Faculty Scholarship

Five Harvard Law School professors presented a sampling of their innovative ideas in late May at the 2014 Harvard Law School Thinks Big lecture, an annual event that challenges faculty to explain those big ideas in short talks.

Cass Sunstein opened the 2014 Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy Conference with a keynote address called “Choosing Not to Choose.” His talk set the tone for the two-day conference organized by The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, which drew nearly 200 lawyers, public health professionals, economists, and health policy analysts to the campus from May 2-3.

Crystal Yang ‘13, a scholar specializing in criminal law and consumer finance, will join the Harvard Law School faculty as an assistant professor in July.

Professors Charles Ogletree, Noah Feldman, and Randall Kennedy each delivered commencement addresses this year, with Ogletree also receiving an honorary doctorate. Professors Alan Dershowitz and Mark Tushnet were also rewarded honorary degrees.

Harvard Law School Professor David J. Barron '94, an expert in administrative law and the separation of powers, has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

On May 14, 2014, Harvard Law School Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin, along with Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School and Steven Calabresi of Northwestern Law School participated in a discussion at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia titled “The Civil Rights Movement: Redefining the Meaning of Equality.”

Harvard Law School Professor Steven Shavell received the 2014 Ronald H. Coase Medal from the American Law and Economics Association at its annual meeting May 9.

The author of the award-winning book “Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement,“ sees education as the civil rights frontier.

In two new books, Professor Cass Sunstein, former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, addresses human behavior and how government should best respond to it.

When writing laws, trying to prevent official abuse can actually create or exacerbate the very risks they are intended to avoid, argues Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 in his new book, “The Constitution of Risk.”

Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., clinical professor of law and director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, recently spoke with the Harvard Gazette about racial and national sentencing disparities, the economic and social costs of mass incarceration, and the sentencing reforms now under consideration.

Harvard Law School Professor Kenneth Mack ‘91 delivered a talk, “The Sit-In Cases After Fifty Years: A Reappraisal,” on the occasion of his appointment as the inaugural Lawrence Biele Professor of Law.

On the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program and American…

“Religious Accommodation in the Age of Civil Rights,” a conference held at Harvard Law School April 3–5, brought together a group of distinguished legal scholars to discuss a broad range of controversies that have developed in recent years as marriage equality and anti-discrimination laws have prompted some religious organizations and private companies to assert claims of religious liberty and exemption from compliance with the law.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, upholding Michigan’s ban on the use of race in university admissions, Harvard Law School Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin appeared on MSNBC’s “Last Word” to discuss the divide in the Supreme Court’s on race.

n the spirit of Harvard University President Drew Faust’s recent focus on addressing the problem of climate change, we interviewed HLS Professor Jody Freeman, who served in the Obama administration as Counselor for Energy and Climate Change and is the co-author of a forthcoming book on global climate change and U.S. law.

Vicki C. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, and an expert in constitutional law, federalism, and gender equality, has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In an article published April 18 in the journal Science, Harvard and MIT researchers note that in recent years, one-third to a half of all benefits gained from major regulations in the U.S. have come from the regulation of just one pollutant: particulate matter.

When writing laws, trying to prevent official abuse can actually create or exacerbate the very risks they are intended to avoid, argues Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 in his new book, “The Constitution of Risk.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down aggregate campaign contribution limits, in a ruling that frees individuals to donate to as many candidates as they wish. Harvard Law School’s Noah Feldman, Bemis Professor of International Law, spoke with the Harvard Gazette about the ruling, and what it means for elections and for the future of campaign-finance reform.