Media Mentions

An op-ed by Charles Nesson. Boston's Olympic bid spurred a remarkable community deliberation. It gave us a chance to talk about our visions for sports and the city. The discussions were exciting, and we felt a spirit of democracy. But the subsequent withdrawal of the bid left many with an empty feeling. It truncated deliberation about the future of Boston’s engagement with sport by removing its focal point. Suddenly, we had no place to go. We moved on to the issue of chewing tobacco at Fenway. Without an Olympic focal point, our energy dissipated. But we now have an opportunity to regain that energy. The United Nations, through UNESCO, is seeking a host city for its next all-nations sports conference, the International Conference of Ministers and Senior Officials Responsible for Physical Education and Sport, or MINEPS VI, to be held in May 2017. Boston should bid for it.

Video: Mark Roe, Harvard Law School professor, discusses the impact of ending quarterly earnings reports and why short-term thinking often makes sense for U.S. businesses.

A ruling by the ICC judges that admits testimony by hostile witnesses against Deputy President William Ruto could complicate his case. ... Alex Whiting, a professor of international law at Harvard University, summed up the ruling as "a very significant decision for the case". "First, it confirms something that the prosecution has been saying for years, that witnesses were improperly interfered with in the Ruto case," Whiting told the Star yesterday.In Parliament, some 40 Jubilee lawmakers yesterday tore into the ICC, accusing The Hague-based court of sabotaging the administration's efforts to unite local communities. They said the decision by the ICC trial judges to admit recanted witness statements as evidence against Deputy President Ruto was part of a plot to break up the Jubilee Alliance ahead of the 2017 polls.

Every year, in mid-August, the Vineyard also turns into think tank in paradise, convening discussions on issues relevant to the black community, who started flocking here more than a century ago. This year, four events in four days focused on policing reform, mass incarceration and how the protesters on the streets of cities including Ferguson and Baltimore (and the resulting hashtags on Twitter) are changing the face of the civil rights movement. Regular attendees couldn’t recall such such consistent themes in the past. ... But after Trayvon Martin was killed, it became clear that even well-to-do black children could face discrimination – or worse — because of the color of their skin. “You just found out you really didn’t matter,” said Carter, in her late 40s, speaking at a forum organized by Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree in Oak Bluffs.

Subscription required: An op-ed by Tommy Tobin '16: Common sense tells us to follow instructions when it comes to food. Unfortunately, our use-by or sell-by labels may be tricking us into throwing away perfectly edible food. Date labels are confusing American consumers. All told, the average American family of four wastes more than $1,500 of food every year. Date labels are inconsistent. There are no federal standards for date-markings on most food products. Infant formula is the only food item federally mandated to contain a date marking. Different states and various cities have created a complex array of rules. In New York State, there are no laws requiring date labels. In California, the state has mandated date labels for shellfish and dairy products. California had no regulations on the post-dated sale of food products. This confusion is costing consumers.

In the case known as “Deflategate,” a federal court judge is presiding over a bizarre dispute between the American sports world’s most profitable entity, the National Football League, and one of the most successful quarterbacks in its history, Tom Brady. A four-time Super Bowl champion, Brady led the New England Patriots to the title in February. ... Peter Carfagna is a lecturer on law and directs the Sports Law Clinic atHarvard Law School. He spoke with the Gazette about the dispute and what impact the case may have on NFL players and on the league.

Perhaps it’s only fitting that in the dog days of summer, an awful lot of hot air is being expended over the inflation of footballs. In the case known as “Deflategate,” a federal court judge is presiding over a bizarre dispute between the American sports world’s most profitable entity, the National Football League (NFL), and one of the most successful quarterbacks in its history, Tom Brady. A four-time Super Bowl champion, Brady led the New England Patriots to the title in February...Peter Carfagna is a lecturer on law and directs the Sports Law Clinic at Harvard Law School (HLS). He spoke with the Gazette about the dispute and what impact the case may have on NFL players and on the league.

An op-ed by Susan Crawford. Earlier this month, on the same night, we saw a sad contrast. The last Daily Show with Jon Stewart aired. But by far the largest noise came from Donald Trump in the most-watched non-sports cable show in history. Yet I remain optimistic. I have faith that the American electorate will tire of the antics of “short-fingered vulgarian” Donald Trump before the primary season begins next year...What’s more, I have faith that Americans will be able to come up with many more interesting killer apps using high-capacity networks than South Koreans have. They may have the networks, but we have the freedom to create and fail.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Iraq's prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, is taking severe steps to rid himself of his troublesome predecessor, Nuri al-Maliki. On the heels of a government shakeup, the latest move is a parliamentary report blaming Maliki and many of his political and military leaders for the fall of Mosul to Islamic State last summer. The report is going to be referred to a public prosecutor -- which means Abadi may be plotting a criminal prosecution. Maliki is fighting back, issuing a public statement repudiating the report. Given that Maliki had more domestic support than Abadi when the U.S., with grudging Iranian acquiescence, forced Maliki out of office, it’s no surprise that Abadi would like to consolidate his authority by purging Maliki completely.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The death on Saturday of Julian Bond, a leading 1960s civil rights leader who became chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, raises a deep question about contemporary U.S. politics: Where are today’s young Julian Bonds? Why isn’t there a clear and identifiable national black leadership for the under-50 generation?

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Of all the findings in behavioral science, the most significant may be "loss aversion," the idea that people dislike losses a lot more than they like equivalent gains. Loss aversion can create big trouble for businesses and investors. And it can badly confuse political debate -- as it seems to be doing in the current discussions of the nuclear deal with Iran.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. In a weird new Cool War twist, Washington is demanding that China bring home agents it sent secretly to the U.S. to pressure corrupt Chinese officials and businessmen to return home and be punished. The shoe's on the other foot for the U.S., which has in the past frequently sent its own operatives to other countries without permission to grab not just terrorists but criminals, too. But the turnabout isn't what's most striking about this episode. Rather, the most important thing about China's secret efforts is why China thinks they're necessary at all.

An op-ed by Mark Roe. Corporate “short-termism” may not be as interesting as Donald Trump’s latest gaffe, but it’s becoming an issue in the 2016 presidential race. Corporations, the idea goes, are being run too much with an eye toward quarterly earnings instead of the long-term good of their businesses, their employees and the economy. Investors are to blame, and something needs to be done. Hillary Clinton has proposed making changes to capital-gains taxes and holding periods to encourage long-term investments. But it isn’t just Democrats who are concerned about short-termism...Among those who opine on the topic, most take for granted that corporate short-termism is pervasive, and more important damaging to the U.S. economy. But is it? Or is it a small issue on which we could do better but that’s been blown out of proportion by those fearful of change? I see it as just that.

An op-ed by Hal Scott and John Gulliver. The three-hour shutdown of the New York Stock Exchange last month made headlines world-wide. Despite the brief calamity, investors emerged largely unharmed, because the technical glitch was with the NYSE’s trading platform. The outcome would have been very different had the problem been with the exchange’s consolidated public market data feed—the live feed that lets traders and investors see public bid and ask prices, the price and time of the last trade, and other crucial information. Any future problem with the public market data feed of the NYSE or Nasdaq exchange would cause trading NYSE stocks with $19 trillion in value or Nasdaq stocks with $6.8 trillion in value to come to a halt for an indefinite period. This would shake investor confidence in this country’s public market, and might even affect the attractiveness of U.S. capital markets to private U.S. companies and foreign issuers. There is a way to stop such a shutdown from happening, but it will take a change in regulatory policy.

For the last four years, a little-known civil rights office in the U.S. Department of Education has forced far-reaching changes in how the nation’s colleges and universities police, prosecute and punish sexual assaults on campus...."It’s tragic what the federal government has done," said Elizabeth Bartholet, a civil rights activist and professor at Harvard Law School. "They are creating a backlash against the very cause they are fighting for."..."When the case is ambiguous, when the memories are clouded by alcohol consumption or time, we shouldn’t be punishing people," said [Janet] Halley, a self-described feminist once responsible for investigating such accusations at Stanford University. "I’m afraid that’s what we are doing, we are over-correcting," Halley said. "The procedures that are being adopted are taking us back to pre-Magna Carta, pre-due-process procedures."

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Should the Jews have a pope? For most of the last 2,000 years, the answer has been “no.” Rabbinic authority has been decentralized, with each community choosing its own religious leaders to follow. But now Israel’s Chief Rabbinate is seeking to monopolize and centralize control over Jewish law through the power of the state of Israel. A few Orthodox rabbis are fighting back, like those who announced a new conversion court this week. Because Israel won’t recognize the court, the battle is going to be joined in earnest.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. It’s been 150 years since U.S. law allowed masters to rape enslaved girls and women. Almost all modern Muslim societies banned slavery in the last century. So why is Islamic State turning back the clock, actively embracing and promoting enslavement of Yazidi women, thereby enabling them to be raped under one interpretation of classical Islamic law? Islamic State’s goal isn’t primarily about money or sex, but about sending the message that they are creating an Islamic utopia, following the practices of the era of the Prophet Muhammad. They want to go back in time, to the days of the earliest Muslims and the Prophet’s companions. The more medieval the practice, the more they like it.

An op-ed by Johanna Wald. One could almost hear a collective sigh of relief emanating from the Massachusetts criminal justice reform community at the announcement last week that the state would—finally—begin a long-overdue Justice Reinvestment effort. While more than 20 states have already undergone this data driven process aimed at reducing rates of incarceration, “liberal” Massachusetts had been strangely resistant to the federally-backed initiative. In fact, the Legislature veered off in the opposite direction several years ago, passing a controversial “Three Strikes” law to increase mandatory sentences for some offenses.

An op-ed by Lawrence Lessig. Earlier this week I launched a committee to explore the possibility of running in the Democratic Primary to be a very different kind of president. As I explained then, the run would be a referendum around a very simple idea: that if, as Elizabeth Warren puts it, “the system is rigged,” then we need a plan to fix that rigged system. My plan is a referendum. My candidacy would be a referendum. Elected with a single mandate to end this corrupted system, I would serve only as long as it takes to pass fundamental reform. I would then resign, and the vice president would become president. The most common (polite) reaction to this obviously implausible idea was two words: Bernie Sanders.

Lawrence Lessig wants to be president—for a day. The Harvard law professor, who says his top priority is to “unrig this rigged system,” is launching an unconventional bid to be what he calls a “referendum president.” His idea is straightforward: If elected, Mr. Lessig would take action to overhaul campaign-finance laws and end what he describes as voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering. Then — perhaps even after a single day, though he acknowledges that’s “hopeful”—he would step aside and let his vice president lead. He says he would consider Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren—who has repeatedly said she does not plan to run—to join him on the ticket.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. It must be good news that Iraq’s parliament passed Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi’s anti-corruption reforms this week -- right? As with most things in Iraq, the answer isn’t as simple as it appears on the surface. In the abstract, it’s a nice idea for Iraq to stop dividing the spoils of government office among its denominational and ethnic factions. But that structure, with all its obvious flaws and faults, was built into the DNA of the Iraqi constitution for a reason: to help quell Sunni Arab fears that the Shiite majority, in collusion with the Kurdish minority, would dominate the Sunnis in perpetuity and refuse to share oil revenue.