HLS News December 2004

• Women's Refugee Project: Family Is a Protected Unit

  The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic's Women Refugees Project has submitted an amicus curiae brief in the case of Thomas v. Ashcroft. The brief urges the court to allow asylum in the United States based upon family membership. The case, which was heard by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday, involves a woman whose family was subjected to attacks and whose lives were threatened because of racist actions taken by her father-in-law.

• Article on 'Freeze-outs' Creates Wall Street Buzz

  A recent article by Professor Guhan Subramanian '98 has people in the M-and-A world talking -- and the article has yet to be published. Although it has a decidedly academic title, "Post-Siliconix Freeze-Outs: Theory, Evidence, and Policy," Subramanian’s paper has received significant coverage in legal and business trade journals such as The American Lawyer, The Deal and Corporate Control Alert.

• From Veritas to Semper Fi: HLS Student Reports for Duty

  Scott Smith was living in Ames Hall in early 2003 when he got a call that sent him to his room to pack his things and leave school immediately. "I had 48 hours to report for duty," said Smith, who was then a captain in the Marine Reserves. "I was packing all my stuff and people kept coming by my room, saying, 'Where are you going?' When I said I was mobilized, they were shocked."

• Did the Internet Change Politics in 2004?

  On Dec. 10, leaders of the internet campaigns for President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry will debate the influence of the web in the 2004 election. This discussion is part of a three-day conference—Votes, Bits and Bytes—hosted by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society to take a skeptical look at whether online technologies have changed political participation, citizenship, and governance, both in the United States and worldwide.