Media Mentions

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.

A new U.S. Supreme Court ruling could mean that hundreds of people convicted of violent felonies — including some in Massachusetts federal court — will be re-sentenced. The 7-1 vote involves the case Welch v. United States. The justices ruled that a decision in a previous case about federal sentencing will apply to those who’ve already been sentenced or those whose cases are closed. Former Massachusetts federal Judge Nancy Gertner says the ruling shows that the justices are chipping away at mandatory minimum sentencing.

ExxonMobil is fighting a subpoena seeking its internal documents on climate change, arguing that the order violates the company’s constitutional rights. It’s an argument that legal experts say is unusual but not unprecedented...Exxon’s invocation of the First Amendment is fairly unusual for a business, according to John Coates, a professor of law and economics at Harvard Law School. The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations do have First Amendment rights, but they aren’t necessarily as broad as those afforded to individuals. “Even the most right-wing and pro-business judge would not equate the speech rights of a business to that of individuals,” he said.

...Capitalizing on the tiny house craze -- popular in the Midwest and more rural areas of the country -- two Harvard students, Pete Davis, 26 and Jon Staff, 28, are bringing Harvard Tiny Houses, which are mini rustic houses, to New York City dwellers as vacation rentals under the company name of "Getaway."..."We think of ourselves less as a hotel company and more as a wellness company. ...We sometimes call ourselves an anti-vacation company because a vacation is usually a lot of money, and when you get there you're stressed out because you're sightseeing and this or that fell through," said Davis, who is a student at Harvard Law School. "This is for people over stressed at work, too hooked into their cell phones with the (e-mail) inbox overflowing. The whole idea is 'Let's get you out into nature to just relax,'" he added.

A group of student activists at Harvard Law School is calling for an end to tuition. Reclaim Harvard, which has been pushing for greater diversity and inclusion at the elite law school, argues that the cost of attendance unfairly impacts minority students because they typically have less family wealth...While administrators are “deeply committed to expanding access to a Harvard Law School education for the best students regardless of their backgrounds, and to providing aid to those who need it,” eliminating tuition is unsustainable, said law school spokesman Robb London in a written response to Reclaim Harvard’s latest demand...But a free education “is a matter of justice,” Reclaim Harvard argues.

In November, voters in Massachusetts will be asked whether the state should ban the sale of eggs, pork products or veal from animals that are too tightly confined within cages. If the ballot measure passes it would have far reaching consequences for the egg industry both in Massachusetts and several other states. It would also mark a big win for the cage­free egg movement. But are cage­free eggs really more humane for animals or healthier for humans? We hear more from environmental journalist Zack Colman, and Chris Green, Executive Director of the Animal Law and Policy Program at Harvard Law School.

An article by Robert Niles JD/MBA ’17.  Niles is the winner of the 2016 Bloomberg Law Write-On Competition for U.S. Law Week.Last Term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a First Amendment case that might have quietly rewritten free speech doctrine. Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 83 U.S.L.W. 4444, 2015 BL 193925 (U.S. June 18, 2015), involved a small, itinerant church's challenge to the Town of Gilbert's comically ornate sign code, which had vastly different size and timing requirements for religious, political and directional signs. The justices all agreed that the fine-grained distinctions the sign code drew did not pass muster under the First Amendment. Justice Elena Kagan, concurring in the judgment, argued that the town's failure to provide “any sensible basis” for the sign code's distinctions would not even pass the “laugh test.”

An article by Daniel Shapiro, affiliated faculty, Program on Negotiation. While the extremity of the current political rhetoric may feel unprecedented, the emotional undercurrents are common across high-stakes conflicts. If we have any hope of restoring a functional political system that serves the vision of an American family, we must first understand these hidden forces.

Christian rapper Applejaxx [Ernest Owens] spoke to Rapzilla at SXSW and explained what his “day job” was and how it influences his music. During the day, Applejaxx works at Harvard Law School. As he was looking for his job, his wife was pressing him to find something. One of his wife’s colleague knew someone who worked in the college in the HR department. There was a job opening in the basement at the copy center, “So it was literally starting from the bottom and now I’m here.” Now he does research with a lawyer on race injustice. He took the worst job and now has the best job.

A Harvard Law School group is urging Massachusetts regulators to test virtual power plants – possibly as part of microgrids – as the state moves to modernize its electric grid. The school’s Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic raised the idea of utilities demonstrating virtual power plants in comments filed last week before the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. The DPU is reviewing grid modernization plans proposed last year by its investor-owned utilities. ... The virtual power plant would pay a fee to the utility for use of the lines. But the Emmett clinic suggested the rate be discounted because the virtual power plant would use only distribution wires, not the full distribution system. “Such demonstration projects could include microgrids that use wires owned and operated by distribution companies and technology that is similar, if not the same as that used in VPPs,” said the Emmett clinic.

In the most recent wave of activism at the Law School, some students are calling on the school to eliminate tuition completely as part of their new campaign for financial justice. Members of the group Reclaim Harvard Law published an open letter Sunday addressed to Law School Dean Martha L. Minow and members of the Harvard Corporation—the University’s highest governing body—demanding an end to tuition. ...“[The seal change] is a great symbolic gesture, but we wanted to make sure that there are concrete economic steps that are taken so that students of color and students from low income backgrounds are less marginalized,” Reclaim Harvard Law member Sarah B. Cohen said. “This is aligned with our racial justice goals and a natural continuation of our activism.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman:  The much-awaited immigration case challenging President Barack Obama's right to waive deportation for unauthorized immigrants was argued before the Supreme Court today. It looks as though the administration may possibly have a path to win -- even if only on technicalities. The argument was dramatic. Justice Sonia Sotomayor took on the Texas solicitor general in an extended colloquy that made her seem almost like an advocate for immigrants rather than a justice. And U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said the administration was prepared to forget about granting official legal status to undocumented immigrants as long as they were protected from deportation -- a step that could nullify most objections to Obama's executive order.