Media Mentions

Harvard Law School students rallied Monday afternoon to demand the school change its official seal, which features parts of Isaac Royall’s family crest — a slave owner who helped found the institution. Students had given Dean Martha Minow until 9 a.m. Monday to meet their demands to change the seal as well as create a permanent memorial to the Royall family’s slaves. Minow has not responded. She is traveling. Dean of Students Marcia Sells addressed the students at Monday’s rally. “A quick response to those issues, I think, would give them not the value for which they deserve,” Sells said. “But I do want to say that I do indeed hear you. I do think that there are things that we as a community can change and improve, and I’m looking forward to that work.”...“One of the main issues we see is that people whose voices from marginalized communities are most needed in doing that kind of work, they come in the law school, they incur all this debt and they’re pressured into going into the private sector due to the high tuition cost,” said Mickey Belaineh, a third-year law student from Texas.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The idea that American Indian tribes are sovereign has a checkered history, in which it’s been both a sword for taking away Indians’ land and a shield for protecting some vestige of self-determination. Tribal sovereignty is before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday in a case that asks whether tribal courts have authority over non-Indians in civil cases. You’d think that, more than 500 years after first contact, the question would be settled. But it isn't, or not exactly -- and therein lies a tale of big money, big principles and thorny legal details.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Do you think that this is a profound statement? “Intention and attention are mystery’s manifestation.” What about this one? “Hidden meanings transform unseen beauty.” Both statements are, of course, bullshit, understood in a particular sense: not a lie, but a kind of verbal smokescreen, designed to suggest depth and insight but actually vague, vacuous or meaningless. As we’ll see, an understanding of pretentious-sounding gibberish and its frequent power tells us something important about contemporary politics. But we need a little social science first.

An op-ed by Hal Scott. The United States House of Representatives recently passed the Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization (FORM) Act, which would effectively eliminate the Federal Reserve's authority to act as a lender of last resort to much of the financial system. Without a strong lender of last resort in a financial crisis, as we had in 2008, our financial system could collapse, and our economy and country with it, all in a matter of weeks as people panic unable to get their money. The FORM Act, as Fed Chair Janet Yellen wrote in a letter to congressional leaders before the vote, would effectively prohibit the Fed from lending to non-banks in a crisis.

Among the low points in an American legal education is the law student’s first encounter with The Bluebook, a 582-page style manual formally known as “A Uniform System of Citation.” It is a comically elaborate thicket of random and counterintuitive rules about how to cite judicial decisions, law review articles and the like. It is both grotesque and indispensable. The Harvard Law Review has long claimed credit for creating The Bluebook. But a new article from two librarians at Yale Law School says its rival’s account is “wildly erroneous.”...Current editors declined to discuss current revenues and how they are shared. Asked for their general reactions to the new article, the top editors of the four law reviews behind The Bluebook responded with a joint statement. “Whatever the ancient history might be, today we’re doing all we can to be the best possible stewards of a resource used by so many throughout the legal world,” the statement said.

The team of activists responsible for The Hunting Ground—a deeply irresponsible propaganda piece recently shortlisted by the Academy—are clearly desperate to quash legitimate criticism of their film; they recently implied that the 19 Harvard University Law professors who have denounced the film’s inaccuracies might be contributing to a “hostile climate” for Harvard Law students...Janet Halley, Royall Professor of Law at Harvard, called the filmmaker's comments "bizarre," in an email to Reason. "The press release and the website enable the public to gauge for itself the veracity of the film," wrote Halley. "This might have made a more unfriendly environment for the exaggerations, omissions, and falsehoods spread by the Hunting Ground. But here at the Law School we cherish debate and think that evidence matters—sunlight is the best disinfectant."

Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy ’77 will be the speaker for the University’s 269th Baccalaureate Ceremony, the 2016 Class Council announced in an email Monday. “I see this email from the President’s office and I had no idea what it would be, and then when I opened it up and saw that it was this invitation to give the Baccalaureate address, I must say it really did bring tears to my eyes. I was deeply, deeply moved and I want very much to say something that is noteworthy for the occasion,” Kennedy said. “It was completely unexpected and I’ve never been more honored.”

Members of the Harvard Law School community and the group called “Reclaim Harvard Law” hosted a rally Monday after demands they presented to the administration Friday were not met...Shay Johnson, a third-year law student, went to the dean’s office Monday morning. “She’s apparently out of town. A lot of the recent inertia started with the black tape incident,” she told Boston.com, referring to a lack of response students feel came after black tape was placed over the portraits of black professors in the law school...“Thinking about what happened Friday, it was beautiful to see that there are so many folks at this law school who want to see change,” Jeohn Favors, a second-year law student said. Dehlia Umunna, a clinical professor who has worked at Harvard since 2007, came out of her office to join the rally. “I got a text that said ‘There’s a rally,’” she said, “I thought, ‘I have work to do,’ and then it dawned on me, ‘What is more important than now?’”

Proposed changes to an obscure Depression-era law are causing a ruckus among the Wall Street investment funds that are battling over the debt restructuring at Caesars Entertainment and other companies. Tucked away in the omnibus spending bill in Washington is an amendment to that law, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, that critics say would hand a victory to Apollo Global Management, which owns the casino company, at the expense of some bondholders...Mark J. Roe, a professor at Harvard Law School, said he agreed that the Trust Indenture Act could use changes, like adding a provision that says bondholders should be able to vote on whether to accept a debt modification deal. But, he said, the proposed amendment “isn’t a good result for the bond market in general.”

On many campuses, debates over race, racism and higher education -- which took off in October and November -- are continuing. Among the latest developments: a plan to change the name of the football stadium at the University of Maryland at College Park, an art object at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that was originally viewed as an antiblack symbol of some kind and new demands for reform at Harvard University's law school...Black students at Harvard's law school have been holding a series of meetings with administrators. One of the students' original demands was to change the law school's seal, which is the family crest of an a major donor with ties to the slave trade. The law school is studying that issue. The students have now presented the law school with a more extensive list of demands...Martha Minow, dean of the law school, on Monday wrote to all students and faculty members, praising the kinds of discussions that are taking place and vowing more reflection on the issues raised by recent protests. But Minow did not endorse (or reject) any of the proposals. "Some students and staff have presented a list of demands," she wrote. "We are, however, a community of many voices and hopes, and we have an obligation to provide and protect the opportunity for all to participate, speak and be heard. We will work, as we always do, to seek broad input as we determine what kinds of reforms and actions will best promote our academic mission and build the community we aspire to be..."

Donald Trump proposed a system of religious discrimination for U.S. immigration policy on Monday, advocating a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” according to a written campaign statement. The incendiary proposal was swiftly denounced by Trump’s rivals in both parties, and as a policy proposal, it is probably illegal. “I believe Trump’s unprecedented proposal would violate our Constitution,” said Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, “both the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses and the equality dimension of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.” Tribe, a constitutional law expert, said Trump’s proposal also conflicts with the Constitution’s general prohibition on religious tests outside of the immigration context. “It would also conflict with the spirit of the No Religious Test Clause of Article VI,” Tribe told MSNBC Monday evening. Beyond the law, Tribe said it was also notable that using religious discrimination for immigration would be “impossible to administer” and “stupidly play into the hands of extreme Islamic terrorists.”

An op-ed by Susan Crawford. I want to talk about the sledgehammer of usage-based billing. I take no pride in saying that I’ve been talking about it for years. The sledgehammer is not something I welcome, and I would have been happy if my fears about it never materialized. After all, the sledgehammer could cost internet users billions of dollars, enrich monopolists, and defeat the spirit — if not the law — of net neutrality. In a big way, the sledgehammer will also beat down our economic growth. This is one evil sledgehammer. And it sounds so innocent! Usage-based billing. Kind of like paying for what you use, right? Don’t be fooled.

This Sunday morning, the terror attacks in San Bernardino. Did the killers get help? Why did no one see this coming? And can we prevent these kinds of attacks from happening here in the United States? We'll get the latest on the investigation from the very top. Attorney General Loretta Lynch joins us. Plus, the role of Islam. Are we dealing with a perversion of the religion or a strain of it? We'll have a debate. Also, terror and the campaign. Do the attacks help tough-sounding candidates like Donald Trump pull away from the pack?..Joining me this morning for insight and analysis are Rich Lowry of the National Review, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times, and Harvard Law School's Charles Ogletree.

It's probably an understatement to say the cable industry hasn't done a good job winning the hearts and minds of consumers. Now, it may be falling even lower. A cable company in Canada this week started posting the names of delinquent customers to Facebook, including its own Facebook page as well as community pages on the social media service. The list included customers' names as well as their overdue payments, which went as high as $1,406.80, according to the CBC..."This is a huge deal," said Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Security. "You are dealing with this immense power. When someone searches for you, it shows up. How do we deal with that?" He added, "The issue isn't whether people are deadbeats and should pay. The issue is whether the punishment fits the crime." For instance, a potential employer could search for one of those cable customers singled out by the cable company, and decide not to hire the candidate because of the posting. "Now you'll lose your career and your life because you didn't pay your cable bill," Schneier said.

Two former Environmental Protection Agency administrators appointed by Republican presidents have joined litigation over the Clean Power Plan in support of the agency. William D. Ruckelshaus, the agency's first administrator, who was appointed by President Richard Nixon and later served under President Ronald Reagan as well, and William K. Reilly, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, filed a motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Dec. 3 seeking to join litigation over the EPA's carbon dioxide emissions limits for existing power plants as amici curiae...Ruckelshaus and Reilly are represented by Harvard University law professor Richard Lazarus.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. The International Monetary Fund’s decision to designate the Chinese renminbi, commonly known as the yuan, as a global reserve currency will, over time, encourage the country’s leadership to make the currency more tradable. But the political implications of global reserve status may be more significant than the economic ones.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. There may have been a stranger and more lurid case in the federal appeals courts in 2015 than that of Gilberto Valle, the "cannibal cop." But if there was, I haven’t heard of it -- and it doesn’t carry the same high probability of going to the U.S. Supreme Court. A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on Thursday vacated both Valle’s conviction for conspiracy to kidnap and a second conviction for unauthorized use of a computer database to look up a possible victim. Both parts of the decision deserve a close look, for different reasons.

At the third community meeting on race relations at Harvard Law School in as many weeks on Friday, students called on Law School Dean Martha L. Minow to produce a “strategic plan” to implement student demands they say will improve the school’s treatment of minority students by 9 a.m. on Monday...The students are reiterating some previous student demands, such as calling on Harvard to change the Law School’s seal, which students have criticized for its connection to a slaveholding family. They are also asking the school to establish an office devoted to issues of diversity and inclusion, require staff members to go through “cultural competency” training, and lower tuition and expand financial aid to “improve affordability and financial access to HLS for students of color, students from low socio-economic backgrounds, and otherwise marginalized students.”...In an email sent to Law School affiliates on Friday, Minow wrote that she will carefully consider the student demands. “I listened carefully,” Minow wrote. “I will do my best to ensure that we find ways to work together, joining students, staff, and faculty to address proposals and above all to strengthen this School and its possibilities to be better and to make the world better.”

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is pushing for a trading and clearing center in the United States for the renminbi, the Chinese currency, but experts say there are many hurdles before the American companies can trade and settle payments onshore...“Having a renminbi clearing hub in the U.S. will be more a symbolic, rather than economically significant, victory for China,” said Mark Wu, a law professor focusing on international trade at Harvard University. “Whether renminbi -denominated financial instruments will grow over time depends on the speed with which China undertakes more market-oriented reforms at home, not where clearing hubs for its currency are located globally,” Wu said.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Can Native Hawaiians form a government of their own to negotiate with the U.S. government like an Indian tribe? The issue is still before the lower courts, but the U.S. Supreme Court dropped a big hint Wednesday that its eventual answer may be no. The justices voted, 5-4, to continue an injunction that blocks the counting of ballots for delegates to a convention limited to Native Hawaiians. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit could allow the counting to go forward after it rules -- but the issue will then go right back to the Supreme Court.

Meg Kribble, a research librarian and outreach coordinator at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, has been elected as a board member of the American Association of Law Libraries.