bill should withstand constitutional scrutiny, said Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law scholar at Harvard. “Ballot access requirements vary significantly from state to state, and it seems that N.Y. might be able to simply add tax disclosure as a procedural ballot access requirement,” he wrote in an email.

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.