Faculty Scholarship

Camp Julien is surrounded by reminders of Afghanistan’s past. The coalition military base--which sits in the hills south of Kabul, just high enough to rise above the thick cloud of smog that perpetually blankets the city--is flanked by two European-style palaces built in the 1920s by the modernizing King Amanullah. Home to Soviet troops and mujahedin during the past decades of war, the now-crumbling palaces are littered with bullet holes and decorated with graffiti in multiple languages. Uphill from Julien is the old Russian officers’ club, dating from the Soviet invasion and featuring a recently refilled swimming pool that overlooks the southern half of the city. The pool is said to have been the site of executions in the 1990s; the condemned were apparently shot off the diving board.

The family stories of black Americans and the findings of population geneticists make clear that Michelle Obama’s family history is far from unique. The vast majority of black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved in North America have some degree of mixed ancestry.



A group of Harvard Law School professors gathered on Sept. 29 for a panel discussion on the year-old global economic crisis and the prospects for recovery. 


The op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84, entitled “Unblocking corporate governance reform,” appeared in Project Syndicate. This op-ed is the most recent installment of Bebchuk’s commentary, which he offers monthly in a series of columns entitled “The rules of the game.”

Harvard Law School Professor John Palfrey ’01 will testify before the House subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security today regarding two pieces of legislation designed to address cyberbullying and other online safety issues for children. A live webcast of the testimony will be available beginning at 3 p.m.

The following column by Harvard Law School Professor Hal Scott,“Regulatory reform needs rethink,” appeared in the Sept. 21, 2009, edition of Financial News Online. Scott is the Nomura Professor of International Financial Systems at Harvard Law School and the director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation and Harvard Law School’s Program on International Financial Systems.

Two Nobel Prize-winning economists—Harvard Professor Amartya Sen and Michael Spence—joined development expert Clotilde Fonseca, and HLS Professor Yochai Benkler ’94, co-director of the HLS Berkman Center for Internet & Society, for a discussion of the role of information and communication technologies in human development, growth and poverty reduction.

The resilience of the U.S. Constitution, the nation’s founding document, was put to the test Sept. 17 by a number of scholars who challenged its legacy and effectiveness.

On Sept. 3, four HLS professors joined more than 20 other corporate law and finance professors and scholars in an amici curiae brief filed in the case of Jones et al. v. Harris Associates, now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Constitution, the cornerstone of the American federal system of government, will be under close scrutiny at Harvard on Thursday (Sept. 17) as a collection of scholars examines both its merits and shortcomings. A live webcast of the event will be available beginning at 1 p.m.

On Wednesday, September 9, the High Court heard reargument in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Harvard Law School Professor Mark Tushnet, a constitutional law scholar and a leading expert on the First Amendment, answers some questions and offers an assessment of what’s at stake in the case.

The U.S. Senate voted yesterday to confirm Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein ’78 as administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget.

On Wednesday, September 9, former HLS Dean Elena Kagan ’86 argued her first case as the solicitor general of the United States, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The case involves the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, a campaign finance reform statute passed by Congress in 2002 that was intended to limit election-related communications, especially so-called “attack ads.”

The Congressional Oversight Panel, led by Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren, held a hearing with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner yesterday. 

The following op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84, “Why financial pay shouldn’t be left to the market,”  is the most recent of his monthly columns in the international newspaper association entitled “Project Syndicate.”

Harvard University President Drew Faust officially introduced Martha Minow to the Harvard Law School community as the new dean at a reception in Minow’s honor on September 2.

The following op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’81 S.J.D. ’84, “Bonus guarantees can fuel risky moves,” appeared in the August 27, 2009 edition of The Wall Street Journal. He is the director of the Program on Corporate Governance at HLS.

HLS Professor Alan Dershowitz wrote “Baseball errs with lax penalty on pitchers who take aim at hitters,” an op-ed that appeared in the Aug. 19, 2009, edition of The Boston Globe.

The following op-ed by HLS Professor Hal Scott “The Fed’s independence is at risk” appeared in the Aug. 20, 2009, edition of The Financial Times. Scott co-wrote the op-ed with Glenn Hubbard, dean and professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, and John Thornton, chairman of the Brookings Institution. Hubbard and Thornton co-chair and Scott directs the Committee on Capital Market Regulation.

At an FCC broadband workshop entitled “International Lessons” held on August 18, Harvard Law School Professor and Faculty Co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society Yochai Benkler ’94 advised the FCC to look to other countries in formulating a national broadband strategy. (Watch a webcast of the workshop.)