Media Mentions

Their names are familiar and unavoidable to students who inhabit the buildings and walk along the streets: Mather, Brattle, Holyoke. Their histories—as slaveholders—have largely been overlooked since the buildings were erected and streets paved, until recently. At both Harvard College and Harvard Law School, students, faculty, and administrators have begun reconsidering titles and symbols because of their associations with the legacy of slavery...Members of the advocate group demanding that Harvard Law change its seal, “Royall Must Fall,” though, disagree with Faust’s line of thinking. Law student Alexander J. Clayborne, a member of the Royall Must Fall and Reclaim Harvard Law School student activist groups, said that buildings and titles at Harvard should be reevaluated on a case by case basis. “The problem is the names on these buildings serve to honor these people; they serve to hold them up as someone to be imitated,” Clayborne said. “The fact of the matter is that these people engaged in morally reprehensible behavior and that shouldn’t be honored.”

The Citizens United decision, which amplified the role of money in American politics, also promised something like a level playing field. Both corporations and unions, it said, could spend what they liked to support their favored candidates. But last week’s arguments in a major challenge to public unions illuminated a gap in the Supreme Court’s treatment of capital and labor. The court has long allowed workers to refuse to finance unions’ political activities. But shareholders have no comparable right to refuse to pay for corporate political speech. At the arguments in the case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, No. 14-915, the justices seemed poised to widen that gap by allowing government workers to refuse to support unions’ collective bargaining activities, too. The case should prompt a new look at whether the differing treatment of unions and corporations is justified, said Benjamin I. Sachs, a law professor at Harvard. “If we’re going to make this opt-out right for workers more and more muscular, which is what is going to happen with Friedrichs,” he said, “the question of symmetrical treatment of shareholders just becomes that much more important.”

After he left Wall Street to enter politics eight years ago, Representative Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, began fielding the occasional question of when he intended to run for president. “It has come up in jest any number of times,” said Mr. Himes, who always has his answer ready. “There could be constitutional questions.” Mr. Himes, you see, was born in Peru in 1966 while his father worked for the Ford Foundation. That makes him one of at least 17 current members of Congress who, because of their birth outside the United States, could run afoul of the Constitution’s “natural born citizen” presidential requirement should they try to relocate down Pennsylvania Avenue...Laurence H. Tribe, the Harvard law professor and constitutional scholar, believes the “natural born” provision has outlived its original intent considering that the redcoats are no longer coming. “The worry that George III might come over and exert undue Germanic or British influence is no longer a threat,” said Mr. Tribe, referring to a motivating fear of the founding fathers. “There is no defense now for retaining the clause in the Constitution. It really needs to be removed.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. For most of the last thousand years, building mosques was a way of consolidating an Islamic empire’s prestige and spreading its beliefs. In recent decades, Saudi Arabia has been the leading global mosque builder, erecting sanctuaries and paying imams to spread its Wahhabi brand of fundamentalist state religion. Now Turkey and Iran have entered the mosque race, sponsoring new structures in their distinctive architectural styles. But they’re late to the game, at least if the score is tallied by discouraging disfavored ideology and spreading their own religious and political views.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. In October, a Kentucky judge dismissed criminal charges against a man who had shot down a drone flying over his property. Now the drone’s owner has brought a federal civil suit against the shooter, William Merideth, arguing that the Federal Aviation Administration is in charge of all airspace and that it allows drones to fly over private property. All this amounts to a legal mess. The law, both state and federal, is still pretty unclear about where you can fly a drone, and what you as a citizen may do if a drone -- probably with a camera on board -- is hovering above your home.

In two of Ted Cruz’s signature legal briefs before the supreme court, he cited the liberal law professor whom Donald Trump has invoked in questioning Cruz’s eligibility to be president. As Texas solicitor general, Cruz cited Harvard professor Laurence Tribe as “a prominent commentator” in his brief for Medellin v Texas, a case the senator invariably mentions on the stump. In Thursday night’s Republican debate, under fire from Trump, Cruz changed his tune about Tribe, who taught him constitutional law at Harvard, calling him “a leftwing judicial activist, [a] Harvard law professor who was Al Gore’s lawyer in Bush v Gore … a major Hillary Clinton supporter”...Cruz also cited Tribe in his brief for District of Columbia v Heller, a landmark 2008 case in which the court held that the second amendment provided for an individual right to bear arms...“Apparently Senator Cruz doesn’t think I’m too far left for him to cite me in his supreme court brief on behalf of 31 states as a principal authority on constitutional interpretation – when it suits his purposes,” said Tribe. “Somehow I don’t feel particularly complimented.”

The argument about Ted Cruz’s birth and eligibility to be president has become a major fight on the campaign trail between Donald Trump, Cruz and a prominent constitutional scholar from Harvard...Cruz says this is all settled law, but Harvard’s Laurence Tribe disagrees. “It clearly is not settled law,” Tribe said in recent an interview. Tribe brings an interesting perspective to this story. He obviously knows a lot about the law, but he also knows a lot about Cruz — because back in the mid-1980s, Tribe taught constitutional law to Cruz. “He was very colorful,” Tribe recalled. “He took me on all the time, always had his hand up, he always wanted to disagree. And he got an A, and there weren’t that many As in a class of 150 or so.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. One of Europe’s most liberal countries has joined the likes of Iran and Turkey in drawing the ire of Israel. Israel has officially let it be known that Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström isn’t welcome in the country because of comments she made in December warning that Israel might be committing “extrajudicial executions” in connection with stabbing attempts by Palestinians against Israeli citizens. Wallström defended herself in Sweden’s parliament this week, insisting that she “was making an argument based on principles of international law.” Her critics say she’s apologizing for terrorism and hiding behind the law.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be at the center of a jam-packed week of trade action, with the president likely to make a push for congressional approval of the pact during his State of the Union address on Tuesday (Jan. 12) and the International Trade Commission slated to hold a three-day hearing on the agreement starting Wednesday...The latest installment will take place Monday and will examine TPP's impact on the automotive sector, with a focus on the automotive rules of origin. The format will differ from the previous forums in that Levin will testify rather than moderate, and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will also participate as a witness. The non-governmental witnesses are Mark Wu, a professor at the Harvard Law School and former intellectual property negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; Josh Nassar of the United Auto Workers; and Bill Hickey, chief executive officer of Lapham-Hickey Steel.

The Founding Fathers’ insistence that the presidency be limited to “natural born citizens” was based on their openly expressed fear that “foreigners were disloyal,” as law professor Malinda L. Seymore has written...Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe, who Trump quoted during the debate Thursday night as raising “serious questions” about Cruz’s eligibility, said in response to an email from the Post after the debate that the answer depends on one’s approach to interpreting the Constitution. “The more of a genuine ‘originalist’ someone (like Cruz) is, the harder it becomes to resolve that ‘serious question’ in Cruz’s favor. The more of a ‘living constitutionalist’ someone (like me) is, the easier it becomes to conclude that ‘natural born citizen’ has gradually acquired the broader meaning on which Cruz necessarily relies.”

With the United States incarcerating people at a higher rate than any other nation on earth, a prison population that is larger than at any time in our history, and vast racial disparities in incarceration rates for African-Americans and whites, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch ’81, J.D. ’84, called criminal-justice reform “a transformative issue of our generation” in a talk Wednesday at Harvard Law School (HLS). The system is not only about litigating cases, but “just as important, how do we prevent people from interacting with the criminal-justice system? How do we stop them from making the mistakes that lead them into our system? And then, when individuals have served their debt to society, how do we make sure that they have a way to go home to their families, to their communities, to become productive citizens?” Lynch said during a conversation with Carol Steiker, the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law and Special Adviser for Public Service at HLS.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida’s death penalty Tuesday, but if you think this is a harbinger of the end of capital punishment, think again. The 8-1 decision was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who have no intention of ever ruling death sentences unconstitutional as a general matter. The reason these archconservatives held Florida’s death-penalty system unconstitutional was highly specific. The state gave a judge, not a jury, final authority to decide facts that would determine a capital sentence.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Is the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico sovereign, like the 50 states? Or is it a mere territory of the U.S.? This problem in the metaphysics of colonialism has some relevance to the question of Puerto Rico’s ability to restructure its bonds using bankruptcy law, which will come before the U.S. Supreme Court later this year. But the justices will take up the matter directly Wednesday, in considering whether Puerto Rico and the federal government can separately prosecute someone for the same crime.

After the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over a major energy conservation rule in October, supporters of the regulation were anxious. Their fear: A divided court would act swiftly to reject a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission "demand-response" rule requiring power users to be paid for committing to scale back electricity use at times of peak demand. But the passage of weeks and then months with no decision could be a signal that the justices will do more than simply kill the regulation...Given that both cases concern the boundaries of state and federal authority, some lawyers say arguments in the Maryland cases might help shed some light on the demand-response cases. "Maybe they're waiting to hear the other side of that argument before trying to draw a line," said Ari Peskoe, an energy fellow at Harvard Law School's Environmental Policy Initiative. If the justices were aiming to create sound policy regarding the regulatory divisions, "maybe they want to hear both sides so they can try to craft that correctly."

An op-ed by Jack Goldsmith. For months the Obama administration has raised the stakes on its seven-year pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. In November three former senior Obama administration attorneys argued that the president had the constitutional power to ignore the legal restrictions Congress has placed on bringing dangerous detainees to the United States. Presidential aides suggested that the White House was taking the argument seriously. And then last week, in preview interviews for the President’s State of the Union address, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough put down a marker about Guantanamo.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been busy combatting claims that his Canadian birth makes him ineligible for the presidency, but one Harvard professor is arguing that Cruz’s own logic could be his next opponent in the debate. Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor who once taught Cruz as his student, called the senator a “fair weather originalist” in a Boston Globe op-ed, noting that Cruz has trumpeted his views of a strict interpretation of the Constitution on the campaign trail—except when it comes to the question of his citizenship and potential to run for president...Tribe, who said in the op-ed that he disagreed with Cruz’s views while teaching him at Harvard but “enjoyed jousting with him,” told Boston.com that he hesitated before taking his opinion to the Globe, waiting longer than he would have to write about a stranger. “I usually do all I can ethically do to help my former students, including those whose views about how the Constitution should be interpreted and who should have the last word on constitutional questions I find it personally tough to swallow,” he said in an email, also noting that he’s supported past students who had views that conflicted with his own.

Greece's talks to secure a new bailout with its international creditors and avoid an ignominious exit from the euro zone shredded nerves and bust deadlines over the summer. And now the approach used by the Athens government in the talks has been named the worst negotiating tactic of 2015 by Harvard Law School...In its list of the "Top 10 Worst Negotiation Tactics of 2015" released this week, Harvard Law School criticised the Greek negotiating team, led by fiery former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, for its "combative tone that did not go over well."

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Federal courts are supposed to apply laws passed by Congress. But can Congress dictate the outcome in a particular case, the way it did when it essentially told the federal district court in New York to rule for victims of terrorism trying to collect $2 billion from the Iranian government? The U.S. Supreme Court will take up this question Wednesday in Bank Markazi v. Peterson -- and it’s legally tricky as well as politically sensitive.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The First Amendment protects your right to burn the flag in protest. What about getting naked to draw attention to your cause? An Oregon man is intent on finding out -- and so far, the courts have ruled against him. His case deserves attention because of the light it sheds on a core question of free speech.

Calling him a "fair weather originalist" and accusing him of "constitutional hypocrisy," Ted Cruz's former law school professor is arguing that the Texas senator's own legal philosophy disqualifies him from serving as president. Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard whose students include President Barack Obama and Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Elena Kagan, hammered Cruz over questions about his presidential eligibility because of his birth in Canada, which have been raised by Donald Trump and caused headaches for the Calgary-born Texas senator in the Republican primary. Appearing on "Anderson Cooper 360" Monday night, Tribe slammed Cruz for his "constitutional hypocrisy."

As protests erupted on campuses across the country this fall and winter, students questioned the legacies of founding fathers, statesmen and philanthropists whose names are carved into stone. With increasingly diverse student populations — more non-white students, more students who were the first in their families to go to college, more students coming from poverty, more students who are openly gay or figuring out their gender identity — there was new pressure on the traditions and heritage of some of the country’s oldest institutions...At Harvard, students began to question the symbol of the law school, which honors Isaac Royall Jr. His estate helped found the school, was enriched in part by the slaves; his family had more slaves than any other in Massachusetts, according to the website of the museum at his former home and slave quarters. Jonathan Hiles, a third-year student at Harvard Law School, writes in “Respect the Past: Remove the Royall Seal,” in the Harvard Crimson: “The truth is we don’t need the names or insignias of racists to remind us of slavery or Jim Crow.