Media Mentions

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: Antonin Scalia will go down as one of the greatest justices in U.S. Supreme Court history -- and one of the worst. His greatness derived from his carefully articulated philosophy of constitutional interpretation, based on the law as a set of rules that should be applied in accordance with the original meaning of the document. Yet on issues from race to gay rights to the environment, his reactionary conservatism consistently put him on the wrong side of constitutional law’s gradual progressive evolutionary path. To put it bluntly, Scalia’s reasoning was almost always beautiful and elegant, but his results were almost always wrong. Scalia, who died Saturday at 79, could be acerbic at a personal level. His biting humor often had a sarcastic edge, and he alienated Justice Sandra Day O’Connor by dismissing the quality of her analytic reasoning. At the same time, one of my fondest memories is an afternoon spent drinking two bottles of red wine and eating pizza at A.V. Ristorante, a now-defunct Italian spot in Washington, with Scalia and my fellow clerks for Justice David Souter, liberals all. Scalia was relaxed, warm and witty -- charm itself, trading ideas and arguments and treating us with complete equality. I remember thinking that if this was the devil, he certainly assumed a most pleasing form.

An op-ed by Larry Lessig: Bernie Sanders has made great strides casting doubt on the credibility of Hillary Clinton as an agent of change. How can you take on Wall Street if you take quarter-million-dollar speaking fees from its leading banks? How can you be a credible reformer if you have been so dependent on money from the status quo? But Sanders has his own credibility problem. It’s called Congress. The Vermont senator’s agenda is a “fiction,” the Post editorial board declared, because there is zero chance it could get through the legislature, and not just because there are more Republicans than Democrats on Capitol Hill. Even when President Obama had a super-majority of Democrats in Congress, he couldn’t get climate change legislation passed or a public option included in Obamacare. The threat of the powerful energy and health-care industries pouring millions of dollars into campaigns against Democrats was enough to get the leader of the last great “revolution” in U.S. politics to stand down. Until we change the way that money matters on Capitol Hill, the more sober-minded — they call themselves “realists” — will just roll their eyes at the fantastical promises of America’s most authentic politician.

An op-ed by Alex Whiting and Amanda Chen: The Harvard International Review sat down to talk about recent dissent regarding decisions of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its evolving role in international justice. What do you think the current most important functions of the ICC are? There’s lot of discussion of the political effect of the court, but the court’s work is judicial and legal and that is what it has to focus on. The ICC is a legal institution, constrained by a statute adopted by treaty. There are 123 countries that have now signed onto the treaty. The most important function is for the court to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide that fall under the jurisdiction of the court. There’s lot of discussion of the political effect of the court, but the court’s work is judicial and legal and that is what it has to focus on.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died while on a trip to the Big Bend area of Texas, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. The longtime conservative jurist, known for an acerbic wit and occasionally biting opinions and dissents, was 79. Below are some early reactions to the news from the legal world: Laurence Tribe, professor at Harvard Law School: I’m still in shock, but one thing I can say is that I liked the Justice personally and greatly admired his contribution to our legal system even when I disagreed profoundly with his views.

Donald Trump continued to push the contentious issue of Ted Cruz’s presidential eligibility on Friday, threatening that he has legal standing to sue Cruz for not being a “natural born citizen.” ...Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe said Trump’s standing is plausible but not legally guaranteed. “Its plausibility gets greater the closer we get to the point where it’s clear that Cruz himself (and not Cruz together with Bush, Kasich, Rubio, and perhaps others) is the real obstacle to Trump’s nomination and thus a clear source of concrete injury to Trump’s prospects for the Republican presidential nomination,” Tribe said in an email.

If you thought the fight over net neutrality ended when the Federal Communications Commission issued its strong new “Open Internet” rules last year, think again. ...“The really big move is turning the Internet into the equivalent of a cable system, where it’s a managed network,” said Susan Crawford, a professor at Harvard Law School and an outspoken critic of the big broadband providers. “If Comcast and these guys get away with this, other carriers around the world will try to do the same thing.”  

The Lyric Stage, a popular local theater, on Monday hosts a 7 p.m. screening of the short film “East of Hollywood.” It’s billed as “a mockumentary that exposes the stereotypes Asian-American actors are forced to deal with throughout the audition process.” Winner of best narrative short at last year’s Boston Asian American Film Festival, “East of Hollywood” is directed by Chris Caccioppoli and stars Michael Tow, who drew on real experiences that he and fellow Asian-American actors encountered over their careers. ...Following the screening, Caccioppoli, Tow, Oliva, and Nguyen will engage in a discussion moderated by Jeannie Suk, professor at Harvard Law School.

An op-ed by Nancy Gertner: I did not know Justice Antonin Scalia. Following the announcement of his death, I could not help but be struck by the accounts of his warmth, his friendships (notably with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, with whom he regularly disagreed on the Supreme Court), his deep religious commitment, his infectious sense of humor. I knew him through his opinions, books, and speeches. Even though I disagreed with him much of the time, one thing is clear: His legal positions could not be ignored — not by lawyers, scholars, judges, nor the public. I had to take them seriously in my own judicial decisions and in my writing. And the need to deal with his arguments shifted the debate, even the outcomes.

Before he died Saturday at age 79, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the longest-serving member of the current court, a towering figure in the legal community who now leaves a historic legacy. That’s how he’s being remembered. But just what was that legacy, exactly? ... That’s the portrait that emerges here from the 19 top legal thinkersPolitico Magazine asked to reflect on his life and death. ...Laurence H. Tribe ...Noah Feldman,

America's bold effort to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants is on hold. On February 9th the Supreme Court, divided five to four along partisan lines, putting the brakes on Barack Obama’s flagship environmental policy, pending a possible ruling this summer. The plan forms the core of America’s recent commitments to cut emissions, made at the UN climate talks in Paris...States, utilities and mining companies have declared the plan to be too much, too soon. The attorney-general of West Virginia, one of the states opposing it, said he was “thrilled” after the court issued its stay. Richard Lazarus, from Harvard Law School, calls the intervention “extraordinary”. Although compliance with the regulation is not required until 2022, the deadline for submitting first plans to cut back on emissions was supposed to be September.

A few hours after nearly every country in the world adopted the Paris Agreement last December, John Kerry went into enemy territory. Backed by the blinking lights of the Champs-Élysées, the bleary-eyed secretary of state clipped on an earpiece and started fielding questions from Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace. One of the main objections American conservatives have to any global climate deal is the fear that other countries will renege, making money off dirty energy while Americans sacrifice to clean the atmosphere like a bunch of chumps...But this week, another branch of government emerged as a threat to the plan. Chief Justice John Roberts, backed by his four fellow Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, barred the Obama administration from taking any steps to implement its plan to reduce carbon pollution from existing power plants until the courts reach a final decision on the plan’s legality...Jody Freeman, a Harvard University law professor who served as White House counselor for energy and climate change under Obama, disagrees. "There’s no argument for irreparable harm," she says. "There is no obligation on the part of the federal government to preserve the market share of the coal industry."

An op-ed by Emily Broad Leib. Glug, glug, glug… That’s the sound of milk being poured down the drain in Montana. Montana wastes untold amounts of milk every day due to an outdated law that requires a “sell by” date of 12 days after pasteurization and prohibits sale or donation after that date. This date is completely arbitrary, especially when compared to the industry standard for date labeling on milk—generally 21-24 days after pasteurization. Even more shocking, the date label on milk, like on most foods, is generally meant to indicate quality rather than its safety. Because pasteurization kills any harmful pathogens, milk is safe and generally still good well past the date. Montana’s is just one of many US state laws that cause confusion and massive amounts of waste. Even if food makes it to a home, more than 90% of Americans report that they mistake those quality dates labels for safety indicators, and subsequently throw away food that is still completely safe to eat. Confusion over date labels is a major contributor to the 160 billion pounds of food wasted each year in the US.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The Department of Justice must’ve expected that the Ferguson, Missouri, City Council would stall in accepting the terms of a consent decree over allegations that the city’s police and courts have violated black residents’ civil rights. The department had a 56-page complaint for a lawsuit at the ready, and filed it just a day after the council demanded several changes to the negotiated draft. Presumably, Ferguson won’t want the embarrassment or the expense of fighting a federal lawsuit. The department is using force as a negotiating tactic, and Ferguson will have to fold. Yet the episode raises a problem with roots in the history of civil-rights enforcement. What should the Department of Justice or the courts do if a city like Ferguson won’t accept a deal, and insists on litigating alleged civil-rights violations to completion?