Civil Rights

In a victory for Harvard Law School’s Crimmigration Clinic, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that state authorities cannot detain someone for a U.S. immigration violation based solely on a Detainer.

From the Supreme Court, to the SEC, to an unidentified city under siege: legal analysis, memoir, a documentary and more works from HLS alumni.

President Donald J. Trump has appointed Anthony Scaramucci ’89 to serve as White House communications director, upping by one the number of Harvard Law School alumni tapped to serve in the administration since Trump’s inauguration.

Over the course of her career, as Bonnie Docherty ’01 has emerged as an international expert on civilian protection in armed conflict, she has also mentored scores of clinical students, from field researchers in conflict zones to advocates inside the halls of the U.N. in Geneva.

Born in 1910 in Nashville, Tenn., James O. Bass '34, by all accounts, has always been an impressive man. Large in stature and even more so in spirit, he was widely known from a young age for his commanding charm and quiet intelligence.

Norman Dorsen ’53, president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1976 to 1991, died on July 1. Active in many of the most prominent civil rights and civil liberties cases of the last 50 years, Dorsen regularly went against popular opinion to fight for fundamental freedoms.

Harvard Law School has announced that the family of the late Samuel Pisar LL.M. ’55 S.J.D. ’59, has endowed a professorship and a fund to support the International Human Rights Clinic.

Drawing on his interests in constitutional law, constitutional history, and racial equality, Professor Michael Klarman’s Last Lecture explored the obstacles faced — and in many ways, overcome — by feminist lawyers and African-American civil rights lawyers in the middle of the last century.

In May 2017, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court extended the American with Disabilities Act to mentally and physically disabled prisoners seeking parole, ruling that the state must help them get support systems in place in the community—thanks to years of work by students with Harvard's Prison Legal Assistance Project.

Sabrineh Ardalan ’02, assistant director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program and a lecturer in the fields of immigration and refugee law and advocacy and trauma, refugees, and the law has been appointed assistant clinical professor at Harvard Law School.

Martha Minow, Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor at Harvard Law School, was presented with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Buenos Aires on May 15. She is the first woman to receive an honorary degree from the University of Buenos Aires.

Erika Johnson is this year’s winner of the David A. Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award, which is named in honor of the late Clinical Professor David Grossman ’88 and recognizes students who have demonstrated excellence in representing individual clients and undertaking advocacy or policy reform projects.

Since its founding nine months ago, Harvard Law School’s Access to Justice Lab has aimed to revolutionize thinking about access to legal help. Often misunderstood and sometimes controversial, the lab sponsored a five-hour symposium in April that drew scholars from across the country to Harvard Law School.

Annette Gordon-Reed’s path to Harvard, where she is the Law School’s Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History and a professor of history in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, is every bit as interesting as her pioneering scholarship.

The Harvard Law School mock trial team of Kaitlyn Beck ’19, Haydn Forrest ’19, Rahul Garabadu ’19, and Marilyn Robb ’18 took Fifth Place at the National Student Trial Advocacy Competition March 30–April 2 in Cleveland.

Harvard Law School student William Ahee ’17 and alumnus Lam Nguyen Ho ’08 have received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award, established in 2001 to honor HLS Professor Gary Bellow ’60, his commitment to public service, and his innovative approach to the analysis and practice of law.

Several members of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Commission on Countering Violent Extremism gathered at HLS in March to discuss findings from the commission's November 2016 report, which outlines a strategy for the United States to diminish the appeal of extremist ideologies and narratives.

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow has appointed Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin to be the faculty director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (CHHI) at HLS.

Anna Lvovsky ’13, a scholar of criminal law and procedure, constitutional law and evidence, will join the Harvard Law School faculty as an assistant professor in July.

More than 350 students raced through the halls of Harvard Law School solving clues, answering trivia questions, and taking selfies with professors as part of the school's first ever Public Interest Scavenger Hunt, which had students competing for prizes as the community came together to show support for students working in public interest law.

Harvard Law School student Lauren Kuhlik ’17 has won the 2017 Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC)-Northeast Law Student Ethics Award, an award created to recognize students who have demonstrated exemplary commitment to ethics.