Civil Rights

Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., clinical professor of law and director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, recently spoke with the Harvard Gazette about racial and national sentencing disparities, the economic and social costs of mass incarceration, and the sentencing reforms now under consideration.

Harvard Law School Professor Kenneth Mack ‘91 delivered a talk, “The Sit-In Cases After Fifty Years: A Reappraisal,” on the occasion of his appointment as the inaugural Lawrence Biele Professor of Law.

Inspired by legendary lawyers, a brother and sister set out to change the world.

“Religious Accommodation in the Age of Civil Rights,” a conference held at Harvard Law School April 3–5, brought together a group of distinguished legal scholars to discuss a broad range of controversies that have developed in recent years as marriage equality and anti-discrimination laws have prompted some religious organizations and private companies to assert claims of religious liberty and exemption from compliance with the law.

From March 15-23, many Harvard Law students used their spring break to learn about the law outside the classroom.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, upholding Michigan’s ban on the use of race in university admissions, Harvard Law School Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin appeared on MSNBC’s “Last Word” to discuss the divide in the Supreme Court’s on race.

In 1994, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12898, which made Environmental Justice a national priority. In recognition of the 20th anniversary of President Clinton’s Executive Order, the Harvard Law School Environmental Law Society (HELS) hosted the National Association of Environmental Law Societies (NAELS) 26th Annual Conference, on March 28–29, 2014, titled “Environmental Justice: Where Are We Now?”

A panel of scholars gathered at Harvard Law School March 14 to examine the legacy of Nelson Mandela with a discussion about the use of violence for political or social change.

Nearly 70,000 young people in the United States are held by law in detention or correctional facilities that treat, confine, punish, assist and, occasionally, harm…

Harvard Law School Professor of Practice Nancy Gertner has been selected as a recipient of the 2014 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, established by the ABA Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession.

Three Harvard Law professors and a Harvard Law alum recently participated in debates on Intelligence Squared, a public policy debate series airing on PBS.

Thirty-three professors from Massachusetts law schools have signed on to an important legal opinion drafted by Harvard Law students in support of the Massachusetts Trust Act. The bill seeks to restore the immigrant community’s trust in local law enforcement by limiting the role of local police authorities in the deportation process.

How best to assist people in financial trouble is the focus of the Consumer Financial Distress Project, a groundbreaking new study designed and led by Harvard Law School Professor Jim Greiner, Professor Dalié Jiménez at the University of Connecticut School of Law, and Professor Lois Lupica at the University of Maine School of Law.

Harvard Law School Visiting Professor Michael Stein '88, an internationally recognized expert on disability rights, received the inaugural Morton E. Ruderman Award in Inclusion from the Ruderman Family Foundation. The award recognizes an individual who has made an extraordinary contribution to the inclusion of people with disabilities in the Jewish world and the greater public.

For decades, Alan M. Dershowitz has led a frenetic life as author of dozens of books, legal counsel to a multitude of celebrities and ubiquitous TV commentator on myriad issues of the day. Known to many around the world for his brash style and high-profile cases, after 50 years, Dershowitz is now leaving the role he loves best: Harvard Law School teacher.

“The New Black: What Has Changed—and What Has Not—with Race in America,” edited by Professor Kenneth W. Mack ’91 and Guy-Uriel Charles (New Press). The volume presents essays that consider questions that look beyond the main focus of the civil rights era: to lessen inequality between black people and white people. The contributors, including HLS Professor Lani Guinier, write on topics ranging from group identity to anti-discrimination law to implicit racial biases, revealing often overlooked issues of race and justice in a supposed post-racial society.

In 2007, Corey Stoughton ’02 began a long, serpentine journey through New York courts when she filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 20 criminal defendants claiming the state’s public defender system had failed them. If all goes as scheduled, Stoughton, a lawyer with the New York Civil Liberties Union, will be in an Albany courtroom in March, when the case finally goes to trial.

Randall Kennedy has tackled plenty of controversial issues in his five previous books, ranging from interracial marriage to the intersection of race, crime and the law. The Harvard Law professor comes to the defense of affirmative action in his latest book, “For Discrimination.” In an interview with the Bulletin, Kennedy described his own evolution on the issue and the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which was announced after his book went to print.

In November, Norman Dorsen ’53 delivered the Harvard Law School Association of New Jersey’s 57th Vanderbilt Lecture. The topic was “Seeking Civil Liberties,” and that’s something the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union has done throughout his career.

Inside an unassuming yellow house on Everett Street in Cambridge, a warren of offices makes up a law firm run by Harvard Law School students…