Media Mentions

An op-ed by Cass R. Sunstein. Why do people become violent extremists? You might speculate that the answer is poverty. George W. Bush thought so: "We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror." Or you might think a lack of education explains it. Laura Bush thought so: “A lasting victory in the war against terror depends on educating the world’s children.” Neither of these answers is correct, however. Most extremists, including those who commit violence, are not poor and do not lack education.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman.When Amish breakaway leader Samuel Mullet and eight followers were charged with the “hate crime” of cutting co-religionists’ beards, it seemed to me that the otherwise conscientious U.S. attorney, moved by the Nazi-esque spectacle, had gone too far. Now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has struck down the conviction for relying on too broad a reading of the federal hate-crimes law. The decision is right on the law -- and the U.S. attorney should not refile.

When President Obama summoned his closest advisers to the Oval Office a year ago this week to tell them he was holding off on a missile strike against Syria, one of his arguments was that if he acted without Congress, he might not get congressional backing for military intervention the next time he needed it…Such an authorization, said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who served in the Bush administration and has written extensively about this debate, could be a political victory for Mr. Obama, giving him much-needed backing for a long, potentially arduous military campaign. “It doesn’t guarantee him a political blank check,” Mr. Goldsmith said in an interview, “but it gives him so much more political legitimacy and cover in case things go wrong.”

The nation’s highest immigration court has found for the first time that women who are victims of severe domestic violence in their home countries can be eligible for asylum in the United States. The decision on Tuesday by the Board of Immigration Appeals in the case of a battered wife from Guatemala resolved nearly two decades of hard-fought legal battles over whether such women could be considered victims of persecution…But Deborah Anker, a Harvard law professor who directs the university’s Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, said the decision would be seized by many women whose cases are already in court, including from other countries where domestic violence is rampant, and by women who crossed the Southwest border recently. Border authorities have been pressing for quick deportations of recent migrants, but now Central American women will have a broader basis to seek a full hearing of their asylum claims.

.By contrast, Harvard professor Jack Goldsmith points out that the president cannot enter a treaty on his own. He can make agreements with foreign leaders until he is blue in the face, but those agreements can’t force a reduction in U.S. emissions unless Congress passes a law saying so. Goldsmith sees the president’s action as symbolic, a way to stake out a legacy and inspire his base. So which is it, gauzy PR or yet another step toward dictatorship?

Treasury officials will be especially careful about what information they share with anyone who calls or asks questions, a former agency official said. “To the extent that you work on something that might be market-moving, you hunker down,” said Stephen Shay, who was the top Treasury Department international tax official earlier in Obama’s presidency. “Particularly when you don’t know what the decision’s going to be.” Shay, now a Harvard Law School professor, wrote a Tax Notes article in July urging the administration to think more broadly about its regulatory authority.

A system crash blacking out broadband service for all 11.4 million of Time Warner Cable’s customers for three hours early Wednesday morning raises questions about the stability of U.S. Internet infrastructure and the potential impact of Time Warner’s proposed mega-merger with Comcast, experts say. ...The lack of disclosure about accidental outages is itself a serious issue, says Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. “We ought to have standards for release of data by broadband providers to allow apples-to-apples comparisons and tracking of outages over time so the public, and policymakers, can gauge trends in connectivity,” he says.

After 24 days dissecting public acts and private pain, closing arguments were scheduled for Friday in the federal corruption trial of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen. ... The wrangling over wording can appear esoteric but is critical because it is how a judge tells the jury “here is what I think is the framework in which you have to operate. It’s significant especially in white-collar cases,” which can be more nuanced than street crimes, said Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge on the faculty at Harvard Law School.

In attempting to use the necessity defense, the lawyers are veering from tradition. America is home to a long history of acts of civil disobedience — acts that that can help draw attention to a cause or an injustice. But such protestors normally admit that they committed crimes. Retired federal judge and Harvard Law School lecturer Nancy Gertner defended anti-nuclear protesters charged with trespass during the 24 years that she worked as a lawyer. They copped to their crimes, which they felt were justified. The difference here, she says, is that attorneys defending the lobster boat blockaders will argue that the necessity of the situation means that no crime was committed. “The necessity defense is a defense that justifies a particular criminal act,” Gertner said. “You’re saying the harm created by the criminal act is outweighed by the harm to be avoided. It’s saying it isn’t a crime.”

And with this as his starting point, Roberto Unger embarks on an exploration of the processes by which social change and spiritual rebirth could beget a living actualization of individual human divinity. The title of Unger's new book, The Religion of the Future, refers to the theoretical product of a modern spiritual revolution. The goal of this revolution would be to promote a greater life for the ordinary individual. The means by which this revolution would be achieved depends entirely on the important relationship between personal conduct and the structures of society.

Plaintiffs have filed their opening brief in an appeal of a federal judge's decision to throw out a lawsuit that contended that state regulators' approval of a contract to sell power from Cape Wind to NStar was unconstitutional. The suit was filed against Cape Wind, state officials and NStar by the town of Barnstable, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and several individuals and businesses. ... According to the brief, co-written by noted constitutional lawyer and Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, the U.S. Supreme Court has established that the amendment does not preclude valid challenges to the "ineffectiveness" of past state actions or policies.

The effort to reach an agreement on a $1.5 billion sale of Market Basket — a complicated transaction under any circumstances — has dragged out amid intense legal maneuvering by members of the Demoulas family who have been fighting each other in court for nearly 25 years. ... “What’s clear is that both sides demonize the other,” said Robert Mnookin, the chair of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and author of the book, “Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight.” “Because of anger and fear, people often have a very hard time thinking through how they might be able to serve their own long-run interests,” Mnookin said. “Their impulse is to fight someone they don’t trust.”

Experts say the limited number of Internet service providers—and unimpressive bandwidth speeds—available to many Americans is a major issue. “This outage sheds light on one of the most significant challenges facing the United States: our lack of a plan for world-class, stable, resilient communications capacity,” Susan Crawford, a professor at Cardozo Law School, visiting professor at Harvard Law School

Where food is concerned, basic self-preservation pretty much requires you to develop a Goldilocks-type of attitude. After all: too much [salt/fat/sugar/whatever else] is bad for your health, and too little [salt/fat/sugar/whatever else] is bad for you too; in order to be healthy, you must eat an amount that's Just Right. ... For example: earlier this month, when the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) held its annual Food Safety Conference in Indianapolis, conference attendees including Emily Broad Lieb, director of Harvard's Food Law and Policy Clinic, agreed that America's food-dating system (more specifically, its lack of a standard one) might be part of the problem.

The parents and relatives of Michael Brown laid him to rest Monday as the country looked on, and calls for change continue. Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree and Slate’s Jamelle Bouie join to discuss.

Over the last two weeks, a formerly obscure suburb of St. Louis has become a crucible for how race is lived in America.In Ferguson, much depends on the course of the investigation and whether residents consider it impartial and thorough. A failure to charge the officer involved or to secure a guilty verdict is likely to produce fresh clashes. “It’s going to be hard to convince the African Americans in Ferguson that this police officer didn’t do something outrageous,” says Michael Klarman, a legal historian and constitutional scholar at Harvard Law School.

Annette Gordon-Reed, a law professor at Harvard University and scholar on race, won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in history for "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family." ... Last week, I had an e-mail exchange with her about race relations in the U.S. after the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

America's corporate citadels are becoming less impregnable. A more aggressive stance by shareholders is opening new avenues to hostile bids and ushering in radical changes to boards and management teams. ... In 2002, 60% of S&P 500 companies had staggered boards, according to Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. Today, just 10% do. A project spearheaded by Harvard Law School Prof. Lucian Bebchuk has floated nearly 200 proposals to destagger boards since 2012. The nonbinding measures received 80% of votes cast, and at least 98 companies have voluntarily adopted them, according to the project's website.

Lawrence Lessig, a constitutional law professor at Harvard and a political activist, planned the walk with his organization N.H. Rebellion, which advocates for campaign finance reform.

An op-ed by Edward Glaeser and Cass Sunstein: A lot of attention has been devoted in recent years to overregulation at the national level. For many people, though, the regulations that hit hardest come from states and localities. The story of Uber's fight with overzealous local regulators is only a well-publicized tip of the iceberg. A 2012 study conducted by the Institute for Justice finds that 102 trades and occupations now face licensing requirements in states or cities. The people who suffer most from them are those without a lot of money or advanced education.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein: In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama tried to attract support for one of his highest priorities when he said, “Independent economists say immigration reform will grow our economy and shrink our deficits.” He’s right. Economists disagree about a lot of things, but on behalf of immigration reform, there is a professional consensus that cuts across the usual political divisions. Why, then, has reform stalled in Congress?