Media Mentions

Harvard University leaders, faculty and staff enslaved more than 70 individuals during the 17th and 18th centuries when slavery was legal in Massachusetts, according to a report chronicling the university’s deep ties to wealth generated from slave labor in the South and Caribbean — and its significant role in the nation’s long history of racial discrimination. ... The report was produced by a faculty committee convened by Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow in 2019. Many who read the report will find it “disturbing and even shocking,” Bacow said in a statement. “Harvard benefited from and in some ways perpetuated practices that were profoundly immoral,” Bacow said. “Consequently, I believe we bear a moral responsibility to do what we can to address the persistent corrosive effects of those historical practices on individuals, on Harvard, and on our society.”

New York Democrats made a last-ditch appeal to the state’s highest court on Tuesday to overturn a pair of lower-court rulings and salvage newly drawn congressional districts that overwhelmingly favor their party. In oral arguments before the New York State Court of Appeals, lawyers for the governor and top legislative leaders said that Republicans challenging the lines had fallen short of proving that the state’s new congressional map violated a state ban on gerrymandering. ... Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard law professor who studies redistricting, said New York’s map was not “remotely” as skewed as maps adopted by Republicans in Florida or Democrats in Illinois. And he cautioned that striking down New York’s maps while allowing other Republican-drawn gerrymanders to stand across the country would only further bias the national map toward one party. Still, Mr. Stephanopoulos said the litigation in New York and other states this year offered some reason for optimism in a decades-long fight by public interest groups to curb the influence of gerrymandering. “The fact that both sides are now willing to bring partisan gerrymandering claims, and state courts have struck down both Republican and Democratic maps, I think that is encouraging in terms of sweeping national reform in the future,” he said.

For nearly 400 years, Harvard’s most famous motto has been a single word, Veritas, or truth. In the spirit of that slogan, university officials said, Harvard on Tuesday published the first full accounting of the institution’s historical ties to slavery. In a sweeping report, the university also acknowledged its complicity in 19th-century “race science” and 20th-century racial discrimination, and announced the creation of a $100 million fund to address the legacies of slavery, including inequalities in educational outcomes, that persist to this day. “Harvard benefited from and in some ways perpetuated practices that were profoundly immoral,” Harvard president Lawrence Bacow wrote in a letter to the university community about the report. “Consequently, I believe we bear a moral responsibility to do what we can to address the persistent corrosive effects of those historical practices on individuals, on Harvard, and on our society.”

In one column are the names of more than 70 enslaved people at Harvard: Venus, Juba, Cesar, Cicely. They are only first names, or sometimes no name at all — “the Moor” or “a little boy” — of people and stories that have been all but forgotten. In another column are the names of the ministers and presidents and donors of Harvard who enslaved them in the 17th and 18th centuries: Increase Mather, Gov. John Winthrop, William Brattle. These full names are so powerful and revered they still adorn buildings today. The contrasting lists are arguably the most poignant part of a 134-page report on Harvard University’s four centuries of ties to slavery and its legacy. ... Reparations “means different things to different people, so fixating on that term, I think, can be counterproductive,” Tomiko Brown-Nagin, the committee chair, a professor of both law and history, and dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, said in an interview.

Twitter is “the digital town square, where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” a triumphant Elon Musk proclaimed in announcing his deal to buy the social media platform. In other words, Twitter is no ordinary corporation. It serves as something akin to a public utility, a unique global means of communication. ... “Corporate leaders and practitioners have been increasingly pledging to pay close attention to the interests of stakeholders, such as customers or society in the case of Twitter, and not only shareholders,” said Lucian Bebchuk, a professor at Harvard Law School. Even so, a study of more than 100 recent $1 billion-plus deals that Mr. Bebchuk recently completed found that there had been little impact, with “large gains” for shareholders and corporate leaders and little or nothing for other constituencies.

A new report shows that Harvard’s ties to slavery were transformative in the University’s rise to global prominence, and included enslaved individuals on campus, funding from donors engaged in the slave trade, and intellectual leadership that obstructed efforts to achieve racial equality. The report of the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery, released Tuesday, describes a history that began with a Colonial-era embrace of slavery that saw 79 people enslaved by Harvard presidents and other leaders, faculty, and staff. The report offers a series of recommendations — already accepted by Harvard President Larry Bacow — that amounts to a reckoning with the University’s history. A $100 million fund established by the Harvard Corporation to implement the recommendations includes resources for current use and to establish an endowment to sustain the work in perpetuity. ... “The committee thought that it was important to lay bare the difficult aspects of Harvard’s history, but also speak to the resistance that is very much a part of Harvard’s legacy,” [Tomiko] Brown-Nagin said. “I am aware that the history we trace in this report is deeply troubling. But it would be a great disservice to our community if the only message that we took away was one of shame. We must acknowledge the harm that Harvard has done. But it is also important that we do not — as has been done in the past — bury stories of Black resistance, excellence, and leadership. These women and men are also part of our history — also part of our legacy.”

“You’re paying my bills,” MJ told the audience, running a finger over her mouth. “$35 for a flash,” one viewer responded. Another asked how much to send to her Cash App. As she posed and pursed her lips, her long blonde hair draped over her tight black bralette, some asked MJ to show them her feet. “I’m 68 and you owe me one,” one attendee told her as more requests piled on. These exchanges did not take place between adults at a nightclub; they took place on TikTok Live, where MJ, who said she was 14 years old, was broadcasting with friends to 2,000 strangers on a recent Saturday night. A Forbes review of hundreds of recent TikTok livestreams reveals how viewers regularly use the comments to urge young girls to perform acts that appear to toe the line of child pornography — rewarding those who oblige with TikTok gifts, which can be redeemed for money, or off-platform payments to Venmo, PayPal or Cash App accounts that users list in their TikTok profiles. It’s “the digital equivalent of going down the street to a strip club filled with 15-year-olds,” says Leah Plunkett, an assistant dean at Harvard Law School and faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, focused on youth and media. Imagine a local joint putting a bunch of minors on a stage before a live adult audience that is actively giving them money to perform whatever G, PG or PG-13 activities they request, she said. “That is sexual exploitation. But that's exactly what TikTok is doing here.”

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that a former federal public defender in North Carolina could sue the judiciary for violating her constitutional rights by being deliberately indifferent to her complaints of sexual harassment. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partly reversed a judge's dismissal of a 2020 lawsuit by Caryn Strickland, who alleged she was sexually harassed by a superior and stonewalled in her efforts to have the judiciary address her complaint. ... "Today’s decision is a major victory," Jeannie Suk Gersen, a professor at Harvard Law School who represents Strickland.

Some LGBTQ people fear that the harassment they face on Twitter could get worse should Elon Musk successfully purchase the company and take it private. Twitter’s board of directors unanimously agreed to sell the platform to Musk for $44 billion on Monday, but the deal requires shareholder and regulatory approval before it’s final. ... Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic and a transgender rights advocate, said she is afraid that Musk might remove Twitter’s content moderation policy that prohibits misgendering or boost accounts like Libs of TikTok, which has shared videos of LGBTQ teachers that reportedly led to some of them being reprimanded or losing their job. “There’s a plethora of ways that he can just make life hell for trans people on sites like this,” she said. “And there will be no way to really moderate or keep it in check.” Caraballo said if Musk takes the company private, he won’t have to answer to anyone but himself. “I don’t know if I want to sound too apocalyptic or hyperbolic, but I really think this is a danger to democracy,” she said, noting that Twitter is one of the most influential social media platforms in the world.

A report issued Tuesday by a committee appointed by Harvard President Larry Bacow and led by legal scholar and historian Tomiko Brown-Nagin details the University’s deep connections to slavery in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries and to legacies of slavery well into the 20th century. It also illuminates how those ties “powerfully shaped Harvard” and suggests a range of actions the University can take to help “ameliorate the persistent educational and social harms that human bondage caused to descendants, to the campus community, and to surrounding cities, the Commonwealth, and the nation.” Harvard has pledged to provide long-term funding to address the initiative’s findings. The Gazette spoke with Brown-Nagin, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, about the report and the path forward. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

An article by evelyn douek: A fun thing about content moderation—the practice of social-media platforms deciding what we can and cannot say in some of the world’s most important online spaces—is that almost everyone thinks that it’s broken, albeit in different ways. Almost everyone also thinks that if you just put them in charge, they would fix things. When you’re the world’s richest man, you can actually give it a shot. And so, Elon Musk is buying Twitter, and a main reason is that he doesn’t like the company’s content moderation.

Today, workers at Amazon’s LDJ5 warehouse facility will vote on whether to organize with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the same union that pulled off a historic win at another Staten Island, New York, facility earlier this month. With ballots scheduled to be counted on May 2nd, the election will last just one week. After months of slow buildup, workers are just a week away from learning whether their site will unionize — assuming there aren’t any tiebreaker court fights of the kind that held up Bessemer’s second vote. ... “It seems to me that Amazon has to worry about its public persona, and to be viewed as viciously anti-union and anti-worker at this moment in history is probably a bad look for them,” said Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School, in an interview with The Verge. According to Sachs, support from the public and policymakers is a factor in the ALU’s favor. “I think the support from President Biden matters. I think the visible support from the National Labor Relations Board to enforce the law matters,” Sachs said. “Broad public support definitely matters in a lot of ways. It helps to embolden workers who are making this decision about whether to support the union, knowing that the country is essentially behind them.”

Chris Green, executive director of the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School, will receive the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) Animal Law Committee’s Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law Award at a reception on April 28 during the TIPS Section Conference, April 27-30. The award recognizes exceptional work by an Animal Law Committee member who, through commitment and leadership, has advanced the humane treatment of animals through the law.

This week, a federal judge struck down the CDC’s authority to mandate masks on public transportation, a move that many health officials oppose. Experts on Greater Boston told Jim Braude that decisions like those shouldn’t be left up to the legal system. "I think it's disappointing that a judge was actually the decision maker. I think even if the mandate is coming to an end, it seems like a sorry end to kind of the authority of the CDC in our public health arena,” said Dr. Louise Ivers, executive director of MGH Center for Global Health. Although some people celebrated the end of masking on planes and public transportation, others worry about the spread of coronavirus, especially to the elderly and young children. "I think from a social point of view, it's a really unsatisfying answer to say 'okay, well, people should just decide," said Carmel Shachar, executive director of Harvard Petrie-Flom Center.

While Amazon workers in Alabama and New York were trying to unionize their warehouses last year, the tech giant hired a large cast of anti-union consultants to undermine the organizing campaigns. Known as “persuaders,” these consultants led meetings in the warehouses and pulled workers aside for one-on-one conversations, all with the aim of turning workers against the idea of a union. ... Terri Gerstein, a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute think tank, recently argued in The American Prospect that employers like Amazon should have to reveal their persuaders sooner. She noted the murkiness surrounding the Rayla Group: The firm’s address appears to be a post office box at a UPS Store in Troy, Michigan. “​​When well-paid proxies are deployed to convince people not to unionize, those workers have a right to know the specifics,” Gerstein wrote.

A United States appellate court has confirmed the legality of ‘scraping’ information from web sites, in a dispute with implications for the data privacy and freedom of information, and which looks likely to be appealed again. The Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals has ruled against Microsoft-owned social network LinkedIn on its dispute with hiQ Labs, over its right to prevent scraping of publicly available data by third parties, the remit of data use legislation and the potential for anti-competitive conduct. ... The team advising hiQ included Renita Sharma and Terry Witt of Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, assisted by Aaron Panner and Gregory Rapawy of Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick, Brandon Wisoff of Farella Braun + Martel, along with academic and Harvard professor emeritus Laurence Tribe. Academic and hiQ’s counsel Tribe said: “Despite a trip up the judicial ladder all the way to the US Supreme Court and back down again, and despite the intervening developments and detours, the underlying legal issues and the relevant factual landscape are remarkably unchanged,” adding that he found the judge’s opinion “entirely persuasive”.

As Earth Day month draws to a close, food and beverage manufacturers are celebrating efforts to reduce food waste, in their factories and in consumers’ homes, through increasingly creative and data-backed initiatives, including Hellmann’s ‘fridge night’ challenge and flexipes and Dole’s upcycling efforts. ... Hellmann's, for example, is working with The Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy clinic to advocate for federal legislation to standardize date labelling - a source of confusion for many consumers that leads to safe, edible food being thrown away.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision finding the U.S. Tax Court had the authority to consider a law firm's day-late challenge to an IRS levy will likely have a limited impact, but it could ease litigation for unrepresented taxpayers in particular. Thursday's unanimous opinion from the high court, which determined that Internal Revenue Code Section 6330(d)(1)  's 30-day deadline for filing collection due process cases in the Tax Court is not jurisdictional, won't affect many taxpayer disputes with the Internal Revenue Service, according to several taxpayer clinic directors and attorneys. The same goes for its conclusion that the statute is eligible for equitable tolling, or deadline relief for petitioners under certain circumstances. T. Keith Fogg, director of the Federal Tax Clinic at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, told Law360 that just 4% of petitions filed in the Tax Court are CDP cases, which involve challenges to IRS levies and other collection actions before they are imposed. And only a portion of those CDP cases would be filed late and eligible for equitable tolling under the new high court precedent, said Fogg, who penned an amicus brief in the case that urged the justices to side against the IRS in its dispute with North Dakota firm Boechler PC. "It's not like this is going to be a floodgate," Fogg said. "It's just going to be a trickle. If you don't have a good excuse, you are still barred from coming into court."

The battle for abortion access is moving from the courts and legislatures to state ballots. Why it matters: The effort to codify public support through a referendum illustrates what many experts say is the future of abortion rights in America. They envision a state-by-state battle to keep abortion legal as the Supreme Court's conservative majority gears up to pare back or overturn Roe v. Wade. What we're watching: Twenty ballot measures addressing reproductive rights are in process for this year, according to the progressive Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. ... What's next: "This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University College of Law and visiting professor at Harvard Law School. "I think there'll be much more of states turning outward, to think about what will happen as people cross state lines to have abortions," Ziegler told Axios.

The Florida Department of Health broke with the US Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday, issuing guidance that seeks to limit the treatment options for transgender children in Florida. The recent report, which is non-binding, suggests that anyone under the age of 18 "should not be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy," breaking with the American Medical Association and other leading experts' guidance in treating transgender children. ... Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School's Cyber Law Clinic and a transgender activist, told Insider that the guidance, while not binding, could hold "tremendous ramifications" for transgender people in the state and across the country.  "Having the state come out and say that the existence of trans kids isn't recommended by the state of Florida can increase substantial amounts of harassment and threats to kids in schools by other students, teachers, and administrators," Caraballo said.

The effort to document war crimes in Ukraine has gotten strong international support. But what does it actually take to put a former leader on trial at The Hague? For an example, we look at the violence that enveloped Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the trial of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. The World’s Chris Harland-Dunaway tells the story of two men: the prosecutor — Alex Whiting, and Milan Babic, and insider who turned on Milosevic.