Civil Rights

“Historically, American presidents have rarely gotten far ahead of public opinion on civil rights issues, and the few times they have, they’ve paid a substantial price for doing so,” writes HLS Professor Michael Klarman in an L.A. Times op-ed, entitled “The political risks of supporting gay rights.”

Shifts in public opinion on gay marriage could influence Justice Kennedy and the fate of same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court, writes HLS Professor Michael Klarman in an op-ed in August 15, 2010 edition of The Los Angeles Times.

Groundbreaking legislation originally drafted by students from the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) to protect tenants from losing their homes after foreclosure was signed into law on August 7 by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick ’82, former president of HLAB.

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow’s new book, “In Brown’s Wake,” which examines the legacies of Brown v. the Board of Education, was released last week by Oxford University Press. In an interview on ScotusBlog, Minow discusses the book and the reverberations of Brown in American schools.

Today’s edition of USA Today includes an op-ed by HLS Professor David B. Wilkins '80, “USDA official victim of ‘high-tech lynching,’” on the firing of U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law at Harvard and the director of the Program on the Legal Profession.

Harvard Law School Professor Michael Klarman gave a talk discussing “Racial Equality in American History” to mark his appointment as the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law. The wide-ranging talk, given on April 12, touched upon civil rights history, legal history, and cultural history in order to uncover, as Klarman said, “the racial attitudes and practices in American history, and how and why they change over time.”

A Boston University graduate student who is being  represented pro bono by Harvard Law School Professor Charles R. Nesson ’63 in a much-publicized copyright dispute will face a drastically reduced penalty for his illegal file-sharing activity, a federal judge has ruled.

Former prosecutor Paul Butler ’86 now argues for jury nullification in cases of nonviolent offenders—even if they are guilty.

On May 20, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that blanket disenfranchisement of people with disabilities is contrary to the European Convention of Human Rights.

During the winter term, 10 Harvard Law students participated in the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, led by Lecturers Thomas Goldstein, Amy Howe, and Kevin Russell—all of whom are leading Supreme Court practitioners and experts on appellate litigation. The clinic gave students the opportunity to spend the month of January in Washington, D.C., working on actual cases that would be heard before the Court.

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow, John Levi ’72 LL.M. ’73, and four other presidential appointees to the Legal Services Corporation’s Board of Directors were sworn in to office on April 7. At the LSC’s inaugural Board meeting, the members elected Levi, a partner in the Chicago office of Sidley Austin, as chairman, and Minow as vice chair.

The 16th annual Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., lecture in Ethics and Public Policy was delivered by HLS Dean Martha Minow at Notre Dame University on March 16th. Her talk focused on education as a tool in preventing violent conflict, as well as the role of the International Criminal Court in jumpstarting and promoting education as a tool in fostering coexistence and peace.

"A measure of history," an op-ed by Professor Kenneth Mack '91, appeared in the Mar. 25 issue of the Boston Globe.

The Harvard Law Review published “Enabling Employee Choice: A Structural Approach to the Rules of Union Organizing,” by Professor Benjamin Sachs on January 19, 2010.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow’s appointment to the board of the Legal Services Corporation, a bi-partisan, government-sponsored organization that provides civil legal assistance to low-income Americans, today. Minow was joined by five other nominees in the confirmation by Executive Session, including John Levi '72 LL.M. '73.

The symposium "The NAACP: Reflections on the First 100 Years," explored both the history of the NAACP, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009, and its future. The Feb. 26 event was held at the library’s Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C.

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and four other law school deans have urged key lawmakers on Capitol Hill to end the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. “The effects of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ are marginalization, exclusion, and denigration,” wrote the law school deans in a March 18 letter to the Armed Services committees in the House and Senate.

“The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court is an heroic defender of the rights of racial minorities … I want to argue to the contrary. The Supreme Court has been a foe, rather than a friend to racial minorities in general, and African Americans specifically.” That was the opening message delivered by Harvard Law School Professor Michael Klarman in a lecture titled “The Supreme Court and Race” at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences on March 10.

On Friday, Feb. 19, the Women’s Law Association of Harvard Law School hosted the panel discussion “Change in the Community” as part of its fourth annual conference.

On March 8, Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli ’91 returned to Harvard Law School to discuss the Department of Justice’s new violence against women initiative. Perrelli’s visit marked the first stop on a month-long college campus tour sponsored by DOJ.