Stephen Gageler AC, LL.M. ’87, a justice of the High Court of Australia, returned to Harvard Law School in March to meet with faculty members, participate in classes, and speak on ‘Alternative Facts in the Courts.’
On Sept. 17, 1787, the framers of the U.S. Constitution gathered to sign the historic document created to unite a group of states with different interests, laws and cultures; today, HLS faculty voices are providing us with history, interpretation and critical analysis of that document.
The concept of speech is typically defined as the communication of thoughts in spoken words. Yet the authors note that First Amendment protection of speech is far broader, covering nonrepresentational art, instrumental music, and even nonsense—individual topics that Tushnet, Chen, and Blocher focus on (in that order) in the book.
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.
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.
“FDA in the 21st Century: The Challenges of Regulating Drugs and New Technologies,” edited by Holly Fernandez Lynch and I. Glenn Cohen ’03 (Columbia). Stemming from a 2013 conference at HLS, the book features essays covering major developments that have changed how the FDA regulates; how the agency encourages transparency; First Amendment issues; access to drugs; and evolving issues in drug-safety communication. These issues, the editors write, lie “at the heart of our health and health care.”
On April 1, Harvard Law School hosted a conference on ‘Presidential Power in an Era of Polarized Conflict,’ a daylong gathering in which experts from both sides of the aisle debated the president’s power in foreign and domestic affairs, and in issues of enforcement or non-enforcement.
In honor of the centennial anniversary of Louis D. Brandeis’ confirmation to the United States Supreme Court, Harvard Law School and the Harvard Law Library are celebrating his relationship with the school, as a student, a devoted alumnus, and as a Supreme Court Justice employing and mentoring HLS graduates.
Scholarship stemming from the “Religious Accommodation in the Age of Civil Rights,” conference held in April 2014 at HLS explored tensions within constitutional and statutory civil rights commitments.
In celebration of Constitution Day—the annual commemoration of the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787—several Harvard Law School professors spoke about the document upon which the American legal and political systems have been built.
