Media Mentions

The bombshell draft opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and leaked to Politico shatters a bedrock of modern American law and could culminate a decades-long campaign by conservatives determined to reverse the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion. Legal experts suggest the decision by the court’s conservative majority, which is not yet final, portends a flood of antiabortion laws across the country and could erode federal rights to same-sex marriage and access to contraceptives. ... Charles Fried, a constitutional law professor at Harvard and the United States solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan, has long criticized the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade. “There are two stunning weaknesses in Roe: its focus on the right to privacy and its historical survey of abortion practice in the United States,” said Fried in an interview Tuesday. But Fried, who argued against the constitutional right to abortion before the Supreme Court in 1989, said the 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey gave the Roe ruling a firmer constitutional basis. If Roe was a new house built on a shaky foundation, then Casey was the reinforcement that added support beams.

A leaked draft opinion suggests the US Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide, according to a Politico report released Monday. A decision to overrule Roe would lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states and could have huge ramifications for this year’s elections. But it’s unclear if the draft represents the court’s final word on the matter — opinions often change in ways big and small in the drafting process. ... “This will feel like a tremendous vindication for the conservative legal movement,” said Mary Ziegler, a Harvard Law School visiting professor and the author of several books about the anti-abortion movement and legal politics. “The movement goes beyond Roe v. Wade, but overruling it has become the preoccupation for the movement and the test of its success.”

The explosive leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion suggesting the imminent reversal of Roe v. Wade has proved quite the Rorschach test for a country long divided over this most fundamental of moral issues. The usual combatants have reacted predictably, even though the document is, hello, only a “draft” by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and may or may not receive the predicted approval by five conservative justices. Pity Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who had this unprecedented leak on his watch and has ordered an investigation. ... Alito does his best to argue that it is not only conservatives who found the original reasoning in Roe lacking. As cited in the brief, Archibald Cox, who served as solicitor general under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, remarked that Roe “read[s] like a set of hospital rules and regulations” that “Neither historian, layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded … are part of … the Constitution.” Harvard constitutional scholar and author Mark Tushnet called Roe a “totally unreasoned judicial opinion.”

A Cambridge mother of five will keep her Section 8 housing voucher thanks to the diligent work of Alison Roberts ’22, a third-year student in the Tenant Advocacy Project (TAP).

Sometimes called the “poet of salsa,” Rubén Blades LL.M ’85 is known for his songs about working people, political turmoil, poverty, and urban violence in Latin America.

Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court’s best-known decision of the past 50 years, is also its most endangered precedent. It gave women a nationwide legal right to choose abortion, but the backlash reshaped the nation’s politics. The landmark ruling now faces being overturned by conservative justices appointed by Republican presidents to do just that. What went wrong with Roe? Why did the court’s effort to resolve the abortion controversy in 1973 lead instead to decades of division? ... “The first-trimester/second-trimester dividing line is a big deal,” said Harvard Law School professor Michael Klarman. “It’s why ‘partial-birth’ abortion laws were such a political gold mine for Republicans. Roe created such a broad abortion right that it probably pushed some of the many Americans in the middle of the spectrum on this issue into the opposition.”

After Texas passed its restrictive abortion law last fall, Democrats started talking more about abortion than they had in decades. House Democrats coalesced around a bill to turn into law the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing most abortions, Roe v. Wade, voicing their support for the landmark precedent in tweets and public statements. A few days later, three congresswomen shared their abortion stories on the House floor. And when he delivered his State of the Union address in March, President Biden became the first Democratic president since Roe to use that platform to call for action on abortion rights. ... When they addressed abortion in other statements and speeches in the 1990s, Democrats generally tried to appeal to the largest possible cross-section of voters, said Mary Ziegler, a professor at Florida State University’s College of Law and Harvard Law School who specializes in the history of abortion. Democratic leaders at the time emphasized that being “pro-choice” was not being “pro-abortion.” As he campaigned for president in 1992, Bill Clinton said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare,” coining a phrase that defined the party’s position on abortion for years.

An anti-abortion group made up of Harvard Law School students has expressed its support of a draft opinion that suggests the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” said the draft opinion, which was published in a Politico report. The draft opinion was signed by Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority who was appointed by former President George W. Bush. The document was labeled a “first draft” of the “Opinion of the Court” in a case challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks, a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In a tweet, Harvard Law Students for Life said it approved of the Supreme Court's draft opinion. "While we must still wait for the final draft, we salute Justice Alito for his intellectual honesty and moral clarity in overturning Roe and Casey. It should have never taken this long, but tonight we cautiously celebrate the end of a 50 year scourge," the group tweeted late Monday night.

The Independent Amazon Labor Union (ALU) scored a surprise victory last month when it successfully unionized the first Amazon warehouse in the U.S. on Staten Island, New York. Now, the grassroots organization is trying to prove that it can notch more victories against the retail megalith. The voting results at a second Staten Island facility today, though, proves that winning maybe an uphill battle. ... Regardless of today’s loss, the unprecedented nature of the first victory will likely keep the movement energized. “[Workers] were told that Amazon was too big, that the company's pushback would be too fierce, that an independent union can't mount a big enough campaign,” Sharon Block, executive director of the labor and worklife program at Harvard University’s law school, told Fortune. “But now, no one can say that anymore.”

Legal experts expressed shock and concern on Monday evening after Politico released what it says is a draft opinion on a major abortion rights case that's still pending, representing a rare breach of Supreme Court protocol, and a sign that the justices are ready to undo abortion rights. "The fact that it leaked is, to me, the most surprising thing," I. Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law School, told Insider, adding that it's "very unusual."

Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe is warning Tuesday that if the draft opinion by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito becomes law more than the right to a safe abortion is at risk: Same sex marriage, access to contraception, and other “unenumerated” rights could also come to an end. Tribe raised the possibility of wider implications the nation could face in the wake of the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion purportedly written by Alito on the court’s pending decision on a Mississippi state law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Mississippi law does not have any exceptions victims of rape, incest or if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. ... “Predictable next steps after the Alito opinion becomes law: a nationwide abortion ban, followed by a push to roll back rights to contraception, same-sex marriage, sexual privacy, and the full array of textually unenumerated rights long taken for granted,’' Tribe wrote.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: The leaked draft of a majority Supreme Court decision by Justice Samuel Alito overturning Roe v. Wade means several things. First, it indicates that in the justices’ private conference, at least five members of the court voted to reverse the 1973 abortion precedent. They aren’t bound by that vote, which they can change up to the day the final opinion is released. Almost all first drafts undergo significant revision based on discussion and debate among the justices. So the second point to make is that Roe isn’t yet overturned, though it very likely will be.

A draft Supreme Court opinion obtained by Politico and published online Monday night indicates the justices are on the verge of overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that made abortion legal nationwide, but a Harvard constitutional law scholar said opinions can change, and this document does not necessarily represent the court’s final ruling. “A draft opinion is only that: It’s a draft,” Nikolas Bowie, an assistant professor at Harvard Law School who teaches courses on constitutional law, told the Globe in a phone interview late Monday night. “Odds are this is not the latest opinion.” “Justices are all free to change their mind at any point before the final opinion is actually issued,” he added.

Democratic lawmakers and constitutional scholars say the leaked Supreme Court decision that appears to overturn abortion rights could lead to overturning the right to same-sex marriage and other civil rights. Part of the opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, explicitly references Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision to legalize same-sex marriage, and Lawrence v. Texas, a decision that legalized sodomy. ... Legal scholar Laurence Tribe echoed Ocasio-Cortez's statement noting "predictable next steps" if the leaked opinion officially becomes law. "A nationwide abortion ban, followed by a push to roll back rights to contraception, same-sex marriage, sexual privacy, and the full array of textually unenumerated rights long taken for granted," Tribe tweeted.

Social media was quickly afire Monday night after an unprecedented leak showed the U.S. Supreme Court has circulated a draft opinion that would overturn two key abortion rights precedents. The draft acquired by Politico was written by Justice Samuel Alito, and would overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The decision would cap off Mississippi’s defense of its ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a case that eventually morphed into a call to overturn the two landmark decisions. ... >> Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law School: “If the Alito opinion savaging Roe and Casey ends up being the Opinion of the Court, it will unravel many basic rights beyond abortion and will go further than returning the issue to the states: It will enable a GOP Congress to enact a nationwide ban on abortion and contraception.” (Twitter)

A complicated legal case has been reduced to a provocative headline: “Can a public high school coach pray publicly?” The takes were just as hot in reply. “Jesus said to pray in a ‘closet,’ not on the 50-yard line,” read an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times, while The Atlantic implored: “Let Coach Kennedy Pray.” ... “The court is moving in the direction of encouraging religion to enter the public square and to infuse government. And there never has been a period since the 19th century when the court was that willing to just let the wall of separation between church and state down,” Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard, said.

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office could begin bringing criminal charges against employers who repeatedly or intentionally deprive workers of pay as early as this summer under a new agreement with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. ... Terri Gerstein, director of the state and local enforcement project at the Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program, said criminal prosecution is an important instrument for government entities to use because agencies tasked with civil enforcement of wage laws can be hamstrung by limited resources. And, she said, certain cases warrant not only civil but criminal penalties. Gerstein, the former labor bureau chief in the New York State Attorney General’s Office, said she worked on a case in 2015 where a Papa John’s franchise owner in New York failed to pay overtime to workers. When he learned that the U.S. Department of Labor had opened a civil investigation into his company, he devised a scheme to create fictitious names of employees to continue to avoid paying overtime, Gerstein said. Ultimately, the attorney general’s office sought criminal charges and the franchise owner was sentenced to 60 days in jail and ordered to pay $230,000 in restitution on top of $280,000 in civil damages and penalties.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: I feel bad for anyone not steeped in establishment clause jurisprudence who happened to listen to the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in the football coach prayer case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. On the surface, the question is simple: Can the public high school coach kneel and pray silently on the 50-yard line after games? But the doctrine the court has created over the years is so complicated and confused that you would be hard-pressed to make any sense of the debates without a law school course on the First Amendment under your belt.

Republicans are planning to steal the 2024 presidential election a conservative judge has warned. Harvard constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe joins Joy Reid on what he says, "is being bandied about as the technique that they hope to use if they get Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and Alito and Thomas on board... to take the next election regardless of who wins."

Sixteen Harvard faculty are among the 261 American Academy of Arts and Sciences newly elected members, the academy  announced Thursday. “We are celebrating a depth of achievements in a breadth of areas,” said David Oxtoby, president of the American Academy. “These individuals excel in ways that excite us and inspire us at a time when recognizing excellence, commending expertise, and working toward the common good is absolutely essential to realizing a better future.” The Harvard inductees include: ... Guy-Uriel E. Charles Charles Ogletree, Jr. Professor of Law; Faculty Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute, Harvard Law School

“An institution entangled with American slavery and its legacies.” That was how a faculty committee described Harvard University in a landmark study documenting, in unflinching detail, the school’s extensive ties to slavery. The report detailed how enslaved people worked on the campus for more than 150 years, how the school benefited from deep financial connections to slavery and how its academics promoted racist theories. At a time when some are trying to whitewash U.S. history, this bracing honesty is most welcome. ... Harvard is not the first university to try to come to grips with its problematic past. Indeed, it has lagged behind others, such as Georgetown University and Brown University, and its efforts came under immediate criticism. Why did it take Harvard so long? Couldn’t $100 million be better spent directly helping the victims of bigotry and belittlement? The university expected this criticism. “We are not naive. This is an age of deep social divisions, and we know our efforts may be met with criticism and cynicism,” Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow and Tomiko Brown-Nagin, the scholar who led Harvard’s effort, wrote in The Post. The university can show its commitment to making amends by ensuring its money goes to causes that achieve maximum good for those still struggling under the country’s brutal legacy of slavery and racism.