Areas of Interest
Election Law and Democracy
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Training a new generation of election law lawyers
April 7, 2021
Harvard Law Today spoke with Ruth Greenwood about the new Election Law Clinic and why she thinks it is important to train a new generation of lawyers to practice in this burgeoning field.
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Election Law Clinic launches at Harvard Law School
April 7, 2021
Harvard Law School has announced the launch the new Election Law Clinic, which will give students the opportunity to work on a broad range of cutting-edge issues in areas such as redistricting, voting rights, campaign finance, and party regulation.
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COVID and the law: What have we learned?
March 17, 2021
The effect of COVID-19 on the law has been transformative and wide-ranging, but as a Harvard Law School panel pointed out on the one-year anniversary of campus shutdown, the changes haven’t all been for the worse.
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‘A sense of duty and honor’
March 17, 2021
In a Q&A with Harvard Law Today, Congressman Jamie Raskin ’87, who served as lead House impeachment manager, reflects on a time of trauma and hope.
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‘A grim form of political theater’
January 8, 2021
Harvard Law Visiting Professor Sanford Levinson puts the storming of the Capitol in historical perspective.
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Did implicit bias lead to breach of U.S. Capitol?
January 8, 2021
Harvard Law School’s James Tierney says police would have treated Black Lives Matter protesters differently.
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Constitutional scholar Guy-Uriel Charles, a leading expert on race, politics and election law, to join HLS
January 7, 2021
Guy-Uriel Charles will join the Harvard Law faculty as the inaugural Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. Professor of Law, effective July 1. He will also serve as faculty director of HLS’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.
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Political discourse and the 2020 U.S. Election
November 24, 2020
The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society researchers Yochai Benkler and Robert Faris document how polarized media in the United States shape political discourse and the 2020 election.
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‘Be the Twitter that you want to see in the world’
November 7, 2020
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election in the United States, experts from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society convened to discuss how platforms are approaching mis- and disinformation and what they can improve going forward.
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Election 2020 debrief: What happened and what’s next?
November 5, 2020
In an “Election 2020 Debrief” event, a panel of Harvard Law School professors agree that the essential divisions of the American electorate remain unresolved, but find cause for some highly cautious optimism.
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Given the strong possibility that Tuesday night’s presidential election will not go off without a hitch, a group of Harvard Law School students have launched a website that explores every other possible election scenario.
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Ranked-choice voting, explained
October 26, 2020
On Nov. 3, voters in Massachusetts and Alaska will have the opportunity to adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) statewide. HLS Lecturer Peter Brann argues that Maine has led the nation in adopting the system that better ensures that the most popular candidate in any election wins.
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How It All Adds Up
October 26, 2020
Lawrence Lessig discusses institutional threats to representative democracy.
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An Election for the History Books?
October 15, 2020
Harvard professors place the 2020 presidential race in historical context and consider its impact on our future.
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Simulating responses to election disinformation
October 14, 2020
In an effort to combat multiple potential vectors of attack on the 2020 U.S. election, two Berkman Klein Center affiliates have published a package of “tabletop exercises,” freely available to decisionmakers and the public to simulate realistic scenarios in which disinformation threatens to disrupt the 2020 election.
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‘A democracy can only be as strong as the citizens who participate in it’
September 23, 2020
This fall, the Equal Democracy Project turns its focus to voter registration and engagement.
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When Voting Is a Risky Choice
August 4, 2020
The November 2020 general election was shaping up to be one of the most highly anticipated, nerve-wracking and deeply contested elections in American history, with most onlookers expecting record-breaking voter turnout. Then a pandemic hit.
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In a Q&A, Jason Harrow ’11, who argued before the Supreme Court in a case involving the electoral college and faithless electors, shares where he believes U.S. electoral reform should go from here.
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Lessig, who argued on behalf of ‘faithless electors,’ responds to the Supreme Court’s decision
July 8, 2020
Lawrence Lessig issues a statement on the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that states can require Electoral College voters to back the victor of their state’s popular vote.
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Voting Rights Litigation and Advocacy Clinic launches at HLS
February 26, 2020
Harvard Law School has launched a new Voting Rights Litigation and Advocacy Clinic. The clinic joins the 46 legal clinics and student practice organizations that make up the school’s clinical program.
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Leading scholars bring new expertise
February 2, 2020
Effective Jan. 1, three faculty members were promoted and two new scholars joined the HLS faculty.