Human Rights

Grande Lum ’91, former director of the U.S. Justice Department’s Community Relations Service (CRS), was on the Harvard Law campus in February to deliver the keynote address of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review’s 22nd Annual Symposium, “Reflections on the Intersection of Alternative Dispute Resolution and Activism.”

Influenced by the six years he spent herding goats as a child in the Rio Grande Valley, Harvard Law 1L Sam Garcia has written “How a Goat Was Elected Mayor and the Political Spring That Followed,” a book that explores untold or rarely-heard stories behind upset elections.

The Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (HLS PILAC) has released a new report titled "Indefinite War: Unsettled International Law on the End of Armed Conflict."

Anna Crowe, clinical instructor at Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program, traveled to Jordan to interview Syrian refugees about the difficulties of obtaining legal documentation and the precarious existence of living and traveling without papers.

On the morning of Jan. 9, Dayne Lee ’17, a student practitioner with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, slipped into a suit after three sleepless nights leading up to his major argument before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in a case pitting federally controlled mortgage giant Fannie Mae against homeowner Elvitria Marroquin – a Lynn, Mass. homeowner who has been fighting foreclosure since 2008.

Two Harvard Law School teams competed at the 13th annual Williams Institute Moot Court Competition at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law earlier this month. The event, which featured 30 teams from law schools nationwide, is the only national competition dedicated exclusively to the areas of sexual orientation and gender identity law.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program filed an amicus curiae brief on February 16 in the Eastern District of New York case against President Trump’s executive orders on immigration -- one of several cases currently challenging the president’s actions on immigration.

Khizr Khan LL.M. '86, the Gold Star father who gained fame for his speech at the Democratic National Convention, joined HLS Professor Intisar A. Rabb, director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, to discuss civil liberties and political action.

Five Harvard Law School students and recent graduates have been awarded Skadden Fellowships to support their work in public service.

Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program has released a report on the effects of President Trump’s Executive Orders on people seeking asylum protection in the United States under long-standing provisions of U.S. and international law, including refugee law and the Convention Against Torture.

During this year’s spring semester, Mark Tushnet, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, is teaching a novel seminar called “Diversity and Social Justice in First Year Classes.” It combines classroom teaching with an eight-part public lecture series examining how issues of diversity and social justice can be integrated into the core 1L classes.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program has been addressing the legal concerns of Harvard students, faculty, staff, and individuals affected in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by recent executive action on immigration.

Since being selected last spring, Harvard Law School's 2016 Public Service Venture Fund seed grant recipients have begun work on projects ranging from environmental litigation and advocacy to transgender healthcare and identity issues.

As Harvard Law School's Public Service Venture Fund enters its fourth year, HLS is looking back on all that its awardees have accomplished since the first awards were conferred in 2013.

With just under two weeks left in the presidency of Barack Obama ’91, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates spoke at Harvard Law School about recent strides in criminal justice reform and why she is optimistic that progress will continue in the new presidential administration.

Harvard Law Review President Michael Zuckerman ’17 recently penned a reflection for Medium on the experience of publishing The President's Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform, an article by President Barack Obama -- the first Law Review article by a sitting president -- and his personal take on law and criminal justice reform.

A look back at 2016, highlights of the people who visited, events that took place and everyday life at Harvard Law School.

Professor Emeritus Henry J. Steiner recently spoke to a standing room only crowd at Harvard Law School about his new book 'Eyeing the World,' which features photos taken by Steiner, a human rights scholar and the founder of the law school’s Human Rights Program, over the last 50 years during his travels around the world.

Helena Alviar first came to Harvard Law School from Bogotá, Colombia on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1996, and developed a particular interest in understanding the historical, economic, and sociological circumstances in which law develops. When she returned five years later with her S.J.D. degree, it was with a renewed sense of responsibility.

During the fall 2016 semester, a group of leading scholars came together at Harvard Law School for the lecture series, "Diversity and US Legal History," which was sponsored by Dean Martha Minow and organized by Professor Mark Tushnet, who also designed a reading group to complement the lectures.

On November 9, 2016, the Honorable Robert Russell, founder of the nation’s first Veterans Treatment Court delivered the 2016 DAV Distinguished Speaker Lecture at Harvard Law School.