Civil Rights

For six months, Harvard Law School students and alumni worked with legal professionals to create strategies promoting diversity in the legal workplace; those ideas were unveiled at Diversity Lab's Diversity in Law Hackathon, co-sponsored by Harvard Law School Executive Education and Bloomberg Law.

At an event at Harvard Law School honoring Lani Guinier earlier this year, Susan Sturm invoked a phrase that was familiar to most of the attendees, a mix of Guinier’s family, colleagues, collaborators, friends and students. It was a line that Guinier often used when prodding her students into pushing harder and thinking deeper: “My problem is, if you stop there … ”

On the HLS campus this past fall, eminent friends, students, and colleagues gathered to celebrate a man the world knows as a leading force for racial equality and social justice, and the Harvard community knows affectionately as Tree.

Summer reading: From a queer critical legal studies approach to law reform, to a memoir about growing up bi-racial, to a biography of Chief Justice Marshall.

‘Crimmigration’—the intersection of criminal and immigration law—is the newest policy area for the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC). In addition to its broader advocacy clinic, HIRC offers Phil Torrey’s crimmigration clinic in the spring: an opportunity for students to gain direct experience working on and contributing to case law in this young field.

Renowned human rights expert Martha Minow, the Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence at Harvard Law School and a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor, has been named a University Professor, Harvard’s highest faculty honor. Minow, who was dean of Harvard Law School from 2009 to 2017, will begin her appointment on July 1.

As they prepared to graduate, four members of the Class of 2018 took time to reflect on their unique interests and share experiences they will take from their time at Harvard Law.

Cameron Clark ’18 is the winner of this year’s Gary Bellow Public Service Award, established in 2001 to honor the late Harvard Law professor Gary Bellow, his commitment to public service, and his innovative approach to the analysis and practice of law.

A class action lawsuit has given two Harvard Law students the chance to help frame both the legal and media strategies against a lucrative telephone company contract that exploits inmates while enriching the coffers of a county sheriff. 

On the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Harvard Gazette sat down with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School and faculty director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, to discuss Houston’s role and influence in the Civil Rights Movement.

Carol Steiker '86 began her Last Lecture to the class of 2018 by sharing the questions she is frequently asked by students--what electives and classes to take, what summer job they should seek--and the advice she gives them: “It doesn’t matter that much.”

Three Harvard Law School students, Edith Sangueza ’18, Tabitha Cohen ’18 and Annie Manhardt ’18, received the 2018 Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award for exemplifying a pro bono public spirit and demonstrating an extraordinary commitment to improving and delivering high quality volunteer legal services in low-income communities.

In a last lecture to the HLS Class of 2018, Visiting Professor Paul Butler ’86, author of "Chokehold: Policing Black Men," delivered a talk titled "A Litany for Survival" about how his personal and professional experiences informed his critique of the criminal legal process.

Margaret Kettles ’18 is the winner of the Outstanding Clinical Student Award from the Clinical Legal Education Association. An exemplary clinical student and advocate for public interest, Kettles served as the executive director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau

After a landmark victory for gay rights in Kenya, Eric Mawira Gitari will continue to work for legal reform in Africa. “There are so many democratic changes going forward on the African continent right now," said Gitari. "We need to make sure that sexual orientation and gender identity are included in the debate.”

The global impact of populist movements was the topic of “Human Rights in a Time of Populism,” a two-day symposium held at Harvard Law School, where participants examined the challenges that current developments characterized as populist pose to the goals of the international human rights system.

In his time at Harvard Law School, Ha Ryong (Michael) Jung ’18 has completed extensive coursework and clinical training in children’s rights, human rights and child protection, criminal justice, international and foreign law, and human rights advocacy and negotiation to shape a future career in child advocacy.

Around the world, Harvard Law School alumni, students, faculty, and staff are using their skills and talents to transform communities. On April 20, hundreds of them gathered at HLS to take a closer look at the school’s local and global contributions of service during HLS in the Community, the final installment in the series of events in celebration of the school’s bicentennial.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program joined the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Human Rights First and Kids in Need of Defense in filing a brief of amicus curiae in the case Matter of A-B-, a case that originated in immigration court but that is now before review of the U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, a leading historian on law and society as well as an authority on constitutional and education law and policy, has been named dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard President Drew Faust announced today.

Antonio Oposa Jr. LL.M. ’97 reflects on his legacy and efforts to bring environmental sustainability to his home country, the Philippines.