September 2011

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  Harvard Gazette: How they spent summer

  When an opportunity arose this summer to work in Afghanistan on issues of human rights, Nicolette Boehland jumped at the chance. Little did the second-year Harvard Law School student know that she would soon be crisscrossing the country in Black Hawk helicopters interviewing victims of torture.

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  Steiker in New Republic: Don’t Blame Perry for Texas’s Execution Addiction

  An essay,  "Don't Blame Perry for Texas's Execution Addiction. He Doesn't Have Much To Do With It," by HLS Professor Carol Steiker ’86 and her brother, Professor Jordan Steiker '88 of the University of Texas School of Law appeared in the Sept. 2 edition of The New Republic. The essay focuses on the relationship between Republican presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry and Texas's standing as the execution capital of the United States.

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  Kennedy on PBS and BookTV: Obama and Racial Politics

  Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy recently appeared on PBS’s Tavis Smiley show and CSPAN’s BookTV to discuss his latest book, “The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency” (Pantheon Books).

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  Coates: Fulfilling the promise of Citizens United

  In a recently released report, HLS Professor John C Coates and Taylor Lincoln, research director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, provide evidence that publicly held companies that disclose their electoral spending are more valuable than the politically active companies that fail to disclose their donors.

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  Vivek Wadhwa: On jobs, Obama needs to be a radical

  The only way we can keep Americans fully employed and maintain our global lead is by constantly improving their productivity and skills, writes Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate for the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, in an op-ed in today's Washington Post. In his op-ed,  "On jobs, Obama needs to be a radical," published on the eve on the president's address to the nation, Wadhwa writes that American companies must be provided with the incentives to invest in their workers as they used to.

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  Hanson’s Situationist blog wins 2011 Media Prize

  The Situationist blog, established by Professor Jon Hanson and run by the Project on Law and Mind Science at Harvard Law School, recently received the 2011 Media Prize awarded by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

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  Vermeule on Lawfare from the New Republic

  In a recent review in the New Republic, HLS Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 examines the book "The Body of John Merryman: Abraham Lincoln and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus" (Harvard University Press, 2011) by Brian McGinty.

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  A Vast Wasteland Revisited (video)

  In 1961, Newton Minow – then Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission – delivered a landmark speech to the National Association of Broadcasters on “Television and the Public Interest,” in which he described television programming as a "vast wasteland" and advocated for public interest programming. He challenged his audience “to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper…to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.” Fifty years– and innumerable advances in media communications – later, Minow visited Harvard Law School for a forum exploring the future of journalism and the role of the state in the construction of the public sphere.

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  Former head of Homeland Security discusses the law before and after 9/11 (video)

  Michael Chertoff had a common reaction to the news of a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. “Like many people at the time, I thought it was a pilot error,” the former U.S. secretary of Homeland Security told a lunchtime crowd at Harvard Law School on Tuesday.
  

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  Anker elected to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation

  For upholding the highest principles of the legal profession and for outstanding dedication to the welfare of others, HLS Clinical Professor Deborah Anker LL.M. ’84 was recently elected to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. Anker, one of the nation’s top scholars in immigration law, is director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and has taught immigration law and supervised clinical students for over 20 years.

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  At HLS, White House Adviser John Brennan details administration’s policy on combatting terrorism (video)

  President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, told conferees in a keynote address at HLS on Sept. 16 that the U.S. must not let down its guard in fighting terrorist organizations on a broad front. Brennan’s remarks, “Strengthening our Security by Adhering to our Values and Laws,” were delivered as part of a two-day conference on terrorism and national security, "Law, Security, and Liberty after 9/11: Looking to the Future," hosted by the newly-inaugurated Harvard Law School-Brookings Project on Law and Security.

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  Harvard’s Labor and Worklife Program looks at challenges facing workers in communications and media

  Will knowledge, information, and communication workers of the world unite? This question was explored by Vincent Mosco, professor emeritus of communications at Queen's University, Canada, at a presentation sponsored by the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School on September 19.

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  Bebchuk recognized for excellence in corporate governance

  At the 2011 annual meeting of the International Corporate Governance Network held in Paris, Professor Lucian Bebchuk was awarded an ICGN award for excellence in corporate governance. ICGN awards are given annually in recognition of “exceptional achievements in the corporate governance field.”

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  Constitution Day 2011: Feldman, Palfrey offer some reflections

  In celebration of Constitution Day—the annual celebration of the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787—HLS professors Noah Feldman and John Palfrey delivered talks to university audiences about the document upon which the American legal and political systems have been built.

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  Steiker in The New Republic: Death Penalty Opponents Are Closer to Goal Than They Realize

  An essay, Why Death Penalty Opponents Are Closer to Their Goal Than They Realize, by HLS Professor Carol Steiker ’86, appeared in the Sept. 27 edition of The New Republic. The essay focuses on the decline of the death penalty in practice, politics and law, and how the present moment brings the genuine possibility of permanent abolition via judicial decision.

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  Leadership in the 21st Century is the focus of the 3rd Black Alumni reunion (video)

  Seven hundred alumni and guests gathered in Cambridge on September 16-18 to commemorate the 3rd Celebration of Black Alumni at Harvard Law School. With more black lawyers entering the profession than ever before—and more achieving positions of prominence and power, the event, “Struggle and Progress: Leadership in the 21st Century,” focused on the progress that has been made and the barriers that remain.