Faculty Scholarship

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow’s op-ed, entitled “Also confirmed: Marshall’s legacy,” appeared in the August 8, 2010, edition of The Boston Globe. According to Minow, the appointment of Elena Kagan’86 to the Supreme Court serves as a reminder of Marshall’s enduring legacy and most significant contribution to American law: his successful argument of Brown v. Board of Education.

Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith recently published an op-ed in the Washington Post on the effects the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) could have on the Senate’s role in foreign policy.

President Barack Obama '91 hosted a White House reception in honor of Elena Kagan '86, who was confirmed to be the next Justice on the United States Supreme Court on August 5, 2010. The Senate confirmed the former Harvard Law School Dean and Solicitor General by a vote of 63-37. With her confirmation, Kagan becomes the 20th Harvard Law School alumnus to serve on the Court. 

Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain recently appeared on NPR’s “On The Media” to discuss the recent decision by the Librarian of Congress that “jailbreaking” a smart phone is not in violation the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which was enacted in 1998 to prevent the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material via new media.

Harvard Law School Lecturer on Law Bonnie Docherty '01 recently wrote a post for Reuters' "The Great Debate UK" blog, as the first international cluster bomb treaty entered into force. Docherty is also a clinical instructor in the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School and a senior researcher in the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch.

Lucian Bebchuk, Harvard Law School Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance, and Director of the Corporate Governance Program at Harvard Law School, wrote the op-ed "How to pay a banker," which appeared in the July 27 edition of Project Syndicate. It is part of his "Rules of the game" series written for the website.

In the Aug. 2 issue of New Republic online, HLS Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 reviews two new books: “Keeping Faith with the Constitution” by Goodwin Liu, Pamela S. Karlan, and Christopher H. Schroeder and “The Living Constitution” by David Strauss. Vermeule’s latest book is Law and the Limits of Reason (Oxford University Press 2009).

In a Boston Globe op-ed, “Obama should give Warren a recess appointment,” HLS Professor Charles Fried supports an interim appointment for Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Fried served as solicitor general in the second Reagan administration and as a justice on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. His op-ed appeared in the July 29, 2010, edition of the Boston Globe.

One hundred sixty-two former students of Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the White House on July 28, urging President Barack Obama ’91 to appoint her as director of the newly created Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow’s new book, “In Brown’s Wake,” which examines the legacies of Brown v. the Board of Education, was released last week by Oxford University Press. In an interview on ScotusBlog, Minow discusses the book and the reverberations of Brown in American schools.

Alex Whiting, an assistant clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School, will join the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the investigation coordinator this December. On Monday, July 26, he spoke with WBUR radio about his new post.

HLS Professor Carol Steiker wrote an op-ed in The National Law Journal on former HLS Dean Elena Kagan and the legacy of Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall. Steiker, the Howard and Kathy Aibel Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, served as a co-clerk with Kagan for Justice Marshall during the 1987-1988 term of the Supreme Court. Her op-ed, "Kagan and the legacy of Marshall," appeared in the July 26, 2010, edition of the Journal.

The following column by David Pogue, “Q & A: Rumors, Cyberbullying, and Anonymity,” appeared in the New York Times on July 22, 2010 and featured a q & a with Harvard Law School Professor John Palfrey.

Today’s edition of USA Today includes an op-ed by HLS Professor David B. Wilkins '80, “USDA official victim of ‘high-tech lynching,’” on the firing of U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law at Harvard and the director of the Program on the Legal Profession.

HLS Professor and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society Yochai Benkler recently appeared on NPR's On The Media to discuss the future of the production and exchange of information in our society. 

The article “Don’t accept injustice,” by Harvard Law School Professor Anne Alstott, appeared in the July/August 2010 edition of the Boston Review.

“Imagining a Liberal Court,” an article by HLS Professor Noah Feldman, appeared in the June 21, 2010, edition of the New York Times Magazine. A contributing writer to the New York Times, Feldman recently wrote a book entitled “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of F.D.R.’s Great Supreme Court Justices,” which will be published in the fall.

A Boston University graduate student who is being  represented pro bono by Harvard Law School Professor Charles R. Nesson ’63 in a much-publicized copyright dispute will face a drastically reduced penalty for his illegal file-sharing activity, a federal judge has ruled.

Alex Whiting, an assistant clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School, will join the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the investigation coordinator this December. Serving as the deputy to the chief of investigations, he will be responsible for managing and providing legal guidance and direction to all of the ICC’s investigations in this new post.

A recent study, “The Wages of Failure: Executive Compensation at Bear Stearns and Lehman 2000-2008,” by Professor Lucian A. Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84, Visiting Professor Alma Cohen and Lecturer on Law Holger Spamann S.J.D. ’09 refutes the widespread assumption that the wealth of the top executives at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers was largely wiped out when their companies collapsed. According to the authors, many have used this account to dismiss the view that pay structures caused excessive risk-taking, but, they say, that standard narrative turns out to be incorrect.