Ethics

Years of advocacy by Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program have culminated in a landmark decision recognizing gender as basis for asylum claims.

Student fellows at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics recently celebrated their fellowships’ end virtually when their capstone meeting moved to Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is currently taking the lead in the effort to explore the ways data can be mined to increase understanding of COVID-19 and to fight it more efficiently.

Harvard Law Professor Charles Fried, who served as solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan, joined 21 other conservative or libertarian attorneys in a statement condemning inspector general Michael Atkinson’s ouster as part of a “continuous assault on the rule of law.”

HLS Professors Glenn Cohen and Andrew Crespo discuss their proposals to protect doctors and hospitals from potential lawsuits and criminal prosecution during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a March 27 Petrie-Flom event on medical debt and universal health coverage, health experts and journalists raise serious concerns about the affordability of testing and hospital care.

Harvard Law School Professor Emily Broad Leib ’08, director of the HLS Food Law and Policy Clinic, and her students have been working furiously to ensure that the most vulnerable—and ultimately the rest of us—are fed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a Q&A, scholars at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School raise important legal and ethical questions about health care delivery and the enactment of extraordinary public health measures in response to the ongoing epidemic.

As federal and state governments take measures to curtail public activity during the COVID-19 outbreak, Charles Fried and Nancy Gertner agree that the restriction on individual freedom is largely appropriate for the circumstance.

This month, Harvard Law Professors Jim Greiner and I. Glenn Cohen teamed up with bioethics scholar Holly Fernandez Lynch to author “Overcoming obstacles to experiments in legal practice,” in which the collaborators argue in favor of randomized studies in legal research over the common practice of relying on the expertise and judgment of individuals.

Patients are often subjected to nonconsensual procedures and other mistreatment during the birthing process; Alexa Richardson, a student fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, is working to bring this situation to light.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) welcomed the Honorable Judge Denny Chin of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for a reenactment of a key trial that shaped Asian American history.

Amid rising rates of diabetes and obesity in the nation, the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School recently hosted a panel discussion concerning levies—those enacted, those proposed and those failed—on sugary beverages in jurisdictions nationwide.

“Just Mercy,” the film based on the memoir by Bryan Stevenson ’85, ends with a sobering statistic: For every nine people executed in the U.S., one on death row is exonerated. As Professor Carol Steiker noted in a discussion following a screening of the film, that makes the U.S. No. 1 in a problematic category.

Professor Crystal Yang ’13 discusses her paper "Fear and the Safety Net: Evidence from Secure Communities," which examines the link between tougher immigration enforcement in the United States and the lack of participation in government safety-net programs by Hispanic citizens.

The Harvard Gazette sat down with Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs of Harvard's Labor and Worklife Program to talk about their report "Clean Slate for Worker Power: Building a Just Democracy and Economy," and about what they envision for the future of labor law in the United States.

To gain a better understanding of the issues in play following the House impeachment of President Donald Trump, the Harvard Gazette asked faculty and affiliates in history, law, politics, government, psychology, and media to offer their thoughts.

This fall, the Harvard Law School Library hosted a series of book talks by Harvard Law School authors on topics ranging from forgiveness in law, transparency in health and fidelity in constitutional practice.

At a packed Brattle Theatre last week, five short films created by 12 Harvard Law students from eight countries debuted. The documentaries, ranging across topics from gentrification to climate change, are the results of an innovative January term workshop taught by Martha Minow, former Harvard Law dean and 300th Anniversary University Professor.

Stephenson, an expert in anticorruption law, legislation, and administrative law, commemorated his appointment as the Eli Goldston Professor of Law with a lecture at Harvard Law School titled, “Corruption and Anticorruption.”

Toby Merrill '11, founder and director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending, has been named to the first-ever TIME 100 Next list, an expansion of the TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world.