Topics
Public Service
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All the president’s pardons
December 1, 2020
Can President Donald J. Trump pardon himself before his term ends in January? This hotly debated legal question was given new urgency by the president’s recent decision to pardon Michael T. Flynn, his first national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with Russia.
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Political discourse and the 2020 U.S. Election
November 24, 2020
The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society researchers Yochai Benkler and Robert Faris document how polarized media in the United States shape political discourse and the 2020 election.
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Remembering Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Court of Ames
November 23, 2020
In the history of HLS' Ames Moot Court Finals, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’56-’58 presided over four competitions. Former Ames advocates reflect on the unique experience of arguing before RBG.
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Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program scores a victory for asylum seekers
November 20, 2020
In recent court victory, students from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program help safeguard the lives of countless asylum seekers by preventing more stringent federal immigration rules from going into effect.
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Reforming the Presidency
November 16, 2020
Jack Goldsmith speaks with the Bulletin about the most effective approach to regulating the executive branch, “the absolute low point” of presidential relations with the press, and the one issue on which he, an independent, and his co-author, a Democrat, could not agree.
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After a hard election, the real work begins
November 13, 2020
In a recent Harvard Gazette roundup, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Phil Torrey and other university scholars, analysts, and affiliates took a look at what the election tells us about the prospects for greater unity and progress, and offered suggestions and predictions about where the new administration will, and should, go.
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Election 2020 debrief: What happened and what’s next?
November 5, 2020
In an “Election 2020 Debrief” event, a panel of Harvard Law School professors agree that the essential divisions of the American electorate remain unresolved, but find cause for some highly cautious optimism.
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Guarding POTUS
November 5, 2020
After training as a military police officer in the U.S. Marines, Mtume Sangiewa ’23 found himself with an extraordinary assignment: he was headed to Washington, D.C. to guard President Barack Obama ’91.
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‘Bloom where you are planted, and good things will happen’
November 5, 2020
When she was pursuing her J.D., Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth Hutton LL.M. ’21 knew that she wanted to enter public service, but wasn’t sure exactly how she would do so.
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Given the strong possibility that Tuesday night’s presidential election will not go off without a hitch, a group of Harvard Law School students have launched a website that explores every other possible election scenario.
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‘Seeing the law work on a nitty-gritty level is really important to remembering that people interact with the law’
October 30, 2020
As HLS celebrates National Pro Bono Week, students speak on their commitment to pro bono legal work, and the challenges and opportunities of doing that work remotely.
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Remembering Justice Ralph D. Gants: ‘A living example of what lawyers can do to make our world better’
October 29, 2020
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants ’80 wasn’t just a legal giant, a pride to Harvard Law School and a tireless advocate for social and racial justice. He was also, as former Governor Deval Patrick ’82 put it, “a mensch.”
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Research, writing, and advocating for change
October 28, 2020
Despite the pandemic, the 2020 Chayes International Public Service Fellows pursued projects around the world.
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Ranked-choice voting, explained
October 26, 2020
On Nov. 3, voters in Massachusetts and Alaska will have the opportunity to adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) statewide. HLS Lecturer Peter Brann argues that Maine has led the nation in adopting the system that better ensures that the most popular candidate in any election wins.
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Simulating responses to election disinformation
October 14, 2020
In an effort to combat multiple potential vectors of attack on the 2020 U.S. election, two Berkman Klein Center affiliates have published a package of “tabletop exercises,” freely available to decisionmakers and the public to simulate realistic scenarios in which disinformation threatens to disrupt the 2020 election.
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Building public trust in a coronavirus vaccine
October 6, 2020
In an interview with Harvard Law Today, Carmel Shachar, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, says that political interference in the FDA’s process for ensuring that a vaccine is both safe and effective “opens the door to a public health disaster.”
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Confronting conflict pollution
September 30, 2020
A new report from the HLS International Human Rights Clinic and the Conflict and Environment Observatory establishes a new framework for addressing human harm resulting from the environmental consequences of conflict.
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Not ‘manifestly criminal’
September 29, 2020
Harvard Law Today spoke Monday with tax experts Keith Fogg and Thomas Brennan about the New York Times' report on President Donald J. Trump’s taxes.
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‘It’s hard to imagine a more consequential life’
September 25, 2020
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s influence on Harvard Law School runs deep. On Thursday, September 24, a star team of Harvard deans and HLS professors remembered Ginsburg as a teacher, boss, colleague, inspiration and friend.
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harvard Law: A 64-year journey
September 24, 2020
The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was enrolled at HLS from 1956 to 1958. In the years since, Ginsburg returned to Harvard Law School many times.
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A ‘reckoning’ for policing in America
September 23, 2020
In the first of a seven-part series about policing in America, experts discuss how this moment may be an inflection point.