Recent Highlights

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  On Constitution Day, celebrating—and evaluating—our founding document

  On his 70th birthday—and the anniversary celebration of the Constitution’s signing— David Souter, a graduate of both Harvard College and HLS and a native of Weare, N.H., offered some perspectives on the Constitution and his own career.

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  Kagan makes debut as Court hears reargument in Citizens United v. FEC

  On Wednesday, September 9, former HLS Dean Elena Kagan ’86 argued her first case as the solicitor general of the United States, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.  The case involves the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, a campaign finance reform statute passed by Congress in 2002 that was intended to limit election-related communications, especially so-called “attack ads.” 

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  Tribal sovereignty is under attack, panelists conclude at HLS conference examining the Supreme Court and federal Indian law

  The future of Native American sovereignty under the Roberts Court is bleak, a panel of experts concluded at an April 6 conference examining “Tribal Justice: The Supreme Court and the future of federal Indian law” at Harvard Law School.

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  Vermeule proposes altering the American lawmaking process

  Professor Adrian Vermeule’s newest book is likely to raise a few judicial eyebrows. “Law and the Limits of Reason,” just published by Oxford University Press, is a broad-based criticism of the dominant role played by courts in the American lawmaking process.

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  Spread of false information causes dangers, says Sunstein

  The spread of false information and rumors poses growing risks to society and the economy...That was the message delivered by Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein in a major lecture—titled “He Said THAT?? She Did WHAT?? On False Rumors and Free Speech”—marking his appointment as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at HLS.

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  Will the Supreme Court be transformed in the next four years? An HLS panel looks ahead

  With the possible departures of as many as three members of the U.S. Supreme Court’s “liberal bloc” over the next four years, appointments to the nation’s top court by the next president could have a profound impact on the Court’s makeup for decades.

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  In inaugural Vaughan Lecture, Scalia defends the “methodology of originalism”

  An overflow crowd in the Ames courtroom heard Associate Justice Antonin Scalia '60 of the U.S. Supreme Court present a lively defense of originalism on October 2, in the inaugural Herbert W. Vaughan Lecture.