Professors Jody Freeman LL.M. '91 S.J.D. '95 and Richard Lazarus '79
Lazarus filed the brief today in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is hearing a challenge to the EPA's Clean Power Plan by a coalition of State and industry opponents.
This week, EPA filed its response to the legal challenge, and a number of other briefs are being filed in support of the Administration.
The administrators' brief calls the Clean Power Plan “a pragmatic, flexible, and cost-effective pollution control program, which properly respects State sovereignty” and argues that it “falls well within the bounds of an administrator's authority” to rely on provisions of existing law to address “unforeseen problems” such as climate change.
The administrators argue that Congress provided sufficient authority in the Clean Air Act and other laws to control pollutants harmful to public health, including carbon dioxide emissions. They also reject the claim that EPA has inappropriately or improperly regulated the energy sector or interfered with any state's authority to regulate electricity. “It is entirely within EPA's purview as the nation's public health and environmental regulator to issue rules with consequences for the electricity sector-indeed the Agency is legally obligated to do so.” By allowing States to opt out, says the brief, the Plan “does not command the States to do anything at all.”
Ruckelshaus was appointed by President Richard Nixon as the first EPA administrator, and again was asked to lead the agency by President Ronald Reagan. Reilly served as EPA administrator under President George H.W. Bush. Their brief buttresses the government's arguments in support of the Clean Power Plan based on their many years of experience handling public health and related environmental risks. During their tenure, Ruckelshaus and Reilly, like other EPA administrators, responded to similarly consequential regulatory challenges under the Clean Air Act and other federal environmental laws. And they are familiar with and implemented many of the Clean Air Act provisions at the heart of this case.
Commenting on today's filing, Ruckelshaus said, “The wisdom of the Clean Air Act, the work of a bipartisan Congress some forty-six years ago, is that it has provided successive EPA Administrators the authority and the flexibility to address new, evolving threats to public health when they become known.”
Reilly added that, “U.S. leadership is essential if the global community is going to adequately address climate change. The acid rain program implemented during my tenure showed that power plants can meet tough pollution performance standards cost effectively when given the flexibility to choose the means and the fuels, which is precisely what the Clean Power Plan provides.”
Lazarus said: “It is a great privilege to be able to represent two HLS alums who are literally giants of integrity in the field of environmental law.”
BY DAN DEPETRIS - Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durban and the rest of the Democratic caucus have made a calculation: If Republicans are refusing to even afford Judge Garland the decency of a hearing, Democrats will do everything in their power during an election year to use the Supreme Court issue as a political weapon to bludgeon them.
Professors Jody Freeman LL.M. '91 S.J.D. '95 and Richard Lazarus '79
Lazarus filed the brief today in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is hearing a challenge to the EPA's Clean Power Plan by a coalition of State and industry opponents.
This week, EPA filed its response to the legal challenge, and a number of other briefs are being filed in support of the Administration.
The administrators' brief calls the Clean Power Plan “a pragmatic, flexible, and cost-effective pollution control program, which properly respects State sovereignty” and argues that it “falls well within the bounds of an administrator's authority” to rely on provisions of existing law to address “unforeseen problems” such as climate change.
The administrators argue that Congress provided sufficient authority in the Clean Air Act and other laws to control pollutants harmful to public health, including carbon dioxide emissions. They also reject the claim that EPA has inappropriately or improperly regulated the energy sector or interfered with any state's authority to regulate electricity. “It is entirely within EPA's purview as the nation's public health and environmental regulator to issue rules with consequences for the electricity sector-indeed the Agency is legally obligated to do so.” By allowing States to opt out, says the brief, the Plan “does not command the States to do anything at all.”
Ruckelshaus was appointed by President Richard Nixon as the first EPA administrator, and again was asked to lead the agency by President Ronald Reagan. Reilly served as EPA administrator under President George H.W. Bush. Their brief buttresses the government's arguments in support of the Clean Power Plan based on their many years of experience handling public health and related environmental risks. During their tenure, Ruckelshaus and Reilly, like other EPA administrators, responded to similarly consequential regulatory challenges under the Clean Air Act and other federal environmental laws. And they are familiar with and implemented many of the Clean Air Act provisions at the heart of this case.
Commenting on today's filing, Ruckelshaus said, “The wisdom of the Clean Air Act, the work of a bipartisan Congress some forty-six years ago, is that it has provided successive EPA Administrators the authority and the flexibility to address new, evolving threats to public health when they become known.”
Reilly added that, “U.S. leadership is essential if the global community is going to adequately address climate change. The acid rain program implemented during my tenure showed that power plants can meet tough pollution performance standards cost effectively when given the flexibility to choose the means and the fuels, which is precisely what the Clean Power Plan provides.”
Lazarus said: “It is a great privilege to be able to represent two HLS alums who are literally giants of integrity in the field of environmental law.”
BY DAN DEPETRIS - Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durban and the rest of the Democratic caucus have made a calculation: If Republicans are refusing to even afford Judge Garland the decency of a hearing, Democrats will do everything in their power during an election year to use the Supreme Court issue as a political weapon to bludgeon them.
Despite evidence of the typical abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws and injustices inflicted on innocent people, a major reform bill in Oklahoma has been stuck in committee and probably will never get a hearing.
How can you defend a foreigner who came to the United States with the likely intent of causing harm to Americans? For attorney James B. Donovan, a 1940 graduate of Harvard Law School, the real question at the height of the Cold War was: How can you not?
Credit: Courtesy of the Donovan Family The film “Bridge of Spies” tells the story of James B. Donovan, a Harvard Law School graduate who played a critical part in prisoner negotiations during the Cold War. Donovan met with world leaders such as John F. Kennedy (left) and Fidel Castro during his career as an attorney and negotiator. He also served as a commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
In representing accused Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in the late 1950s, Donovan “probably had the most unpopular client since John Adams defended the British troops in the Boston Massacre of 1770,” as newscaster David Brinkley put it. Donovan was no fan of communism, but he felt it was his patriotic duty to give Abel a strong defense and thereby demonstrate the fairness and integrity of the U.S. legal system. “If the free world is not faithful to its own moral code,” Donovan said, “there remains no society for which others may hunger.” He refused to give up even when Abel was convicted in federal court in Brooklyn. Donovan not only argued down the spy's sentence from death to 30 years, he appealed the conviction all the way to the Supreme Court, losing narrowly.
In 1962, with the backing of President John F. Kennedy '40, Donovan traveled to East Berlin to negotiate a swap: Abel for American spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers, imprisoned in the USSR.
At Harvard Law School in the late 1930s, Donovan lived in Walter Hastings Hall, served as chair of the Law School yearbook, and studied under later Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. As an alumnus, he donated his legal fee from the Abel case to Harvard and two other universities.
On Wednesday, the Law School's Program on Negotiation will present a screening of Steven Spielberg's “Bridge of Spies,” a film about the Abel-Powers negotiations in which Tom Hanks plays Donovan. Afterward, Dean Martha Minow will discuss the film with Professor Michael Wheeler of the Business School; Donovan's granddaughter Beth Amorosi, president of AMO Communications LLC; and Donovan's grandson John Amorosi, partner in the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Beth Amorosi spoke with the Gazette by phone earlier this month.
GAZETTE: The trailer for “Bridge of Spies” gives the impression that your grandfather was simply an insurance attorney who somehow ended up defending an accused Russian spy. But the film reveals, at least in passing, that he had relevant experience.
AMOROSI: The film does downplay his credentials, or enhances his everyman identity, playing up the fact that he was an insurance lawyer, [seemingly] picked out of the blue. But in reality, he did have quite a rich experience. In World War II, he worked as assistant general counsel for the Office of Scientific Research and Development [the federal agency that developed the atomic bomb], and then as general counsel for the Office of Strategic Services [the forerunner of the CIA]. And after the war, he was assistant prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trial. It was no accident that the Brooklyn Bar Association chose him to represent Rudolf Abel.
On Wednesday March 30 at Austin Hall, Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation will host a screening of "Bridge of Spies," followed by a panel discussion featuring Dean Martha Minow, Professor Michael Wheeler of the Harvard Business School, and Beth and John Amorosi, the granddaughter and grandson of James B. Donovan. Read more about the event
GAZETTE: The movie also portrays his relationship with his CIA handler [in the Berlin swap] as somewhat antagonistic. Was that for dramatic effect?
AMOROSI: That was some artistic license. He actually had a very good relationship with the CIA agent he worked with, M.C. Miskovsky. The actor didn't play one specific person, but more an amalgam of personalities at the CIA.
GAZETTE: Donovan defended a Russian agent during the Red Scare. Was that tough on your mother and her siblings, and on your grandmother, as depicted in “Bridge of Spies”?
AMOROSI: Yes. I think that the times in general then were very tense - as they are right now, when we're facing terrorism rather than communism. Back then, though, we didn't see everything happening through the media; there wasn't the same transparency. So it was almost more a perceived threat, psychological warfare. Not that the threat wasn't real, but nobody really knew what was going on behind the Iron Curtain. In a way, it is difficult to convey the level of tension my family felt. The film took some license, [inventing a] shooting scene. My family actually lived in an apartment building, not a house, at that time. They were on the 14th or 15th floor, so it'd be impossible to shoot up into their apartment. But that was a good way to convey that tension. And there is a suggestion that perhaps someone shot at the building, and bricks were thrown. There were picketers outside every day when the kids were going to school. The kids were not necessarily bullied, but the family in general experienced some condescending and strange looks from strangers - but also from friends of theirs, which was even more painful.
GAZETTE: Did that sentiment turn around after Donovan got an American pilot freed from Soviet prison?
AMOROSI: I think the environment was still tense. A lot of people didn't understand why Francis Gary Powers was freed; some people were still suspicious of him. In hindsight, I've heard members of my grandparents' generation say, “Your grandfather was a great American.” The passage of time, the distance of time from the actual incidents has really lent itself to the image of my grandfather as a hero.
GAZETTE: Tom Hanks portrays your grandfather as an eminently good guy, tough when he needed to be. Was that accurate?
AMOROSI: Yes, absolutely. He was a very amiable person, very humorous, and very humble, in that he wasn't above working with anybody at any level to get the job done.
GAZETTE: And six months after the spy swap in Berlin, your grandfather was in Cuba, snorkeling with Castro, trying to pull off an even bigger exchange. Can you talk about that?
AMOROSI: President Kennedy and [Attorney General] Bobby Kennedy had him represent, not officially the U.S., but the Cuban Families Committee, to go and negotiate for the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. Between Christmas 1962 and April 1963, he met with Castro 15 times, negotiating the release of 1,113 prisoners - and he obtained exit visas for their families, so ultimately he freed about 10,000 people.
GAZETTE: What made him such a good negotiator?
AMOROSI: Again, he was personable, he liked people very much, he liked building relationships with people of all different cultures and backgrounds. That was one way he could build a strong foundation, because he looked at people as individuals and not as enemies or ideologies. He got to know them on a personal level. So that's one quality, his humanity. Also, he used reason above emotion and would not bring his personal opinion into any situation, which enabled a much more level playing field. He also loved the law and would adhere to the law while negotiating. And his competitiveness - he loved challenges. … Just getting 1,100 prisoners out was not enough; he wanted to help their families too.
GAZETTE: What about the lessons for young people in James Donovan's story? You've mentioned hoping to make DVDs of the film available to public schools.
AMOROSI: I'd like him to be considered a role model. Healthy role models are vital to our society, and there's a dearth of them at the moment. Kids are bombarded through the media with all these different possible role models, or people who are automatically assumed to be role models for all the wrong reasons. What I'd like them to learn is that just because someone has a talent as an athlete or a musician - or a lawyer, for that matter - doesn't automatically make that person a role model. It's more about their character, their ethics, how they've lived their life, how they treat people. And I think to pursue any career of your choice with the utmost vigor and enthusiasm opens up so many doors for you, to become whatever you want to be.
And I hope they learn not to back down in the face of [others' opinions]. Popularity is overrated. … I don't want to get into politics, but for example, just because most people are backing some candidate doesn't make that the right choice. Don't go with the easy choice; base your decision on your own conscience and your own character and your own beliefs and on what's best for you - and what's best for most.
The “Bridge of Spies” screening is at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 30 at Austin Hall, with a discussion to follow. View the event listing on the Harvard Law School website.
Despite evidence of the typical abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws and injustices inflicted on innocent people, a major reform bill in Oklahoma has been stuck in committee and probably will never get a hearing.
How can you defend a foreigner who came to the United States with the likely intent of causing harm to Americans? For attorney James B. Donovan, a 1940 graduate of Harvard Law School, the real question at the height of the Cold War was: How can you not?
Credit: Courtesy of the Donovan Family The film “Bridge of Spies” tells the story of James B. Donovan, a Harvard Law School graduate who played a critical part in prisoner negotiations during the Cold War. Donovan met with world leaders such as John F. Kennedy (left) and Fidel Castro during his career as an attorney and negotiator. He also served as a commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
In representing accused Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in the late 1950s, Donovan “probably had the most unpopular client since John Adams defended the British troops in the Boston Massacre of 1770,” as newscaster David Brinkley put it. Donovan was no fan of communism, but he felt it was his patriotic duty to give Abel a strong defense and thereby demonstrate the fairness and integrity of the U.S. legal system. “If the free world is not faithful to its own moral code,” Donovan said, “there remains no society for which others may hunger.” He refused to give up even when Abel was convicted in federal court in Brooklyn. Donovan not only argued down the spy's sentence from death to 30 years, he appealed the conviction all the way to the Supreme Court, losing narrowly.
In 1962, with the backing of President John F. Kennedy '40, Donovan traveled to East Berlin to negotiate a swap: Abel for American spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers, imprisoned in the USSR.
At Harvard Law School in the late 1930s, Donovan lived in Walter Hastings Hall, served as chair of the Law School yearbook, and studied under later Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. As an alumnus, he donated his legal fee from the Abel case to Harvard and two other universities.
On Wednesday, the Law School's Program on Negotiation will present a screening of Steven Spielberg's “Bridge of Spies,” a film about the Abel-Powers negotiations in which Tom Hanks plays Donovan. Afterward, Dean Martha Minow will discuss the film with Professor Michael Wheeler of the Business School; Donovan's granddaughter Beth Amorosi, president of AMO Communications LLC; and Donovan's grandson John Amorosi, partner in the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Beth Amorosi spoke with the Gazette by phone earlier this month.
GAZETTE: The trailer for “Bridge of Spies” gives the impression that your grandfather was simply an insurance attorney who somehow ended up defending an accused Russian spy. But the film reveals, at least in passing, that he had relevant experience.
AMOROSI: The film does downplay his credentials, or enhances his everyman identity, playing up the fact that he was an insurance lawyer, [seemingly] picked out of the blue. But in reality, he did have quite a rich experience. In World War II, he worked as assistant general counsel for the Office of Scientific Research and Development [the federal agency that developed the atomic bomb], and then as general counsel for the Office of Strategic Services [the forerunner of the CIA]. And after the war, he was assistant prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trial. It was no accident that the Brooklyn Bar Association chose him to represent Rudolf Abel.
On Wednesday March 30 at Austin Hall, Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation will host a screening of "Bridge of Spies," followed by a panel discussion featuring Dean Martha Minow, Professor Michael Wheeler of the Harvard Business School, and Beth and John Amorosi, the granddaughter and grandson of James B. Donovan. Read more about the event
GAZETTE: The movie also portrays his relationship with his CIA handler [in the Berlin swap] as somewhat antagonistic. Was that for dramatic effect?
AMOROSI: That was some artistic license. He actually had a very good relationship with the CIA agent he worked with, M.C. Miskovsky. The actor didn't play one specific person, but more an amalgam of personalities at the CIA.
GAZETTE: Donovan defended a Russian agent during the Red Scare. Was that tough on your mother and her siblings, and on your grandmother, as depicted in “Bridge of Spies”?
AMOROSI: Yes. I think that the times in general then were very tense - as they are right now, when we're facing terrorism rather than communism. Back then, though, we didn't see everything happening through the media; there wasn't the same transparency. So it was almost more a perceived threat, psychological warfare. Not that the threat wasn't real, but nobody really knew what was going on behind the Iron Curtain. In a way, it is difficult to convey the level of tension my family felt. The film took some license, [inventing a] shooting scene. My family actually lived in an apartment building, not a house, at that time. They were on the 14th or 15th floor, so it'd be impossible to shoot up into their apartment. But that was a good way to convey that tension. And there is a suggestion that perhaps someone shot at the building, and bricks were thrown. There were picketers outside every day when the kids were going to school. The kids were not necessarily bullied, but the family in general experienced some condescending and strange looks from strangers - but also from friends of theirs, which was even more painful.
GAZETTE: Did that sentiment turn around after Donovan got an American pilot freed from Soviet prison?
AMOROSI: I think the environment was still tense. A lot of people didn't understand why Francis Gary Powers was freed; some people were still suspicious of him. In hindsight, I've heard members of my grandparents' generation say, “Your grandfather was a great American.” The passage of time, the distance of time from the actual incidents has really lent itself to the image of my grandfather as a hero.
GAZETTE: Tom Hanks portrays your grandfather as an eminently good guy, tough when he needed to be. Was that accurate?
AMOROSI: Yes, absolutely. He was a very amiable person, very humorous, and very humble, in that he wasn't above working with anybody at any level to get the job done.
GAZETTE: And six months after the spy swap in Berlin, your grandfather was in Cuba, snorkeling with Castro, trying to pull off an even bigger exchange. Can you talk about that?
AMOROSI: President Kennedy and [Attorney General] Bobby Kennedy had him represent, not officially the U.S., but the Cuban Families Committee, to go and negotiate for the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. Between Christmas 1962 and April 1963, he met with Castro 15 times, negotiating the release of 1,113 prisoners - and he obtained exit visas for their families, so ultimately he freed about 10,000 people.
GAZETTE: What made him such a good negotiator?
AMOROSI: Again, he was personable, he liked people very much, he liked building relationships with people of all different cultures and backgrounds. That was one way he could build a strong foundation, because he looked at people as individuals and not as enemies or ideologies. He got to know them on a personal level. So that's one quality, his humanity. Also, he used reason above emotion and would not bring his personal opinion into any situation, which enabled a much more level playing field. He also loved the law and would adhere to the law while negotiating. And his competitiveness - he loved challenges. … Just getting 1,100 prisoners out was not enough; he wanted to help their families too.
GAZETTE: What about the lessons for young people in James Donovan's story? You've mentioned hoping to make DVDs of the film available to public schools.
AMOROSI: I'd like him to be considered a role model. Healthy role models are vital to our society, and there's a dearth of them at the moment. Kids are bombarded through the media with all these different possible role models, or people who are automatically assumed to be role models for all the wrong reasons. What I'd like them to learn is that just because someone has a talent as an athlete or a musician - or a lawyer, for that matter - doesn't automatically make that person a role model. It's more about their character, their ethics, how they've lived their life, how they treat people. And I think to pursue any career of your choice with the utmost vigor and enthusiasm opens up so many doors for you, to become whatever you want to be.
And I hope they learn not to back down in the face of [others' opinions]. Popularity is overrated. … I don't want to get into politics, but for example, just because most people are backing some candidate doesn't make that the right choice. Don't go with the easy choice; base your decision on your own conscience and your own character and your own beliefs and on what's best for you - and what's best for most.
The “Bridge of Spies” screening is at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 30 at Austin Hall, with a discussion to follow. View the event listing on the Harvard Law School website.
BY TODD GAZIANO AND REED HOPPER - The justices should reconsider their own doctrines that grant extreme deference to agency decision making, but court access itself will help end the worst regulatory abuses.
BY TODD GAZIANO AND REED HOPPER - The justices should reconsider their own doctrines that grant extreme deference to agency decision making, but court access itself will help end the worst regulatory abuses.
Records listing the names of people who bought guns and what guns they purchased are piled along the corridors and are stacked head-high in 13 tractor-trailer-sized steel containers out back. Between the stacks of records of gun sales are rooms filled with people scanning the documents.This is The Bureau of [...]
The initiative is prompted by the fact that current health law policy and regulation, developed largely in a fee-for-service environment with siloed providers, creates barriers that may impede widespread adoption of improved models of care for those with advanced illness. The Project will seek to address this problem through policy and research projects that will identify and analyze these barriers, and propose policy solutions that promote development and growth of successful programs. This may entail developing proposed regulatory approaches for the advanced care delivery model that could be adopted by policymakers at the state and federal levels, as well as exploration of potential payment methodologies for this model of care.
The project is led by I. Glenn Cohen, faculty director of the Petrie-Flom Center and Professor at Harvard Law School, Holly Fernandez Lynch, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center and faculty at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics, Tom Koutsoumpas, co-founder and co-chair of C-TAC, and Mark Sterling, chief strategy officer at C-TAC.
Sterling will also serve as the inaugural senior fellow in Advanced Care and Health Policy, responsible for advancing the work of the Project, developing a robust policy and research agenda, planning public events, and serving as a resource to interested members of the Harvard community. He has more than 35 years of experience in health care law and policy, including serving as partner at Hogan Lovells (where he remains Of Counsel), as general counsel and chief strategy officer of a leading health care services organization providing end-of-life care, and as a member of nonprofit Boards of Directors serving frail elderly and terminally ill individuals. He also recently completed a Senior Fellowship at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative.
“Most Americans eventually will face advanced illness, rendering them at higher risk for unnecessary hospitalizations, unwanted treatment, adverse drug reactions, and conflicting medical advice,” said Koutsoumpas.
Sterling said: “They confront a fragmented, chaotic system that is poorly equipped to provide the care they need, leaving them to fend for themselves – this also results in high healthcare costs for families.”
Cohen added: “There is growing recognition of this systemic problem, from both policy and ethical perspectives. This is not the sort of experience that anyone wants for patients, and legal and policy tools are needed to address it.”
“We are thrilled to leverage the interdisciplinary strengths of the Petrie-Flom Center and the expertise of C-TAC to develop practical solutions to a multi-factorial health policy problem that affects all of us,” said Lynch. “Mark Sterling has exactly the right combination of experience, enthusiasm, and collaborative spirit needed to launch this Project as a tool to effectuate real change.”
In addition to the Senior Fellowship, The Project on Advanced Care and Health Policy will host public symposia and events, and organize a number of more specific research initiatives aimed at policy adoption of an advanced care model. Under this model, personal values drive treatment decisions, a customized blend of palliative and curative care can be provided, interdisciplinary teams coordinate care and provide support across settings, and the focus of care typically moves from the hospital to the home and community.
Records listing the names of people who bought guns and what guns they purchased are piled along the corridors and are stacked head-high in 13 tractor-trailer-sized steel containers out back. Between the stacks of records of gun sales are rooms filled with people scanning the documents.This is The Bureau of [...]
The initiative is prompted by the fact that current health law policy and regulation, developed largely in a fee-for-service environment with siloed providers, creates barriers that may impede widespread adoption of improved models of care for those with advanced illness. The Project will seek to address this problem through policy and research projects that will identify and analyze these barriers, and propose policy solutions that promote development and growth of successful programs. This may entail developing proposed regulatory approaches for the advanced care delivery model that could be adopted by policymakers at the state and federal levels, as well as exploration of potential payment methodologies for this model of care.
The project is led by I. Glenn Cohen, faculty director of the Petrie-Flom Center and Professor at Harvard Law School, Holly Fernandez Lynch, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center and faculty at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics, Tom Koutsoumpas, co-founder and co-chair of C-TAC, and Mark Sterling, chief strategy officer at C-TAC.
Sterling will also serve as the inaugural senior fellow in Advanced Care and Health Policy, responsible for advancing the work of the Project, developing a robust policy and research agenda, planning public events, and serving as a resource to interested members of the Harvard community. He has more than 35 years of experience in health care law and policy, including serving as partner at Hogan Lovells (where he remains Of Counsel), as general counsel and chief strategy officer of a leading health care services organization providing end-of-life care, and as a member of nonprofit Boards of Directors serving frail elderly and terminally ill individuals. He also recently completed a Senior Fellowship at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative.
“Most Americans eventually will face advanced illness, rendering them at higher risk for unnecessary hospitalizations, unwanted treatment, adverse drug reactions, and conflicting medical advice,” said Koutsoumpas.
Sterling said: “They confront a fragmented, chaotic system that is poorly equipped to provide the care they need, leaving them to fend for themselves – this also results in high healthcare costs for families.”
Cohen added: “There is growing recognition of this systemic problem, from both policy and ethical perspectives. This is not the sort of experience that anyone wants for patients, and legal and policy tools are needed to address it.”
“We are thrilled to leverage the interdisciplinary strengths of the Petrie-Flom Center and the expertise of C-TAC to develop practical solutions to a multi-factorial health policy problem that affects all of us,” said Lynch. “Mark Sterling has exactly the right combination of experience, enthusiasm, and collaborative spirit needed to launch this Project as a tool to effectuate real change.”
In addition to the Senior Fellowship, The Project on Advanced Care and Health Policy will host public symposia and events, and organize a number of more specific research initiatives aimed at policy adoption of an advanced care model. Under this model, personal values drive treatment decisions, a customized blend of palliative and curative care can be provided, interdisciplinary teams coordinate care and provide support across settings, and the focus of care typically moves from the hospital to the home and community.
Rather than proving to be a fleeting political movement, the perception that the top 1 percent of income earners are gaining at the expense of the other 99 percent has inspired a full-fledged crusade to combat income inequality. Politicians in both parties arguethat the middle-class is shrinking, average Americans’ incomes [...]
Programs work to aid individuals, opening vistas that many in struggling communities have never seen
This is the last in the Harvard Gazette’s series on inequality, one of America’s most vexing problems, examining Harvard’s ground-level efforts to make a difference in the surrounding communities, and beyond.
On a cold winter morning in 1848, Edward Everett, then president of Harvard, noticed a chilled freshman lacking an overcoat. According to the Annals of the Harvard Class of 1852, the freshman received $30 to buy a coat. Renamed the Winter Coat Fund, the program still exists and may be Harvard’s oldest effort to help the underprivileged. Some analysts of America’s deep schisms involving inequality say that large-scale solutions are needed to combat problems nationally. But others say that fundamental fixes can best begin locally, in communities, with programs that improve life neighborhood by neighborhood. Change the difficult conditions under which people struggle, they say, and you start to change their lives for the better.
At Phillips Brooks House, we’re focused on community service, but we’re not only serving the community. We’re working with the community to make it better.
— Jing Qiu ’16
A number of Harvard-based programs take that advice to heart, and some have done so for more than a century.
In 1904, a group of students founded the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) to honor a Harvard graduate and preacher who helped the poor. The student-run group now hosts 80 programs that involve a whopping 1,500 students in public and community service.
Various Harvard departments and Schools have long embraced efforts to help surrounding communities. The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, for instance, has provided free legal representation to poor defendants since 1913.
Over time, the scope of University-affiliated programs has grown dramatically, along with their reach. They include free medical screenings through the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Family Van program in Dorchester, the tutoring and mentoring of Boston high school students through the Crimson Summer Academy, and efforts by Harvard-affiliated Partners In Health to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone, tuberculosis in Russia, and HIV in Haiti.
Other programs benefit nearby communities directly. The Ed Portal connects professors, students, and the University’s vast educational resources with residents of Allston and Brighton. A partnership with the nonprofit group Food For Free has provided more than 40,000 pounds of healthful food to local pantries.
Here are some examples of how local involvement can have a ripple effect in combatting inequality, person by person and case by case.
Harvard health van brings care to the community
Harvard Medical School’s Family Van reaches Boston’s underserved neighborhoods in the most direct way possible: by driving there. The van’s screening and referral services help bridge health inequalities by connecting local residents with a health care system that may otherwise seem distant and inaccessible.
Help with legal problems
Every year at Harvard Law School (HLS), 50 student attorneys help local residents with legal matters, from child custody to evictions to unemployment problems to Social Security benefits. The students do so through the Legal Aid Bureau, the nation’s oldest student-run organization offering free legal services to residents struggling to make ends meet. The students commit to at least 20 hours of work per week during two years, and handled 300 cases last year. The bureau, which is funded by Harvard, is the second-largest provider of free civic legal aid locally, after the nonprofit Greater Boston Legal Services.
“It’s really like having 50 full-time lawyers that Harvard is contributing to civic legal aid per year,” said Esme Caramello, clinical professor of law and the bureau’s deputy director.
The bureau strives to mirror the community it serves. The participating students select the next class of student lawyers, and they promote diversity because it encourages inclusion, said Amanda Morejon, current president of the bureau. Morejon graduated from the College in 2013 and will receive her degree from the Law School in May.
Credit: Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer Amanda Morejon, president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.
“We don’t want to be so far removed from our clients,” said Morejon. “Our clients are a racially and ethnically diverse population, all low-income. I had a client who was a Hispanic woman, and my being a Hispanic woman was extremely important to her.”
“The bureau is the most diverse organization at HLS,” said Caramello.
The community need is great, and sometimes exceeds the bureau’s capacity. “Three times a year we shut down the phones,” said Caramello. “We can’t take more cases.”
Inspired by the memory of the Rev. Phillips Brooks, a Harvard graduate who advocated social service, students founded the association to serve “the ideal of piety and charity and hospitality.” The association at first provided clothing and ran book drives and taught Harvard courses to local high school graduates, and it operated mainly in Cambridge.
Now the group offers programs through which students buddy up with Alzheimer’s patients in Roslindale or mentor recent immigrants and refugee youths in Dorchester or teach English in Chinatown. To help the homeless, the group also hosts a winter emergency shelter, a summer transitional shelter, and, most recently, a youth shelter. Students run the programs, which are funded by the University.
Credit: Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer Jing Qiu ’16, president of Phillips Brooks House Association.
As president, Qiu oversees programming, operations, and staffing. “It’s more managerial than volunteering,” she said of her responsibility. “I have to do a lot of overseeing, but the work has inspired me to pursue a career in public service.”
Volunteering at PBHA helps students to see the effects of inequality on people’s lives, said Qiu.
“At least for me, volunteering is not an extracurricular activity,” she said. “It’s more than that. It’s a social responsibility. Inequity is structural, and through social service, we’re doing our part to level the playing field.”
***
Medical help from the Family Van
Ever since the Family Van began rolling on Martin Luther King Day in 1992, the Harvard Medical School program has helped to improve access to care and health resources in underserved communities.
The brainchild of Nancy Oriol, now dean for students, associate professor of anesthesia, and lecturer on social medicine at HMS, and then-medical student Cheryl Dorsey, the mobile clinic has treated more than 80,000 patients over the years. By providing curbside testing, free health screenings, and referrals for social services to residents of Dorchester, Roxbury, and East Boston, the van serves the “medically disenfranchised,” Oriol said. When it comes to health outcomes, she said, ZIP codes are better predictors of what’s needed than genetic codes.
“The disparities that exist are pervasive. They are all tangled. They are race, they are ethnicity, they are gender identification, they are ZIP code, they are education, they are employment. All of those things work together,” Oriol said. “Inequality of any sort, lack of opportunity of any sort, is harmful to your health. Lack of knowledge is harmful to your health.”
The mobile clinic also fosters trust between health care providers and the communities. Residents who might not go to a clinic are more comfortable knocking on the van’s door, even for questions unrelated to health, as happened when the daughter of a sex worker came in one day.
“She said, ‘Nobody in my world knows algebra; can you help?’” Oriol said. “And we did.”
Inside the van, health professionals handle blood pressure checks, HIV tests, family planning issues, and other services. The van also hosts HMS student interns, who get a taste of patient care and learn firsthand about the real-world pressures affecting patients.
Inequality of any sort, lack of opportunity of any sort, is harmful to your health. Lack of knowledge is harmful to your health.
— Nancy Oriol
Ishaan Desai ’15, who has volunteered with the van since 2014, said the experience allowed him to serve the community and see inequality close-up.
“From Cambridge to Roxbury or Dorchester, I realized that health disparities in the same metropolitan area are quite stark,” he said.
Rainelle Walker-White, who has worked with the van program for 22 years, agrees.
“It’s an opportunity for people who’d never get health care to walk into the Family Van to get the services that they so need, and that they deserve,” said Walker-White. “Going to the hospital sometimes is a barrier to people because they don’t have health insurance.”
The van is a rolling tutorial on health disparities. “We try to teach it in our schools,” Oriol said. “Medical schools understand that the social determinants of health are real, and if we ignore them we might as well be ignoring any major disease.”
Oriol, who is no longer involved in the van’s day-to-day operations, said that mobile clinics help to remove barriers to care, save money on emergency room costs, and improve residents’ health.
“It’s part of the community,” Oriol said. “It’s just a different part of the health care system.”
Tesoriero, who learned English, finished her GED, took computer classes, and earned a bachelor’s degree in social science through the Harvard Extension School, credits her progress to the Harvard Bridge Program, which offers training and education to the University’s entry-level workers.
“It was a bridge to a better life,” said Tesoriero at her office. “I didn’t want to be a cashier all my life. Thanks to the program, my life changed for the better.”
That’s what Carol Kolenik had in mind when she created the program in 1999. After coming back from a two-year stint in Vietnam teaching ESL teachers, Kolenik wanted to help workers to improve their lives. First, she taught English to 38 service employees at the Harvard Faculty Club. The program was a hit with workers and managers who realized the benefits of a trained workforce.
Credit: Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer Tamara Suttle helps Oscar Farias during a basic computer class offered through the Harvard Bridge Program.
Now the program reaches 500 workers, from custodians to landscapers to parking attendants to contractor employees to postdoctoral fellows. Every semester, the Mount Auburn Street office hums with 53 classes, including TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) preparation, computer skills, and college prep. There are internship programs, mentoring and tutoring, and citizenship classes. About 200 workers have become U.S. citizens through the program. For Kolenik, the gains go beyond words or numbers.
“The best, biggest benefit is that it brings equity to all Harvard employees, from faculty to postdocs to service workers,” said Kolenik. “Basically, the people who wear uniforms and name tags are now being given … opportunities for education and professional development that historically were never afforded to them.”
With fresh skills, workers can earn promotions or new jobs within and outside the University. Kolenik beams with pride when she talks about an overnight custodian who became a bank teller, a dining-service employee who is now a student at Harvard Kennedy School, and a mailroom worker who is now in accounting.
For Tesoriero, the program sets a good example for other institutions to follow because it benefits both workers and employers.
“My life was turned around,” she said. “The University is smart in investing in people who are already working here and helping them discover they have other talents beyond making omelets.”
***
A portal to Harvard for Allston and Brighton
On any given day, the Harvard Ed Portal buzzes with activity. Inside the brick building with shiny glass doors at 224 Western Ave. in Allston, Harvard students mentor local schoolchildren, organizers run toddler and baby groups, and instructors offer programs on wellness, arts, science, education, and professional development. At night, professors give public lectures about history, science, and music.
The program is a partnership among Harvard, the city of Boston, the Harvard-Allston Task Force, and the Allston-Brighton community, and is part of the $43 million community benefits package associated with the University’s 10-year institutional master plan. Approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in 2013, the plan outlines Harvard’s expansion in Allston.
***
Assisting through the Financial Aid Initiative
Early in this century, as the gap between rich and poor Americans widened, Harvard officials grew concerned about whether the campus was properly addressing income inequality. A 2003 Century Foundation report had said that, in the Ivy League, Harvard had the second-lowest number of Pell Grant recipients, most of whom have financial need. The report showed that Harvard still resembled an elite institution, where low-income students were underrepresented by nearly 70 percent, as then-Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers noted.
That soon changed. A year later, Harvard launched the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI), which opened the gates wider to low-income students by offering them full financial aid if their families made less than $40,000. Harvard made its income guidelines public, said Sally Donahue, director of financial aid, to better reach low-income students who did not know about Harvard, or who did not believe it was affordable for them. Fast-forward to 2016. The initiative now offers full financial aid to families earning below $65,000, and asks families with typical assets and incomes up to $150,000 to contribute from zero to 10 percent of their income. More than half of its students receive some form of financial aid, and one in five undergraduate families pay nothing. Since the launch of HFAI, Harvard has awarded nearly $1.5 billion in grant aid to undergrads.
You can’t understand inequality unless you’ve lived it. When you talk to somebody who has lived it, you can understand how it affects people’s lives. We bring together people of different backgrounds, and diversity can be uncomfortable, but to me, that’s where learning begins.
— Anya Bernstein Bassett
Much has changed since HFAI was created. Under President Drew Faust, financial aid has been a high priority. In 2007, she and Michael D. Smith, Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, built on the financial aid program by unveiling a similar initiative to help middle-income families. For fiscal year 2015, close to $174 million will be spent on undergraduate financial aid. Attending Harvard without aid costs about $65,000 per year, and by offering to provide full financial aid for families that can’t afford it, Harvard is able to keep its doors open to all students, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, said Donahue. The resulting socio-economic variety in the undergraduate experience — both in the classrooms and beyond — provides a broader and more stimulating education for students. In a world of increasing economic inequality, ensuring access to higher education for talented students has never been more critically important, Donahue said.
“Using our financial initiative to open our doors to all students, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds, is one of the most powerful ways of reducing inequality in our country and the world,” she said. “This is actually very powerful, because it’s providing a more diverse and multifaceted education, both in the classroom and outside, for all students.”
The shift also makes teaching a richer experience, said Anya Bernstein Bassett, dean of undergraduate studies and senior lecturer in social studies. Bassett teaches “Inequality and Social Mobility,” and having students from all walks of life brings in different perspectives and voices.
“You can’t understand inequality unless you’ve lived it,” said Bassett. “When you talk to somebody who has lived it, you can understand how it affects people’s lives. We bring together people of different backgrounds, and diversity can be uncomfortable, but to me, that’s where learning begins.”
***
Encouraging the young to aim higher
When Harvard unveiled its financial aid initiative in 2004, it also launched a program to help students get ready for college.
Targeting high-achieving ninth-graders at public schools in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, the Crimson Summer Academy (CSA) is a three-summer program with courses on public speaking, writing, science and technology, and college preparation.
The students sleep in Harvard dorms during the week, attend lectures by Harvard faculty, and receive mentoring from Harvard students, all of which helps them to realize that the dream of attending college is attainable. It’s a dream that has come true for the 90 percent of Crimson graduates who over the past 12 years have completed college. They have gone off to prestigious universities across the country, a measure of the program’s success, says CSA director Maxine Rodburg.
“Many of these kids would have gone to college, but to less prestigious ones,” said Rodburg. “We helped them aim higher. We try to expand their sense of the possibilities because we feel they are entitled to the larger world that upper-middle-class kids take as a birthright.”
The students, who come from low-income families, are nominated by 36 high schools and follow a rigorous program to help them ace the application process and thrive in college.
For Crimson graduates Fatah Adan and Meyling Galvez, both now freshmen at Harvard, the academy provided a boost in academics, guidance on college applications, and a community of mentors and peers who offered key support.
“Without this program, I would definitely not be here,” said Adan, who grew up in Jamaica Plain, a child of Somali refugees. “Harvard is in our backyard, and many of us don’t think about Harvard.”
Galvez, a daughter of Guatemalan immigrants who attended a charter school in Boston, thought about Harvard but didn’t think it was possible to attend.
“My parents always pushed me to excel in school,” she said. “My dream was coming to Harvard, and what the academy did for me was to help me see it as a goal rather than just a dream.”
The program brings in 30 students each year, and officials are confident the ripple effects benefit the students’ families, schools, and communities. “We’re sending out leaders into the world,” said Rodburg.
Ariana Serret, who is going to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, is one of them. She was awarded a Posse Foundation scholarship that will pay for college.
“My mom came from the Dominican Republic and couldn’t finish college,” Serret said. “She said to me, ‘Now you can graduate for me and for us.’”
As more low-income students entered Harvard, officials noted that many were the first in their families to go to college. The number of first-generation students has risen from 5 to 15 percent of enrollment in recent years.
Attending Harvard for free gave these students the same shot at success as their more-privileged peers. But without the connections or resources that those peers enjoy, the first-generation students sometimes found themselves struggling. Many didn’t know how to approach professors, use office hours, or apply for summer internships, which are part of the college experience often transmitted from parents to children.
Credit: Photo by Shraddha Gupta Ariana Serret (from left), Meyling Galvez, and Fatah Adan are all graduates of the Crimson Summer Academy.
In 2013, a group of students formed the Harvard First Generation Student Union to call attention to their needs and help them navigate the College. The administration responded quickly and created the Harvard First Generation program within the Admissions and Financial Aid Office, led by Dean William Fitzsimmons ’67, himself a first-generation student.
It was the right thing to do, said Claudine Gay, dean of social science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government, and professor of African and African-American studies.
“Harvard and other universities need to be prepared to respond to the needs of first-generation students who didn’t have the advantage of going to a private high school,” said Gay. “If we really want to have a diverse student body and if we really want to address inequality on campus, we need to be prepared to offer resources and support to make sure those students succeed.”
The office pairs first-gen students with Harvard alumni and provides resources so that students can take better advantage of the college experience. It also works to recruit more first-generation students to apply to Harvard and other colleges. That’s part of reducing inequality at Harvard, said Niki Alicia Johnson, the first-gen liaison in the Financial Aid Office.
“We try to reduce inequality by guiding them through the transition process and putting them on equal footing with peers who have parents who have gone to college,” she said.
***
Helping elementary school students
For years, experts have known the ironclad relationship between a child’s ZIP code and his or her chances of success. Despite efforts to close the achievement gap in school districts across the country, it persists.
The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) recently launched By All Means, an effort to change conditions for the better in six places: Oakland, Calif.; Louisville, Ky.; Providence, R.I.; and Salem, Somerville, and Newton, Mass.
The Education Redesign Lab at HGSE will operate the program, which will connect superintendents, city officials, and community leaders with Harvard faculty to devise strategies to help children reach their potential, such as incorporating social and health services and high-quality, out-of-school learning experiences.
For Paul Reville, founding director of the lab and a former Massachusetts secretary of education, the initiative represents a renewed and necessary effort to achieve equity.
“Schools alone, as currently conceived, can’t do the job of educating all children for success,” he said in a statement. “We can do better.”
***
Providing communities with dental care
When Lisa Simon graduated from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM), she knew she wanted to dedicate herself to working in underserved communities. As a dental student and as a resident, Simon took part in student volunteer programs within HSDM that offered dental care in homeless shelters and at a pediatric dental clinic in Cambridge. The work fostered her yearning to help those who lack resources.
“As a student, the outreach efforts to help vulnerable populations helped bring home why I was studying to be a dentist,” said Simon.
Now an instructor in the Department of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology, Simon works in the Office of Global and Community Health at HSDM and supervises dental students who treat patients with special needs, as well as treats homeless and low-income youth. She also volunteers each week at the Nashua Street Jail.
In fiscal 2014-15, the pediatrics clinic covered nearly 300 patient visits and free dental care, while the homeless clinic helped 50 patients with fillings and treatment. In addition, the Crimson Care Collaborative, a faculty and student collaborative practice at Massachusetts General Hospital, provided oral care for 200 patients and more than 50 dental screenings. But the need is bigger, said Simon.
“We’re making a drop in the bucket,” she said, “but we’re banking on the fact that [by] giving students the opportunity to work in these settings and see the extent of need and the reward that comes from collaborating with these communities, we’d empower them to dedicate all or part of their career to address these disparities.”
***
Stamping out health inequities
Whether sending doctors to fight tuberculosis in Peru, Ebola in Sierra Leone, HIV in Rwanda, or offering free health screenings much closer to home, HMS works to balance health disparities.
Partners In Health, a Harvard affiliate that offers free health care to people as far away as Haiti, Lesotho, or Russia, tries to stamp out diseases caused by health inequities. But HMS is also preoccupied with what happens at home, particularly with recruiting minority faculty, students, and staff, and reaching and helping the underserved communities that surround the imposing, marble-faced buildings in the HMS quadrangle.
In charge of dealing with those pressing needs at home is Joan Reede, dean for diversity and community partnership at HMS. From her Gordon Hall office, Reede oversees programs that provide leadership, guidance, and support for minorities interested in careers in medicine, academic and scientific research, and health care. In her role as faculty director of the community outreach programs, Reede also makes sure the School offers programs for middle school and high school students to get them interested in college and science.
Credit: Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer Joan Reede, dean for diversity and community partnership at Harvard Medical School.
“My job is not only to recruit and increase the representation of minorities among faculty and students at the Medical School,” said Reede, a pediatrician. “Diversity is a component of our values. As our society becomes more diverse, the pool of students we choose from is also more diverse. If we want to stay true to our values, we have to make sure that we continue to get the best of society into our profession.”
Changing demographics make a diverse faculty a necessity, said Reede.
One of the programs she is proud of is Project Success, which brings students from Mission Hill, Cambridge, and Boston for summer research internships at the Medical School.
Sheila Nutt, director of educational outreach programs at HMS, said the programs help to project an image of Harvard as a good neighbor in the community, but also showcase the need to increase diversity among faculty and students.
“We’re very happy about the pipeline we’ve created,” said Nutt. “We have some students who have been with us since grade eight.”
The programs instill a feeling of belonging and empowerment, said Reede. She tells the story of a girl who was shocked when she saw a doctor wearing a basketball shirt underneath her white coat.
“The youngster asked the doctor, ‘Can you like basketball and science at the same time?’ They come here, and they start feeling they can be a part of this, that they could belong in here. These youths, they’re important in and of themselves; they’re the future.”
To inspire students, Reede often shares her own story. She was the first in her family to go to college.
“My great-great-grandmother was a slave,” she said. “And now, the great-great granddaughter of a slave is the dean of diversity at Harvard Medical School. I think that’s awesome.”
Over the past few decades, support for freer trade has been a bipartisan priority in America. That there are benefits from removing impediments to international trade is one of the few areas where there is near-universal agreement among economists. Yet, anti-trade sentiment is rising in both parties—and Donald Trump is [...]
Like most professional pundits, Margaret Cuomo has perfected the art of speaking authoritatively even when she does not know what she is talking about. Unlike most professional pundits, Cuomo is in a position to cause real damage. As a celebrity doctor spreading misinformation about the hazards of vaping, she is [...]
Credit: Lorin Granger A panel discussion focused on women and politics, “What We Talk about When We Talk about Women,” kicked off Harvard Law School’s Women’s Law Association 10th annual conference, at Harvard Law School, February 17-18.
The annual Harvard Law School Women’s Law Association 10th annual conference, “What We Talk about When We Talk about Women,” commenced with a panel focused on women in politics. The panel opened with recorded remarks from Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell ’92, and another highlight of the conference was a keynote address from former New York Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman ’65.
Though the conference notably included remarks from several women elected to office, in 2016, women make up only 19.4 percent of the U.S. Congress and 24.5 percent of state legislatures. In discussing why more women don’t hold elected office, the four panelists, though diverse in age, views and experiences, agreed that in an important respect women are holding themselves back.
There are significant external barriers to efforts to increase the number of women in politics, they agreed, but the panelists emphasized that women also tend to construct internal barriers for themselves. Before running for office, women, far more than men, feel compelled to amass credentials and pursue numerous degrees. Also, women tend to enter politics later in life and spend far more time working to gain what they believe is necessary experience for running for office.
Credit: Lorin Granger [L-R] Susan Davies, a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis; Jordan Brooks, deputy executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls; and Cleta Mitchell, a partner and political law attorney at Foley & Lardner.
“What I have learned over the years is that women think, If I could just have one more piece of paper, if I just get one more degree, one more credential, one more validation, then I’ll be qualified,” said Cleta Mitchell, a partner and political law attorney at Foley & Lardner. “Women need to grant themselves a certain credibility that men automatically grant to themselves and other men.”
Panelists discussed policy issues related to this vision, and their shared hope for more young women in office. Michelle Wu ’12, president of the Boston City Council, proudly pointed to new paid parental leave legislation she spearheaded. Jordan Brooks, deputy executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, highlighted her efforts through the council to encourage more women to go into in STEM.
Panelists pointed to progress. Lissa Muscatine, co-owner of the D.C. bookstore Politics and Prose, said that she was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1977, and that it was the first year women were eligible to apply. Such a barrier to women, Muscatine noted, is unimaginable now. Mitchell said that during her time in the legislature of Oklahoma, the number of women doubled—rising from six in 1976 to 12 in 1984—and now nearly half the legislators are women. But more progress is needed, the panelists agreed. Moderator Susan Davies, a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis, summed up the panel’s message: “Run for office when you’re young and don’t wait until you have what you think is the perfect, justifiable resume.”
Antitrust regulation gets a bipartisan free pass; it was even spearheaded by a Republican, Sen. John Sherman of Ohio. The Sherman Antitrust Act passed in 1890, 126 years ago. It is ahighlyinterventionist form of central government manipulation of ordinary free market competitive outcomes, however; and no one has any idea how [...]
Statistics released by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) indicate that, as of the start of 2016, Harvard Law School faculty members featured prominently on SSRN’s list of the 100 most-cited law professors. HLS faculty captured twelve slots—including the number one and two slots—among the top 100 law school professors (in all legal areas) in terms of citations to their work.
As in previous years, Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 was ranked first among all law school professors. Bebchuk’s papers have attracted a total of 4,373 citations as of the start of 2016. Professor Steven Shavell was ranked second, with 3,717 citations.
In addition to Professors Bebchuk and Shavell, ten other HLS faculty members were among SSRN’s list of the 100 most-cited law school professors at the start of 2016:
SSRN is the leading electronic service for social science research, and its electronic library contained (as of the end of 2015) 539,398 full-text documents by 297,574 authors.
BY OMRI BEN-SHAHAR - The debate over state or federal GMO labeling laws is abundantly full of doublespeak and misinformation—a particular irony given the dedication of both sides in this debate to a “right to know” and “accurate” labeling.
President Barack Obama ’91 nominated Judge Merrick Garland ’77 to the U.S. Supreme Court on March 16. A highly regarded jurist who has been on the appellate bench for almost two decades, Garland has been involved in the life of Harvard Law School since receiving his degree from HLS nearly four decades ago. In an interview on NPR, Dean Martha Minow described Garland, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, as “an outstanding, meticulous, and thoughtful judge with a superb career of public service.” Below, several other Harvard Law professors reflect on Garland’s nomination.
New court documents released on March 17 reveal that over half of Lyft drivers have driven with another ridesharing company. Out of these drivers, 83 percent drove with another company while they were also working with Lyft. These are but two of the many revealing facts about Lyft drivers that [...]
During the 2016 winter term, 65 HLS students traveled to 30 countries conducting research for writing projects or undertaking independent clinicals, with support from the Winter Term International Travel Grant Program, which includes the Cravath International Fellowships, the Reginald F. Lewis Internships, the Mead Cross Cultural Stipends, the Andrew B. Steinberg Scholarships, and the Human Rights Program Grants. The following are snapshots of 11 student experiences.
When policymakers create or expand regulations, they often assume that the cost of compliance falls on businesses. While businesses do shoulder many of the burdens of regulation, consumers ultimately end up paying for regulations through higher prices or decreased competition. But these costs do not affect all consumers equally—they disproportionately [...]
BY JAMES R. COPLAND - From Clement Haynsworth to Robert Bork to Clarence Thomas to Samuel Alito, Democrats have consistently worked aggressively to block GOP appointees to the Court over the last 50 years, on ideological grounds. So it's hardly surprising that GOP senators, now in the majority, would approach now-President Obama’s nomination similarly.
Credit: Martha StewartIn 2013, Judge Merrick B. Garland ’77, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, returned to Harvard Law School to preside over the final round of the Ames Moot Court Competition with Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Ilana Diamond Rovner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. On March 16, 2016 Garland was nominated by President Barack Obama to become the 113th Supreme Court justice, succeeding Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.
Merrick Garland ’77—President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court—has been very much involved in the life of Harvard Law School since receiving his degree from HLS nearly four decades ago.
Dean Martha Minow described Garland, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, as “an outstanding, meticulous, and thoughtful judge with a superb career of public service.” In an interview with WBUR for National Public Radio, Minow said, “This is a terrific appointment of a truly outstanding jurist whose work as a judge and as a lawyer has won bipartisan praise for its carefulness, its wisdom, and its attention to the rule of law.”
Garland has returned to campus on a number of occasions to share his perspectives with students and to judge moot court competitions.
In 2013, Garland presided over the final round of the Law School’s Ames Moot Court Competition. He was also on the three-judge panel for the final round of the 2006 competition.
Credit: Martha StewartIn 2010, Garland was invited by Professor Charles Ogletree to speak to students in a trial advocacy class taught by the professor.
In 2010, Garland came to HLS to speak with students in a trial advocacy class taught by Professor Charles Ogletree ’78, a friend from their student days. He engaged them in a Q&A about careers in the law, and he drew from his experience as both a prosecutor and defense lawyer to examine the revolving roles of advocates in the legal system.
Another classmate, William Alford ’77, the Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law at HLS, called Garland an extraordinarily impressive person. “When we were students, he was well known throughout the Law School not only for being enormously intelligent, but for his thoughtfulness and decency—for being a real mensch,” Alford said. “We’ve most recently spoken in the past few years about students applying for clerkships in his chambers, and those same qualities—of a probing intelligence and a thorough-going decency—remain very much in evidence.”
Laurence Tribe ’66, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor, told the Harvard Gazette that Garland is “a brilliant jurist, whom I’ve known well and admired greatly ever since he was my student in advanced constitutional law in 1975-76.” Tribe said, “No sitting judge in the country, state or federal, has a more stellar reputation as a thoughtful analyst with a firm commitment to the rule of law and to the proper reach of the judicial role. And that stellar reputation is one that Judge Garland has amply earned. To put it simply, he would be a truly great Supreme Court Justice.”
Judge Nancy Gertner, senior lecturer at Harvard Law School and former Massachusetts federal judge and Sam Baker, Supreme Court and legal affairs correspondent for The National Journal on Garland’s nomination.
