Faculty Scholarship

To gain a better understanding of some of the issues increasingly in play in today's political climate, the Gazette interviewed Mark Tushnet, Michael Klarman, Steven Levitsky, and Steven Jarding--Harvard faculty members who have expertise in constitutional law and legal history, democratic and authoritarian governments, and American politics.

Harvard Law School Professor Roberto Unger has been elected to the British Academy for the humanities and social sciences in recognition of his work in the fields of social theory, politics and law. Unger was one of 76 distinguished scholars to be elected to the fellowship this year.

Cass Sunstein ’78, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University and renowned legal scholar and behavioral economist, received the prestigious Holberg Prize at the University of Bergen, Norway, on June 6.

HLS Professor Mnookin, who for many years chaired the school’s Program on Negotiation, joins two other Harvard-affiliated professors in a study of the former secretary of state’s public and private deal-making, based on extensive interviews with Henry Kissinger on negotiation strategy and tactics.

"It Can't Happen Here," the novel by Sinclair Lewis written in the 1930s as fascism was rising in Europe, imagines an America overtaken by an authoritarian regime. The new book edited by Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein ’78, "Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America" (Dey Street Books), does not predict the same fate. Yet the contributors—several also affiliated with Harvard Law—take seriously the possibility that it could happen here, despite the safeguards built into the American system of government.

Professor Noah Feldman is the first to admit that James Madison will probably never merit a hip-hop Broadway musical like his partner in Constitution drafting turned bitter political foe.

‘Crimmigration’—the intersection of criminal and immigration law—is the newest policy area for the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC). In addition to its broader advocacy clinic, HIRC offers Phil Torrey’s crimmigration clinic in the spring: an opportunity for students to gain direct experience working on and contributing to case law in this young field.

Renowned human rights expert Martha Minow, the Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence at Harvard Law School and a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor, has been named a University Professor, Harvard’s highest faculty honor. Minow, who was dean of Harvard Law School from 2009 to 2017, will begin her appointment on July 1.

Cass Sunstein ’78, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University and renowned legal scholar and behavioral economist, received the prestigious Holberg Prize at the University of Bergen, Norway, on June 6.

Oren Bar-Gill LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’05, the William J. Friedman and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School, has received the Best Paper Prize from the American Law and Economics Association.

Professor of Practice Alex Whiting chose a personal story for his Last Lecture to the class of 2018, one about the development of, and lessons learned from, an unexpected relationship.

On the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Harvard Gazette sat down with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School and faculty director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, to discuss Houston’s role and influence in the Civil Rights Movement.

Carol Steiker '86 began her Last Lecture to the class of 2018 by sharing the questions she is frequently asked by students--what electives and classes to take, what summer job they should seek--and the advice she gives them: “It doesn’t matter that much.”

It’s been two decades since Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig published ‘The Laws of Cyberspace;’ recently, an event at the Berkman Klein Center celebrated how that groundbreaking paper provided structure to the Center's field of study.

In a last lecture to the HLS Class of 2018, Visiting Professor Paul Butler ’86, author of "Chokehold: Policing Black Men," delivered a talk titled "A Litany for Survival" about how his personal and professional experiences informed his critique of the criminal legal process.

The Corporate Practice Commentator recently announced the list of the Ten Best Corporate and Securities Articles selected by an annual poll of corporate and securities law academics. The list includes scholarship by Harvard Law Professor Guhan Subramanian J.D./M.B.A. ’98 and several HLS alums.

In her Last Lecture, Professor Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95 encouraged the class of 2018 to think broadly about what success means, in their future career and also in life.

The global impact of populist movements was the topic of “Human Rights in a Time of Populism,” a two-day symposium held at Harvard Law School, where participants examined the challenges that current developments characterized as populist pose to the goals of the international human rights system.

Harvard has announced the creation of a new, interdisciplinary project called the Behavioral Insights Health Project—a partnership between faculty members at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, and other schools at Harvard that will explore how behavioral science and behavioral economics can help improve health outcomes for patients, and decisions made by doctors.

Laurence H. Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School received the American Philosophical Society’s 2018 Henry Allen Moe Prize in the Humanities in recognition of his paper “Reflections on the ‘Natural Born Citizen’ Clause as Illuminated by the Cruz Candidacy.”

Harvard Law School Professor and former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon received the Evangelium Vitae Medal from the University of Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture.