Media Mentions

History, as a rule, unfolds slowly at the Supreme Court. The Justices serve for decades. The cases take years. The Court’s languorous work schedule includes three months of downtime every summer. But the death of Antonin Scalia, earlier this year, jolted the institution and affirmed, once again, a venerable truism, attributed to the late Justice Byron White: “When you change one Justice, you change the whole Court.”...“There has not been a definitively liberal majority on the Supreme Court since Nixon was President,” Noah Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law School, said. “Ever since then, liberals have sometimes managed to cobble together majorities to avoid losing—on issues like affirmative action and abortion—but the energy and the initiative have been on the conservative side. That stopped, at least for now, this year.”

The pitched battle over President Obama’s signature climate change policy, which is moving to the courts this week, carries considerable political, economic and historical stakes. Yet its legal fate, widely expected to be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, could rest on a clerical error in an obscure provision of a 26-year-old law. That error, which left conflicting amendments on power plant regulation in the Clean Air Act, will be a major focus of oral arguments by opponents of Mr. Obama’s initiative when the case is heard on Tuesday in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit...The judges have allocated four hours to hear the arguments, rather than the usual one or two. The chief judge of the court, Merrick B. Garland, who is also Mr. Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, has recused himself. Adding to the drama will be the presence of Mr. Obama’s mentor at Harvard Law School, Laurence H. Tribe, who will argue against the climate plan on behalf of the nation’s largest coal company, Peabody Energy.

Conservative organizations are pouring money into the coffers of the Republican Attorneys General Association, which is far outpacing its Democratic rival in fundraising to elect candidates who will stand up to what they see as an activist Democratic agenda. The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) had raised $15.7 million by early May, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog, well ahead of the $5.7 million collected by the Democratic Attorneys General Association...“The amount of money is staggering,” said James Tierney, a former Maine attorney general and an adjunct professor at Harvard Law School who blames the Citizens United ruling, which lifted limits on corporate political contributions. “But that’s because it’s legal, and it’s legal because the Supreme Court said it was legal.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. It’s delicious to watch the Saudi outrage at being excluded from a conference in Chechnya to define who counts as a Sunni Muslim. Wahhabism, the Sunni offshoot that dominates Saudi Arabia, has done more than any other movement in Islamic history to read other Muslims out of the faith, and turnabout is fair play. Unfortunately, the conference, organized by Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, is actually part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's fiendishly clever plan to weaken Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally. The entire episode shows how ideologically vulnerable the Saudis feel in the age of Islamic State -- and how good Putin is at affecting Middle Eastern politics.

Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump are spoiling for an extraordinary clash over race and gender that could come as early as Monday’s debate, with both presidential candidates increasingly staking their fortunes on the cultural issues that are convulsing the nation....“The extremity of the divergence is unlike anything I have confronted in my adult life,” said Randall L. Kennedy, a professor of law at Harvard whose books include “The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency.” “The analogies that come to mind are Goldwater versus Johnson in 1964, and Lincoln versus Douglas in 1860.”

An op-ed by Kristen A. Carpenter and Angela R. Riley. What sparks and sustains a movement? For more than a month, members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and thousands of allies have gathered in camps along the Missouri River in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. They are protesting the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline which, if completed, would carry half a million gallons of crude oil per day ultimately to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.* More urgently for the protesters, the pipeline is slated to be built within a half mile of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, traveling across treaty-guaranteed lands, under the tribe’s main source of drinking water, and through sacred sites. As lawyers for the tribe have argued, “An oil spill at this site would constitute an existential threat to the Tribe’s culture and way of life.”...The recent judicial decision gives the federal government time to consider more carefully the risks that the pipeline will pose for humans, the water, and the environment. But it’s not enough. The United States has affirmative obligations, both legal and moral, to protect Indian water, land, culture, and religion.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Prisoners can be counted in population totals for determining a voting district, even though they can’t cast ballots in the place where they’re being held. That's what an appeals court relying on a U.S. Supreme Court decision from last term has said -- even though that case involved noncitizens who are fully members of the community, not inmates who don’t contribute to the city or use local services. Wednesday’s decision casts some doubt on the theory of virtual representation that the justices used, and raises deep issues about the connection between voting and being represented.

Yahoo Inc. said Thursday that hackers backed by an unnamed foreign government had stolen personal information from more than 500 million of its users’ accounts, one of the largest security breaches of the Internet age...Bruce Schneier, a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, said the Yahoo breach was very serious because so many Internet users routinely store sensitive data on Internet-based systems — not on the hard drives in their desktop PCs, for example. “We no longer keep our stuff on our computers,” he said. “We keep our stuff on their computers.”

Corporate tax reform may be the issue with the highest degree of consensus among Republicans and Democrats. But when it comes to most issues regarding personal taxes, it’s been hard for those on both sides of the aisle to agree. That said, in a recent Harvard Business School (HBS) study on competitiveness, professor Mihir Desai explained there is one key area where both sides seem to agree: a minimum tax on the highest earners. While personal tax reform “cuts a little closer to home” than corporate tax reform, according to Desai, changing the tax brackets at the highest level is something that would have a real revenue impacts without too much resistance. Desai, who is both a business and law professor at Harvard, explained that there is a distinct opportunity for a new top tax bracket, especially given the changing composition of the current brackets.

A letter by fellow Delcianna Winders. Thank you for your editorial on the bill to ban elephants in circuses (“Elephant ban a first to be proud of,” Sept. 21). If passed, it will go far in protecting humans and animals. Abuse is the rule for elephants in circuses...animals subjected to constant abuse sometimes lash out. As the world’s largest land animals, elephants can easily kill a human with a single foot stomp or trunk swipe. They kill about one person every year in the United States — and injure many more.

Whether looking for some reason, any reason, to support one candidate over another, or just wanting to watch high-stakes political mud wrestling, millions of Americans will tune in Monday night to see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off in the first of three presidential debates...“In my view, they’ve gotten morphed into less about the candidates’ actual substantive views on an issue, and it’s turned into a slugfest and who can have the sound bite for the next morning. And that just seems to me to be counter to helping informed citizens in a democracy make an educated choice about who they might select for their leader,” said Robert Bordone, Thaddeus R. Beal Clinical Professor of Law and director of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program at HLS. “I think most viewers expect to see sound bites and fights, and that sort of expectation sets up the debates. It’s almost like the incentives to have a healthy dialogue between the two, with a debate on issues, are not there,” said lecturer Heather Kulp, who has co-written with Bordone about the need to overhaul the way presidential debates are run. “I think we underestimate what people would be interested in seeing.”

Ken Gormley kicked off his official start as president of Duquesne University with good news for his employees: They're all getting a 2 percent raise...“With his new responsibilities,” said David Wilkins, Gormley's longtime associate and Harvard Law School professor, “he is destined to become a central figure in the world of higher education generally, at a time when universities desperately need the kind of subtle intelligence, openness of mind” and perseverance Gormley demonstrates.

An op-ed by Laurence Tribe. In the early days of our nation, it was a crime to teach slaves to read. And through the first half of the 20th century, segregation funneled their descendants into inferior schools. Like the ugly attempts to disenfranchise African Americans through so-called literacy tests calculated to make them seem illiterate, these efforts were a perverse tribute to literacy’s power, which was recognized by the many people of color who fought so hard, against the odds, to educate themselves. Now, at least in theory, literacy is universally regarded as a human right. Every state makes K-12 education mandatory, and basic education has been recognized unanimously by the Supreme Court as “necessary to prepare citizens to participate effectively and intelligently in our open political system if we are to preserve freedom and independence,” to quote what Warren Burger, appointed chief justice by Richard Nixon, wrote in 1972. Yet as a carefully crafted lawsuit filed this month by seven Detroit schoolchildren reveals, deliberate indifference to public schools in already disadvantaged communities means that many children of color still do not receive an education — at least not an education that will prepare them to participate effectively and intelligently in our system.

When an Oreo-flavored chocolate bar hits the shelves in the U.S. soon, most consumers will look at it as just another treat. But Wall Street being Wall Street, this innocent indulgence is way more than that. The little chocolate bar is really a howitzer in a rolling 15-year battle by a parade of suitors to take over one of the great iconic brands: Hershey Co...As if that weren’t bad enough, an unusual Pennsylvania law gives the state’s attorney general power to block Hershey takeovers, even when the trust wants to sell. Hershey is a big employer in Pennsylvania. Locals, perhaps rightly, fear that they could lose their jobs in a takeover as a result of cost cutting. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania attorneys general, who oversee the trust by law, have a habit of running for governor. This means they’re often tempted to do what’s “considered expedient locally,” says Harvard Law School professor Robert Sitkoff, an expert on charitable trusts.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Can the government block the online publication of files that let anyone make an assault rifle on a 3-D printer? In a defeat for free speech and a win for gun-control advocates, an appeals court has said yes. The court declined to suspend a State Department regulation that treats posting the files as a foreign export of munitions. Although the impulse to block the easy creation of untraceable weapons is admirable, the court got it wrong. The First Amendment can’t tolerate a prohibition on publishing unclassified information -- even if the information is potentially harmful.

Even if the Russian government was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and various other political organizations and figures, the US government's options under international law are extremely limited, according to Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor and former US assistant attorney general. Goldsmith, who served at the Justice Department during the administration of George W. Bush and resigned after a dispute over the legal justifications for "enhanced interrogation" techniques, spoke on Tuesday about the DNC hack during a Yale University panel. "Assuming that the attribution is accurate," Goldsmith said, "the US has very little basis for a principled objection." In regard to the theft of data from the DNC and others, Goldsmith said that "it's hard to say that it violates international law, and the US acknowledges that it engages in the theft of foreign political data all the time."

The recent special, “The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey,” which aired on CBS earlier this week, has drawn widespread attention for exploring the 20-year-old unsolved mystery of the 6-year-old girl’s death. In the show, investigators examined evidence and came to the conclusion that JonBenét’s brother Burke Ramsey, who was 9 at the time, was the likely culprit. While not everyone bought into the theory that the boy killed his little sister — perhaps by accident — , and then his parents covered it up to protect him, it’s gotten a lot of people talking...On top of those elements, Harvard Law Professor John Goldberg said that because Ramsey has spoken about the case, like he did in an interview with Dr. Phil, a court would likely consider him a ““limited purpose public figure.” This means that when it comes to statements made about Burke in connection to the case, he would be considered a public figure, which carries an additional burden. Goldberg said, “Burke could only prevail on a defamation claim against CBS or the investigators by proving not only that the allegations against him are false, but also that CBS and/or the investigators either KNEW that they were false when they made them, or were RECKLESS with regard to the truth or falsity of the allegations.”

China has been shoveling excess amounts of steel onto global markets, playing a major role in driving down global prices and rankling American producers and government officials. Now a massive shakeup is taking place in China’s juggernaut steel industry, and the question on many people’s minds is what effect this will have on that country’s ongoing trade dispute with the U.S....“China has to deal with supply-side reforms on the one hand and on the other hand be sensitive to labor issues,” Mark Wu, assistant professor at Harvard Law School who specialized in international trade law, told Salon. “There’s a need to reform in China regardless of what types of trade measures are being imposed by China’s trading partners.” Consolidating the Chinese steel industry into a smaller number of players might lead to more effective planning, Wu said, comparing the move to having three airlines flying a specific route instead of 20. “Consolidating these players makes it easier for the Chinese industry to try to monitor overall supply in order to mitigate the scale of an overcapacity problem in the future,” he said.

Fifteen student groups from Harvard Law School issued a statement on their website reproaching Harvard’s bargaining record with its dining service workers, characterizing the ongoing stalemate in HUDS’ most recent round of contract talks as a class and racial justice “struggle.”...“We the students of Harvard Law School refuse to abandon HUDS workers in their struggle for justice!” the groups wrote in the page-long statement. The signatories include groups such as Reclaim Harvard Law—whose members spent the past year rallying the school’s administration for, among other demands, increased diversity faculty and students—as well the BGLTQ group Lambda at Harvard Law School and Harvard’s chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild.

An op-ed by Emily Broad Leib. Multiple policies could be implemented to address food waste and its impacts on the environment, food security, and our climate. In particular, we should eliminate laws that cause healthy food to go to waste, incentivize food donation and, when needed, enact penalties for senseless food waste. Let's start with consumer confusion, and the misguided laws regarding food date labels. Eighty four percent of consumers report they frequently throw food away after the sell-by date has passed, despite date labels being indicators of freshness, not safety. What's more, in the absence of federal law on date labels, no two states have the same date label rules. Several states even restrict or ban the sale or donation of past-date foods. Federal legislation is needed to eliminate state laws that require past-date — but still safe — foods to be wasted, and to standardize date labels so they are clearer to consumers.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Plenty of local governments open their meetings with a quick, generic prayer from a member of the clergy. But is it different when the lawmakers themselves say “Let us pray” and then supplicate God to open everyone’s heart to the message of Jesus Christ? Does that violate the Constitution? In a significant defeat for religious liberty, a federal appeals court has upheld a continuous practice of sectarian, public prayer by the members of a North Carolina board of county commissioners. The dissenting judge, the distinguished conservative J. Harvie Wilkinson, said the “seat of government” in the case was made to resemble “a house of worship.” The court’s majority said it was just following Supreme Court precedent.