Media Mentions

Amid criticism of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s narrow scope in the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation, the DOJ has hired a career federal prosecutor to help decide whether to investigate MAGAland’s election steal schemes. It’s all part of the DOJ’s broader probe into the Capitol attack, signaling officials may be becoming increasingly interested in post-election events beyond just the violence itself, according to the New York Times. ... Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, who spoke to TPM last month about Garland’s slow pace in the Jan. 6 probe, tweeted on Wednesday that Windom’s appointment shows that the attorney general is “NOT asleep at the switch.”

Native American rights groups say a host of new Republican-backed bills that restrict or limit common voter registration and absentee ballot practices threaten to disenfranchise thousands of tribal citizens. Many of the laws that have passed in recent years, driven by Republicans who have used former President Trump’s false claims about his 2020 loss as cover for a campaign against broader voter access, will take a disproportionate toll on Native American voters, those groups say, because those voters are disproportionately older, rural and impoverished. ... Neswood’s group, along with the ACLU and Harvard Law School’s Election Law Clinic, led a challenge to two Montana laws passed by the Republican-dominated legislature earlier this year they said would directly impact the Native American vote.

The odds are against anyone being brought to justice for atrocities committed in Ukraine. Despite mounting evidence that Russian forces executed civilians and targeted residential neighborhoods for bombardment, a successful prosecution of the perpetrators -- from military commanders in the field all the way up to Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin -- before an international tribunal will be difficult. In the 76 years since the Nuremberg trials, which set the standard for punishing individuals for crimes against humanity, war crimes investigators have faced many obstacles. In this episode, former International Criminal Court prosecutor Alex Whiting explains the challenges confronting those seeking justice for victims of wars of aggression and atrocities.

In its decision in Ramirez v. Collier, a landmark case on capital prisoners’ religious freedom rights, the Supreme Court credited the Harvard Law School Religious Freedom Clinic's brief as providing the necessary historical underpinning for the Court’s decision.

An op-ed by Eli Nachmany (JD'22): IN the coming months, the Supreme Court will issue decisions in two cases that could begin to shift the balance of power away from the so-called administrative state and back to the judicial branch. Two cases currently pending before the Court — Becerra v. Empire Health Foundation and American Hospital Association v. Becerra — present important questions about judicial deference to federal administrative agencies.

Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, joined Cheddar News to talk about the legal underpinnings of the ruling to lift the federal travel mask mandate. "Judge Mizelle decided that she would issue a nationwide injunction, which she and other conservatives have criticized in the past," he said. "That didn't stop her from doing it this time. She did it by just wiping away the CDC's rule, and she did it, have to say, in an opinion that was, well, I'll be honest, really stupid."

Abigail Mack ’25 didn’t set out to become a minor internet celebrity; she just responded to a trend. Every year, thousands of high-school students post “reaction videos” of their getting accepted, waitlisted, or rejected from colleges. The more competitive the colleges applied to, the more explosive the reactions, and the more views the video gets. Mack had enjoyed watching these reactions throughout high school and knew she was going to make her own video before she had even applied. ... Those interested in attending the College can still check official University resources (a YouTube account run by the admissions office publishes its own student dorm tours, days in the life, and application tips), but they can get more personal and in-depth advice from students and graduates who walk through every aspect of their applications. Some, like Jordan Sanchez ’24, whose TikTok has more than 100,000 followers, offer tips for students who might not have robust advising programs at their high schools—and rarely mention Harvard. (The college-advice niche can be lucrative; Sanchez recalls a brand paying her $2,000 for a 30-second TikTok advertisement.) There are plenty of Harvard Medical School perspectives as well, and even Law School content from Barbara Tsao J.D., ’23, who, after noticing a lack of in-depth information on YouTube, created videos about preparing for the LSAT and crafting a law-school application.

A judge’s decision to let an effort to block Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from running for office proceed could open a new avenue of attack against some of the GOP’s most controversial lawmakers. ... Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School, argued that the case against Greene was well-crafted and is helped by what he called “incontrovertible factual evidence” of her role in the attack. “Having taken an oath of allegiance to our Constitution, she acted in coordination with co-conspirators close to the defeated President Trump to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and reverse its results,” Tribe told The Hill. “That the result she sought wasn’t achieved is irrelevant. Hers is a paradigm case for an adjudication of permanent disqualification from ever again holding public office.”

An op-ed by Terri Gerstein: Last month, I boarded an airplane in New York to visit my mom and stepdad in Florida. We celebrated his 86th birthday as best we could; both have limitations common for people their age. I timed my visit carefully, traveling while Covid rates were down. I tested at home before departing. I was happy to strap on an N95 mask for the flight. (I’d gladly wear a neon hazmat suit and ski goggles to keep my family safe.) We spent a few lovely days outside in the sun, each with our signature drink: a seltzer for me, Diet Coke for my stepdad and, for my mom, “a decaf iced coffee with a lotta cream and two Splendas.” Every moment felt like borrowed time.

Two law professors from Harvard and Yale say the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent proposal to halve the deadline for large investors to disclose their stakes in companies from 10 days to five days "misconceives the nature of security markets." The measure would discourage so-called activist investors from investing in and potentially bettering ailing companies. As a result, shareholders would suffer, since the companies' stocks wouldn't benefit from related price increases, according to a comment letter from the pair last week. The SEC's idea that the current 10-day reporting period is unfair for sellers also "misconceives the nature of security markets," according to Alan Schwartz, the Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, and Steven Shavell, the Samuel R. Rosenthal Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School.

Amazon engaged anti-union consultants at a weekly rate of up to $20,000 each to work at its warehouses in Staten Island, New York, documents filed with the US Department of Labor suggest. The consultants were "engaged to represent the interests of Amazon relative to labor matters" at the company's  Staten Island facilities, according to an October 2021 letter from Amazon to Lev Labor, a consultancy that describes itself as specializing in "collective bargaining, union organizing campaigns and labor relations strategy and development." ... The publicly-available DOL documents were highlighted on Twitter by Terri Gerstein, a workers' rights specialist and director of the State and Local Enforcement Project at Harvard Law School. Gerstein said the documents probably provided a snapshot of the kind of money Amazon spends on anti-union consultants, as not all consultancy firms file forms with the DOL.

On Saturday, April 9, Saorise Gowan was riding the Washington DC Metro’s Green Line to visit friends when a man began to film and verbally abuse her—accusing her of “grooming” children for sexual abuse. She was targeted simply because she was a transgender woman; her attacker’s profanity-laced tirade was a perfect echo of rhetoric used by Republican politicians and, most especially, cadres of internet users who’ve seized on incendiary language like “grooming” to describe the mere existence of trans and queer people in public spaces. Such bigotry isn’t new; even the strategy of linking queer people to pedophilia isn’t particularly new. But what is new is the efficiency with which men like Gowan’s harasser are mobilized. ... Alejandra Caraballo, an instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic who’s followed the right’s growing obsession with trans politics, says that the right “basically optimizes their entire media ecosystem around [rage],” building on the way Twitter and Facebook algorithms privilege outrage-generating content. A “positive feedback loop” quickly emerged between right-wing media and social media; their anti-trans stories drove engagement, and thus they leaned ever more into them.

When President Biden calls Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” and says that Russia’s war in Ukraine amounts to “genocide,” what does it mean? Do such prounouncements place obligations on the United States? Does it threaten some sort of legal jeopardy for the Russian president? When an artilleryman a thousand yards away sends a projectile slamming into an apartment building full of civilians, is that a war crime? Is the soldier who released the shell more or less responsible than the politician a thousand miles away who ordered the assault on a city? Ray Suarez tackles these questions with a war-crimes prosecutor and a former student organizer who played a critical role in the downfall of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes. Guests: Ivan Marovic, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict Alex Whiting, war-crimes prosecutor and visiting professor at Harvard Law School

The Supreme Court's rejection of a Missouri pipeline's plea to review a decision vacating its permit will buoy efforts to strengthen the federal permitting process for new gas infrastructure, legal experts predicted. Although the commission still has a long way to go in gaining consensus on the more contentious issues facing pipeline permitting — notably whether a pipeline can be rejected based on the impact it has on the climate — the high court's denial represents another blow to the gas industry, which will have to step up efforts to prove the necessity of new pipelines to pass muster with FERC, according to experts. ... Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, wrote in an email that “FERC clearly has legal authority to enforce a new policy statement like the one Christie outlines in his dissent. I’m sure industry would challenge its implementation, but it’s hard to imagine a court would find that FERC does not have legal authority to analyze whether there is demand for a new pipeline when the only evidence of need is a contract between two corporate affiliates.”

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said Monday afternoon it was reviewing the decision by a federal judge in Florida voiding the national mask mandate on airplanes and public transit. “The MBTA is continuing to follow CDC guidelines and will review the court order. The MBTA is also reaching out to its federal partners to get further guidance,” MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said in an e-mail Monday afternoon. Massport spokeswoman Jennifer Mehigan referred questions to the US Transportation Security Administration. ... Mizelle also was criticized by Laurence Tribe, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School. He said the decision was “misguided” and noted that the American Bar Association had found in 2020 that Mizelle, who was 33 at the time, was “not qualified” because of inexperience.

An article by Ashley Nunes: It’s now or never. That’s the message climate scientists have for politicians, policy wonks and anyone (and everyone) willing to listen. Members of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say that global carbon dioxide emissions must peak within the next three years to avert the most severe impacts of climate change. Their solution? Action that delivers, “rapid, deep and immediate” emissions cuts. For IPCC leadership, this entails “having the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place.”

Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe joins MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to explain his belief that current U.S. law allows Pres. Biden to liquidate tens of billions of dollars Russia has in the U.S. in foreign exchange reserves which officials have already frozen.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: Among the weird things in Elon Musk’s recent TED interview was how blatantly he appeared to violate the terms of a settlement agreement he reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018. At issue was his claim that he had the financing to take Tesla private. “Funding was actually secured,” he assured TED chief Chris Anderson.

The organizing campaign at Starbucks has succeeded in unionizing nearly 20 of the coffee chain’s U.S. stores so far, a historic breakthrough for the labor movement. But the union effort is now in the early stages of an even heavier lift: negotiating a first contract. Starbucks has every incentive not to offer the workers a satisfactory deal, since that would only encourage more workers to organize. From the perspective of the union, Workers United, securing solid gains in a collective bargaining agreement could turbocharge an already hot organizing drive, and bring many more of Starbucks’ 9,000 corporate-owned U.S. stores into the fold. Both sides are now girding for what’s likely to be a bruising fight at the negotiating table, one that could ultimately determine the future of unions inside Starbucks. ... Sharon Block, a labor law professor at Harvard University and former official in the Biden White House, said the brand dynamic is “hard to quantify,” but reputable considerations must figure into Starbucks’ calculus. “I imagine it weighs on their decision-making,” she said. “It isn’t just about doing the [financial] math.” If workers can successfully organize hundreds of stores, there may be a point in which Starbucks finds it in the company’s interest to acknowledge itself as a union employer and bargain accordingly, rather than continue to wage a battle at every store where a union petition pops up.

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: In 2003, when the Supreme Court held, in Lawrence v. Texas, that criminalizing gay sex was unconstitutional, it insisted that the decision had nothing to do with marriage equality. In a scathing dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “Do not believe it.” Then, in 2013, when the Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, emphasizing the tradition of letting the states define marriage, Scalia issued another warning, saying that “no one should be fooled” into thinking that the Court would leave states free to exclude gay couples from that definition. He was finally proved right two years later, when the reasoning on dignity and equality developed in those earlier rulings led to the Court’s holding that the Constitution requires all states to recognize same-sex marriage.

If climate change were a disaster film, it would likely be accused of being too over-the-top: wildfires reducing entire towns to ashes, hurricanes swamping cities, droughts draining lakes and withering fields, and raging oceans redrawing the very maps of our coasts. And now, many cities and states are asking, who's going to pay for all of this? ... Richard Lazarus, who teaches environmental law at Harvard, said, "The scope of the problem is one that requires really a national approach. Cities and counties and states are being the ones left with the problem when the federal government doesn't step up to the plate." Lazarus said even if the cities and states prove the fossil fuel companies deceived the public about climate change, it doesn't necessarily mean they will win: "They've done a really good job of showing that the oil and gas industry, I think, engaged in fraudulent activity. The challenge will be causation, to prove that their fraudulent behavior is what prevented the United States from passing the laws we needed to reduce those greenhouse gas emissions."