Media Mentions

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: There is something obviously preposterous about Anat Berko’s suggestion on the floor of Israel’s Knesset that Palestine can’t exist because the Arabic language doesn’t have the “P” sound. But the use of amateur linguistics in politics isn’t restricted to arguments denying opponents’ legitimacy -- it can also be used for salutary purposes. Barack Obama, for example, visiting a U.S. mosque for the first time in his presidency, recently said that “the very word itself, Islam, comes from salam -- peace.”From a technical standpoint, both Berko and Obama are wrong.

An op-ed by Richard Lazarus: Justice Antonin Scalia joined the bench 30 years ago, this coming September. From his first days on the bench on that first Monday of October to his final days just a few weeks ago, Scalia changed the Supreme Court and its rulings. But his influence was far more profound and transformative than the many significant individual rulings he authored and those that he joined. Justice Scalia did no less than change the nature of legal argument before the Court and opinion writing by the Court.

The first time Ian Binnie met Antonin Scalia, the U.S. Supreme Court justice was at his acerbic, gregarious best. It was in Auckland in 1999, and Justice Scalia, fresh from an Australian vacation, extended his hand. ...Mark Tushnet, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard, said that if originalism is understood to exclude other interpretive approaches, its influence on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions has been limited.

Third in a series on what Harvard scholars are doing to identify and understand inequality, in seeking solutions to one of America’s most vexing problems....Trauma also subverts achievement, whether through family turbulence, street violence, bullying, sexual abuse, or intermittent homelessness. Such factors can lead to behaviors in school that reflect a pervasive form of childhood post-traumatic stress disorder. At Harvard Law School, both the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative and the Education Law Clinic marshal legal aid resources for parents and children struggling with trauma-induced school expulsions and discipline issues. ...With help from faculty co-chair and Jesse Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree, the Achievement Gap Initiative is analyzing the factors that make educational inequality such a complex puzzle: home and family life, school environments, teacher quality, neighborhood conditions, peer interaction, and the fate of “all those wholesome things,” said Ferguson.

Another hallmark was the annual hiring of a liberal clerk, several of whom spoke to the Guardian about their personal fondness for Scalia despite glaring ideological differences.“You read his opinions and especially his dissents, and you’d think he’d be the Ted Cruz of the supreme court, completely acerbic. Yet he was loved by his colleagues,” Scalia’s former clerk and noted Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig told the Guardian. “I asked him about it once, and he said: ‘Because I’m consistently so outspoken and extreme in my writing, no one is offended. If Justice [Lewis] Powell didn’t smile at you one day, you’d think he was furious at you.’”

A Christian college in Pennsylvania could be forced to provide contraceptive health care coverage to its employees or else pay massive fines, but a school in Iowa would be shielded from Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate if the Supreme Court deadlocks, 4-4, in one of the major cases pending this term....“States do things differently all the time,” said Holly Lynch, a bioethics analyst at Harvard Law School who closely tracks the contraception mandate debate. On the other hand, she said, stakeholders usually expect federal law to be applied evenly across the nation.

The legal profession is perhaps more associated with bulging files of papers, odd clothing and arcane procedures than with technological innovation. But several start-ups are trying to give this most conservative - and sometimes vexing - of professions a digital makeover. ... Harvard Law School is attempting to address this by scanning reams of court documents dating back centuries and making them available to the public.

“Nino was memorably smart, gregarious, funny, playful — a good pal — as well as plainly serious about his studies,” recalled Frank Michelman, the Robert Walmsley University Professor emeritus at Harvard, whose friendship with Scalia began in 1957 when they entered HLS together. The two shared an office while working on the Law Review. “We talked about everything that came along, and I had no inkling then of differences between us over matters legal or political that developed or became apparent later.

Harvard Law School affiliates remembered alumnus and Supreme Court Justice Antonin G. Scalia, who died Saturday at age 79, for his vibrant, fiery personality and his substantial contributions to United States law. “Justice Scalia will be remembered as one of the most influential jurists in American history,” Law School Dean Martha L. Minow wrote in a statement. ...  Law School professor Alan M. Dershowitz, who knew Scalia personally, often found himself squaring off against the justice. Dershowitz said. “I disagree with almost all of his opinions, but I found him to be a formidable intellectual adversary.”....Law professor Charles Fried, who has written extensively on Scalia’s judicial stances, wrote in an email, “I knew him in so many ways over so many years. I am very sad about this great man's death.”...Law professor Richard Lazarus penned an op-ed in the Harvard Law Record extolling Scalia’s contributions to the art of oral argument. In a Bloomberg View piece, columnist and Law professor Noah R. Feldman wrote, “Antonin Scalia will go down as one of the greatest justices in U.S. Supreme Court history -- and one of the worst.” Law Professor Laurence H. Tribe commented in Politico Magazine, “To say that Scalia will be missed is an understatement.”

Justice Antonin Scalia’s death will complicate the work of the Supreme Court’s eight remaining justices for the rest of the court’s term, probably change the outcomes of some major cases and, for the most part, amplify the power of its four-member liberal wing. ...“Justice Scalia’s sad and untimely death will cast a pall over the entire term and a shadow over the court as a whole at least until a successor is nominated and confirmed,” said Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard. ...“No less than the viability of the historic climate change agreement reached in Paris may well be in peril,” said Richard J. Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard. “And without Justice Scalia’s vote, that stay would have been denied.”

A stunning development for the U.S. Supreme Court this weekend, with news that Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead in his room at a luxury hunting resort near the Mexican border in Texas.He was 79. Natural causes, says a local judge. Scalia was the fiery leader of the conservative wing of the court, where frequent 5-4 decisions make any change of membership hugely consequential.President Obama says he will nominate a successor. Republicans say, “Don’t.”  This hour On Point, after Scalia. ... Laurence Tribe, professor of Constitutional law at Harvard Law School. Author, with Joshua Matz, of the book “Uncertain Justice,” among many others.

On Saturday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died at the age of 79. Harvard Law Emeritus Professor Alan Dershowitz, who knew Justice Antonin Scalia for many years, joined WBUR’s Weekend Edition Sunday to talk about Scalia’s innovative opinions and legacy.

In addition to his fiery rhetoric, his originalism, and his profound impact on his fellow Supreme Court justices and the court itself, Antonin Scalia was famous for another thing: his surprising support of criminal defendants in many cases. “I ought to be the darling of the criminal defense bar,” Scalia once pleaded. “I have defended criminal defendants’ rights—because they’re there in the original Constitution—to a greater degree than most judges have.” ... Still, Scalia’s opinions for the court—and, as ferociously, his dissents—have shaped the landscape of protections afforded to criminal defendants. Charles Ogletree, a famed public defender, adviser to President Obama, and Harvard Law School professor, said of Scalia, a brilliant, colorful, towering giant of the legal community who died suddenly on Saturday at the age of 79, “We are from different worlds, but we both appreciate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”

Antonin Scalia once vowed to Alan Dershowitz that he would someday convince the Harvard scholar that the Supreme Court’s decision to effectively award the presidency to George W. Bush was correct. ... Law School Dean Martha Minow also described Scalia as “one of the most influential jurists in American history.” “He changed how the court approaches statutory interpretation and in countless areas introduced new ways of thinking about the Constitution and the role of the court that will remain important for years to come,” Minow said in a statement.

Before filling up a bowl of cereal or dunking a cookie in glass of milk, many of us check the carton’s “use by” or “sell by” date. What we may not realize is that doing so leads many Americans to senselessly dump milk down the drain. That problem is exacerbated in one state in particular, owing to its strict labeling laws. The new mini documentary Expired: Food Waste in America explores how confusing expiration dates fuel food waste in America. Created by the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, the five-minute film looks in particular at Montana’s milk regulations and how they are indicative of larger food waste problems across the U.S.

Law professor at Harvard University, Charles Ogletree talks to Alex Witt about President Obama’s considerations for judicial appointees.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: The death of Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday creates a major challenge for President Barack Obama in the run-up to the 2016 election. Obama has said he will nominate a replacement to the U.S. Supreme Court, even though Senate Republican leaders have made it clear they prefer the seat remain vacant for now. Should the president go along, and not nominate anyone, liberals will be enraged at his passivity. If Obama does nominate a justice quickly, should he pick a liberal whose rejection will galvanize Democratic voters to turn out for the party’s nominee in November, in hopes of a second chance? Or should he pick a moderate who has an outside chance of actually being confirmed, creating the possibility of a liberal balance on the court even if a Republican wins in November?

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein:  Can professional golf help explain what is now happening with the stock market? I think that it can, because it offers a clue about an important source of this month’s market volatility: human psychology. The best golfers make par on most holes. They also have plenty of chances to make a welcome birdie (one under par) or to avoid a dreaded bogey (one over par). To do either, they have to sink a putt. A stroke is a stroke, so you might think that whether a pro makes a putt can’t possibly depend on whether the result would be making a birdie or avoiding a bogey. But you’d be wrong.

The death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday sets up a battle between the White House and the Senate over who will nominate a new associate justice—a battle over governing norms and constitutional imperatives, played out in the most powerful republic in the world. ...  As to the first, no legal expert I talked to thought the now-smaller Court was likely to annul its stay. “There is currently no reason to assume the Court will revisit the stay order,” said Richard Lazarus, an environmental-law professor at Harvard University and a veteran of oral arguments at the Court, in an email. “It is final as voted on by the full Court at the time and is not subject to revisiting any more than any other ruling by the Court before the Justice’s passing.”

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein: Antonin Scalia was witty, warm, funny, and full of life. He was not only one of the most important justices in the nation’s history; he was also among the greatest. ... But his greatness does not lie solely in his way with words. Nor does it have anything to do with conventional divisions between liberals and conservatives (or abortion, or same-sex marriage). Instead it lies in his abiding commitment to one ideal above any other: the rule of law.