Faculty Scholarship

Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Bartholet ’65 has issued a public letter in support of international adoption as news that a court in Malawi denied a petition for adoption by the entertainer Madonna. Bartholet was joined in the statement by a  group of experts in child welfare. The text of the letter is below.

Intelligent minds have long differed on the U.S. Constitution’s role as a blueprint for democracy. Some see it as the sacrosanct product of an enlightened era, its text to be followed literally. Others say that the Constitution must be interpreted more generally in order to apply its principles to current times.

Robert Sitkoff, John L. Gray Professor of Law at HLS, gave this year’s Joseph Trachtman Memorial Lecture at the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel in Los Angeles in March.

The following op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84, “A fix for Geithner’s plan,” appeared in the March 31, 2009, edition of the Washington Post.

Janet Halley, Royall Professor of Law at HLS and a nationally renowned expert on sexuality and the law, helped to organize the conference at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, “Gender and the Law: Unintended Consequences, Unsettled Questions” [see story], which she says was “one of the best conferences on gender and the law in five years.”

On March 22, HLS Professor Elizabeth Warren appeared on NBC’s Dateline in a three-part investigative series “Inside the Financial Fiasco,” on how risky home loans helped cause a chain reaction that led to failures on Wall Street and the near collapse of the American economy.

LS Professor Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be honored by the University of Notre Dame with its Laetare Medal.

The following op-ed, “AIG still isn’t too big to fail,” by HLS Professor Lucian A. Bebchuk, director of the corporate governance program at HLS, appeared in the March 20 issue of The Wall Street Journal. This op-ed is based on his forthcoming paper, “Is AIG Too Big To Fail?”

The United States Senate voted today to confirm Dean Elena Kagan ’86 as the 44th solicitor general of the United States. By a 61 to 31 vote, Kagan became the first woman solicitor general in U.S. history.

Has the Obama administration changed the legal rules for detaining suspects in the war on terrorism, or is it continuing in the footsteps of the Bush administration? HLS Professor Noah Feldman explores the question in an op-ed, “A Prison of Words,” that appeared in the March 19 edition of The New York Times.

The following is excerpted from a March 17, 2009, post entitled, “When Bonus Contracts Can be Broken,” which appeared on the New York Times Blog, “Room for Debate: A Running Commentary on the News.”

HLS Lecturer Diane Rosenfeld ’96 and New York Law School Professor Nadine Strossen ’75 debated the question “Should Pornography Be Regulated?” in a packed Ames Courtroom on March 10.

Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren was on hand in Washington, D.C. this week as U.S. senators introduced legislation to create a new government agency, the Financial Product Safety Commission, to help consumers obtain financial products and services without predatory or deceptive financial practices.

On March 6, HLS Professor John Palfrey ’01, vice dean, library and information resources at HLS, and Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation and director of its Center for Digital Media Freedom, participated in an online debate on Ars Technica on the Communications Decency Act and whether ISPs and social networking sites should be more liable for the things their users post. The debate, The Future of online obscenity and social networks, is included below.

In March 2009, HLS Dean Elena Kagan ’86 was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the 44th solicitor general of the United States. Kagan, the first woman to hold this position, joins a long line of solicitors general with ties to Harvard Law School.

Born Digital, a book by HLS Professor John Palfrey ’01 and Urs Gasser L.L.M. ’03, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, was named a Best Science and Technology Book of 2008 by the Library Journal, in March.

The following op-ed, “Keeping stimulus spending in check,” by HLS Professor Martha Minow appeared in the March 1, 2009, edition of The Boston Globe.

HLS Professor Hal S. Scott and Maxwell Jenkins ’11 co-wrote the following op-ed, “The US Treasury is a public, not a private, investor,” that appeared in the March 2, 2009, edition of the Financial Times.

Today, the U.S. government outsources a significant portion of its work—in such key areas as national security, military intelligence, environmental monitoring, prison management, and interrogation of terrorism suspects. It’s a reality that's here to stay, according to Professors Martha Minow and Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95, and it raises important questions about accountability, transparency and the rule of law.