Constitutional Law

Harvard Law Today asked experts from across Harvard Law School to share their perspectives on January 6, 2021, the events that have unfolded since, and the implications for American democracy going forward.

The Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School (ALPP) and the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) have jointly filed an amicus curiae brief with the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, urging it to recognize that nonhuman animals can have legal rights.

A highly principled public official and beloved colleague, Heymann had a distinguished career in academia, and serving in four presidential administrations, including in the solicitor general’s office under President John F. Kennedy, in several U.S. State Department jobs for Lyndon Johnson, as a Watergate prosecutor, as assistant attorney general during the Carter administration, and as deputy attorney general under Bill Clinton.

At the recent Rappaport Forum, panelists discussed abortion rights and whether the Supreme Court should honor precedent — or jettison Roe v. Wade. 

When asked what he wanted to be remembered by, longtime Harvard Law Professor and former Watergate prosecutor Philip B. Heymann ’60 replied: “Speaking truth to power.” Heymann, a beloved colleague and distinguished public servant, died Nov. 30 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.

Professor Emeritus Mark Tushnet explains how the Supreme Court’s decision in Carson v. Makin could impact funding for religious schools.

Retired federal judge Nancy Gertner, now a senior lecturer on law at Harvard Law School, talks about the verdicts in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, how the trial was conducted, and comparisons to the ongoing trial of the men who killed Ahmaud Arbery.

On November 16, the Harvard Law School Ames Moot Court Competition returned to the Ames Courtroom, as two teams of students squared off on the subject of personal jurisdiction.

Can, or even should, Americans break the U.S. Constitution when, in their view, justice demands it? As Noah Feldman and Nikolas Bowie discussed at a recent Harvard Law School Library Book Talk, that question is very much alive today.

At a Harvard Law School Library Book Talk, Martha Minow, along with Vicki Jackson and Nikolas Bowie, discussed why the press is in danger — and how to save it.

To mark Veterans Day, Harvard Law Today highlights a few of the profiles and stories that illustrate the profound commitment of those in the HLS community to service and the law.

Members of the Veterans Legal Clinic at Harvard Law School are representing a same-sex widower in his appeal before the VA and in federal court in a potentially precedent-setting case.

As a U.S. Marine in Afghanistan, Nathan Lowry ’24 led a team of counterterrorism intelligence specialists targeting Taliban operations.

Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Mark Tushnet explains SCOTUS’s upcoming gun control case, New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Josh McDaniel, director of Harvard’s Religious Freedom Clinic, explains the Supreme Court's upcoming Free Exercise case — and how his clinic is involved.

In “Power to the People: Constitutionalism in the Age of Populism,” co-authors Mark Tushnet and Bojan Bugarič argue that populism is neither inherently conservative nor necessarily inconsistent with constitutional democracy.

Harvard Law Today recently spoke with Harvard Law School Professor Howell E. Jackson about what could happen if the United States defaulted on its debts for the first time in history.

At a Federalist Society event, David French ’94 says government “should keep its hands off” social media and argues that support for free speech is waning across the political spectrum.

One new book by Lawrence Lessig explains a core virtue of the Supreme Court; a second explores America’s perilous politics—which put that virtue at serious risk

Constitutional lawyer Menaka Guruswamy LL.M. ’01 successfully argued against a colonial-era law that criminalized gay sex in India. The ruling by India's Supreme Court last year went beyond decriminalizing gay sex to acknowledge the individual rights of LGBTQ people and apologize for past mistreatment.