Media Mentions

An op-ed by Tommy Tobin `16. North Carolina is home to the nation’s longest-running federal court vacancy. Recently, Patricia Timmons-Goodson was nominated to fill the post that’s been unfilled for over a decade. Sen. Richard Burr reacted to this news by vowing to block this former state supreme court justice from the federal bench. Federal judicial vacancies occur all over the country. Right now, 60 nominees are awaiting confirmation. Judicial vacancies have consequences. A forthcoming paper by Professor Crystal S. Yang in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy found significant real-world effects on criminal justice outcomes during judicial vacancies.

As Harvard Law School admissions officers finalize next year’s class, they do so with an eye toward a group of fields that deviate from the traditional path to legal studies: STEM. Law School chief admissions officer Jessica L. Soban said the percentage of admitted students with backgrounds in STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—will remain in the double digits for the second year in a row, reflecting a deliberate effort by Law School admissions officers in recent years to increase the number of students with such backgrounds...Law School clinical professor Christopher T. Bavitz said he thinks students with STEM backgrounds possess skills well-suited to the law. “There are a lot of reasons why people with tech backgrounds can do well in the law,” he said. “A lot of law practice is explaining complicated concepts to people...and people with science and tech backgrounds do that well. I think they’re great analytical thinkers in ways that kind of map on to the thinking lawyers do.” The Law School has pioneered programs bridging science and the law. The school’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics—which was established a decade ago—was the first of its kind among law schools, according Faculty Director and Law professor I. Glenn Cohen, putting Harvard ahead of peer institutions.

...Though offerings in Native American studies at Harvard are few and far between, a small number of committed students and faculty are dedicated to maximizing the resources available to them, and hope to see more opportunities in the future...Native American studies at Harvard Law School has a larger presence compared to other schools at the University. Lowe cited the establishment of the Oneida Indian Nation Visiting Professor of Law position as an example of a positive development towards increasing Native American studies faculty. The visiting position, endowed by the Oneida Nation, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in New York, is currently filled by Robert T. Anderson, who is serving two consecutive five-year appointments as the Oneida Chair. Anderson said he thinks there is enough student interest in American Indian Law to fill more classes than are currently offered in the field. “Students are very interested [in American Indian Law] because it’s a very high-level student body as you would expect at Harvard, and many of the students are going on to prestigious federal and state clerkships where they’re encountering these issues,” he said. In addition to the Oneida professorship, professor Joseph W. Singer has developed an American Indian Law problem for a mandatory “Problem Solving Workshop” required for every first-year Law student. He also leads a reading group on American Indian Law. Additionally, the Law School runs a Native Amicus Briefing Project, which recruits students partly to keep track of cases of federal Indian law and ultimately provide amicus briefs to the cases.

A letter by Delcianna J. Winders, fellow. If the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium is truly concerned about elephants and elephant-born tuberculosis, why is it supporting cruel, outmoded elephant-back safaris?

There’s a new, deeply troubling, report about misconduct at a state drug testing lab. The report by Attorney General Maura Healey alleges that Amherst chemist Sonja Farak got high off of drugs she took from the lab nearly every day for eight years...Guests...Nancy Gertner, WBUR legal analyst, retired federal judge, Harvard Law School professor.

A 28-year-old Army officer on Wednesday sued President Obama over the legality of the war against the Islamic State, setting up a test of Mr. Obama’s disputed claim that he needs no new legal authority from Congress to order the military to wage that deepening mission...Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who has criticized the administration’s use of the 2001 war authorization to cover the Islamic State but is not involved in the suit, said the case was significant because it could overcome a major hurdle to getting a court to review that theory. But Mr. Goldsmith said Captain Smith faced many other hurdles, including precedents that suggest that when Congress appropriates money for a conflict it has implicitly authorized it. He also predicted that if a court did rule that the conflict was illegal, Congress would authorize the fight to continue – perhaps giving it broader scope than Mr. Obama has wanted. “We’re in a terrible equilibrium where Congress doesn’t want to step up and play its part in this military campaign and so the president has basically gone forward and done what he thinks he needs to do,” Mr. Goldsmith said. “It would be a lot better for everyone, including the president, if Congress got more involved.”

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Donald Trump is an iconic System 1 candidate -- more clearly so than any party nominee in at least sixty years. Hillary Clinton is an iconic System 2 candidate -- as clearly so as any party nominee in the same period. That distinction may well end up defining the general election. Let me explain. Psychologists, and most prominently Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, have distinguished between two ways of thinking -- fast and slow. Fast thinking is associated with the brain’s System 1: It is intuitive, quick, and sometimes emotional...System 2 is deliberative and reflective.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The Black Lives Matter movement may be starting to affect the thinking of federal judges, if a Texas case is any indication. Wednesday, a George W. Bush appointee wrote a dissent that started this way: “Wayne Pratt received the death penalty at the hands of three police officers for the misdemeanor crime of failing to stop and give information.” The opinion was a dissent because the two other judges on the appellate panel thought the officers who killed Pratt during an arrest were entitled to immunity from being sued. So it's not as if the social protest movement has yet won a complete victory. But the Republican appointee’s language was noteworthy and her opinion deserves analysis.

Yale University announced last week that it will retain the name of Calhoun College, one of its 12 residential colleges. The college was named for John C. Calhoun, a 19th-century alumnus and a fervent supporter of slavery. The decision set off an angry response from students on campus, who condemned the decision at an intense university-sponsored town hall last Thursday. But one prominent race relations expert doesn't believe that Yale made a mistake in their decision to keep Calhoun's name on the college. While removing the name would have been Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy's "preference," he "can respect the decision thay [Yale] made," he told Business Insider. "People speak as if you keep John C. Calhoun's name, that means you're indifferent to the legacy of racism," he continued. "I don't believe that. I think that there are people who embrace the idea of keeping his name who are deeply concerned with the legacy of slavery and racism and want to do things to address that legacy."

Learn about constitutional law, we will. Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein is best known for his influential scholarship on constitutional law and behavioral economics as well as his three-year stint as administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President Obama. But his latest project has him venturing beyond the ivory tower into a subculture far, far away: Star Wars.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The Supreme Court has announced that it will decide a fascinating copyright case about cheerleaders’ uniforms. It's a big deal because the case isn’t just about cheerleaders -- it could determine whether many kinds of fashion designs can be copyrighted. The copyright law seems simple: It says that “useful items” can’t be protected. You can't own exclusive rights to make dining tables or dinner plates. A uniform, like any other piece of clothing or furniture, is useful. But that isn’t the end of the problem. What about designs on useful objects: a pattern on a dinner plate or a stripe on a garment?

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Justice Stephen Breyer is against the death penalty -- but not because it’s morally wrong. He briefly reiterated his arguments Monday when dissenting from the court’s refusal to hear a California death row inmate’s case. First, he said the death penalty may be unconstitutional in California because it’s applied arbitrarily and unreliably. Those are plausible and unremarkable arguments. They no doubt appeal to the technician in Breyer, who believes that government should do things pragmatically and correctly. But his third reason was most striking. Following a view he has held since the 1990s, Breyer argued that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it takes too long for condemned inmates to be put to death.

An article by Samuel Moyn. The duty to remember—especially to remember victims lost to political evil—has become one of the most commanding mantras of our culture. Yet it is astonishing how recently this imperative became so authoritative. Kings have raised monuments to their own alleged greatness for millennia, but commemoration of the dead of the wars of nations reached its apogee only in the early twentieth century with the end of World War I and now-familiar invocations of the heroism and self-sacrifice of soldiers for the sake of the nation’s political fortunes.

South Jersey truck driver Michael Fright plans to celebrate by watching the first six movies, back to back to back. Bucks County accountant Carl Cardozo will take the day off from work, going in search of collectible, newly-on-sale figures of Boba Fett. Harvard professor Cass Sunstein intends to travel to the purest planet in the galaxy, Dagobah - at least in his mind. "It's gorgeous there," he said. And he should know. On Wednesday, these fans will join thousands of others - film buffs, academics, nerds everywhere - to observe an unofficial but hugely popular national holiday: Star Wars Day. That's May 4, as in, May the Fourth be with you!...But why does the holiday exist? Why is there a day for Star Wars when there's no Jurassic Park Day? Or Hunger Games Day?"Because it's awesome, and full of mysteries, and fun, and because it is handed down from one generation to another," Sunstein said.

In our earlier segment, we examined some of the repercussions of the current vacancy on the Supreme Court. This week we will examine in more detail the specific impact on the Fifth Circuit and how the vacancy impacts splits in decisions between the 11 circuits of the United States Courts of Appeals. The National Law Review turned to the expertise of Andrew Pincus of Mayer Brown, Daniel Volchok of Wilmer Hale and [lecturer] Tejinder Singh of Goldstein & Russell, P.C. for help fleshing out these issues.

A letter by Delcianna J. Winders, Animal Law & Policy Program. Ringling’s retired elephants likely won’t spend the bulk of their days “roam(ing) ... and play(ing)”...Ringling only lets the elephants off chains into small corrals for about eight hours a day, according to 2007 testimony by Gary Jacobson, general manager of Ringling’s conservation center. Sometimes they are chained for 22.5 hours a day or even longer. It’s no surprise that Ringling’s elephants suffer painful foot diseases. Some wild elephants can roam more than 30 miles every day. Ringling’s claim that chaining is necessary to “make sure they don’t disturb each other or steal each other’s food” is laughable.

Balloons and roughly 100 people filled the student lounge at Harvard Law School to commemorate graduating student activists and a year of contnued race-related activism at the school in an informal commencement ceremony Tuesday evening...Second-year Law student and Reclaim Harvard Law member Aparna Gokhale said group members came up with the idea for a commencement ceremony several weeks ago during what they called a low point in their activism efforts...Third-year Law student and Reclaim Harvard Law member Rena T. Karefa-Johnson spoke about the support system she found among activists and the lessons in “radical love and resistance” she learned from the movement. Johnson recalled that during her first year at the Law School, she found that people were hesitant to speak publicly about race. “To see what this room looks like right now is so crazy to me,” she said, looking around the crowded lounge.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s investigation into fetal-tissue sales has run into a large obstacle: a federal judge’s preliminary injunction protecting the National Abortion Federation. The injunction, issued Feb. 5, bans the pro-life Center for Medical Progress from releasing video taken at two NAF conferences. But the order is creating headaches for Mr. Brnovich and 13 other attorneys general...Those in the center’s corner include 11 legal scholars from nine U.S. universities, including Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon and Stanford Law School professor Michael W. McConnell. The professors “do not agree with one another on all aspects of the controversial issue of abortion,” said their amicus brief. “But [they] are united in insisting that all Americans — no matter what their views on abortion — have an unfettered right in our society to have access to important information about controversial matters, including abortion,” the brief said.

An op-ed by Bruce Hay. Against her better judgment, my beloved was reading the comments section of an article about the bathroom bills sweeping the country. A man calling himself rcp196935 had commented that the laws were necessary to keep women safe from predators. Having heard this refrain once too often, my beloved decided to respond. She is a trans woman, she explained, and poses no danger to anyone, and like any other woman should be allowed to use the public restrooms in peace. She signed it in her own name. Mr. rcp196935 had a reply for her.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The Supreme Court has decided a Baltimore Police Department extortion case straight out of "The Wire" on the basis of common sense. It held that the federal bribery statute allows a conviction for conspiracy to commit bribery even when the co-conspirator was also the victim. That's the nature of a kickback, after all: The party that's being extorted is also one of the beneficiaries of the scheme. This holding required the court to go beyond the literal words of the statute and ascertain its true purpose. The late Justice Antonin Scalia, who hated such purpose-driven statutory interpretation, is harrumphing somewhere as his textualism was rejected. You'd expect Justice Clarence Thomas to have dissented, and he did. But in a noteworthy twist, the other dissent in the 5-3 decision was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor -- and her opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts. Both, it appears, disfavor the extension of conspiracy law, although perhaps for different reasons.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The most dramatic moment of my legal education came when Professor Owen Fiss of Yale Law School threw his paperback copy of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 25 feet across a classroom into a waiting trash can. It wasn’t just the eminent scholar’s aim that impressed me, but his point: that the federal rules of procedure are basically unconstitutional because of the way they’re adopted. Instead of being enacted by Congress and signed by the president like ordinary laws, procedural rules are written by the unelected Supreme Court, which transmits them to Congress, after which they ordinarily go into effect without change.