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This election year presents the United States with a historic choice. Yes, America might wake up on November 5 and discover it has elected a Harvard Law School graduate president. As this compilation of quotes from over the last few weeks shows, some commentators just can't handle the prospect.
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In an email to the Harvard Law School community Friday afternoon, Dean Elena Kagan announced that the faculty had voted to move to an Honors-Pass-Low Pass-Fail grading system similar to those at Yale and Stanford Law Schools. The new system will be implemented for students entering with the Class of 2012 in Fall 2009; it remains undecided whether the changes will apply to any current students.
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Former Massachusetts Governor and Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci spoke on Monday about the future of Republicans in Massachussetts and on the national stage. Cellucci also spoke glowingly of John McCain and Sarah Palin, and predicted that they will manage a narrow victory in the presidential election.
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Alec Baldwin is on a roll - just recently, the affable actor won an Emmy Award for his role on the critically-acclaimed sitcom, 30 Rock. But the 50 year old Baldwin wasn't smiling when he entered Ames Courtroom last Thursday, September 25. He was making his second appearance at HLS to engage in a serious discussion with Professor Jeannie Suk on the problems of divorce courts and custody proceedings.
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Despite the collapse over the past week of two more of America's largest banking institutions, Washington Mutual and Wachovia, House lawmakers on Monday voted down the Bush bail-out package which would have vested authority in the Treasury to intervene in the market by purchasing up to $700 Billion in distressed mortgage securities. The defeat was a stunning blow to the White House and the presidential candidates, who had come together in support of the package, and markets reeled in response to the political reversal, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling a record 777.68 points.
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While flying my helicopter over the Iraqi desert four years ago, I thought a lot about the state of our military and about the many decisions our government had made in recent years. One policy that I found particularly frustrating is Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), which prohibits gays and lesbians who openly declare their sexual orientation from serving in the military.
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In past decades, civil disobedience had been at the core of the Harvard Law School experience. In the 2000s, however, such activism has gone out of style. It was refreshing, therefore, that the HLS chapter of Lambda sparked meaningful debate about the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy this week by imploring students to protest their presence on campus.
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A standing-room only crowd packed Austin North Wednesday evening to hear Professors Lucian Bebchuk, Howell Jackson, Hal Scott, and Elizabeth Warren discuss the current financial crisis. The majority were in support of passing the current Senate bill, if the only alternative were inaction; however, all panelists expressed concerns about the bailout plan.
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Military recruiters descended on Harvard Law School this week, prompting a new series of protests regarding the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy. In response, Dean Elena Kagan issued a statement by email to the HLS community on Wednesday morning.
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Any reasonable observer would note that this protest seems designed to fail to change either public opinion or the policy itself. Looking a little more closely, it seems like that doesn't matter. Maybe the point of this protest is to let a person browbeat a member of the military for 20 minutes. Is this protest? No. This is throwing spit wads. This is beneath us.
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For those of you who have come to HLS from far beyond New England, welcome to a Massachusetts October - a cold, dreary, and wet season redeemed only by the magic of playoff baseball and, in years past, the beginning of yet another Patriots juggernaut. Unless you've been reading for class way too closely, you know that the Patriots dynasty has been put on hold by all-world quarterback Tom Brady's Week 1 knee injury and that the Red Sox will return to the playoffs for the fifth time in the last six years.
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These were the days when the credit markets stood still, the days where Wall Street turned its weary eyes toward Washington for rescue from an indefinable menace. These were the days when big banks failed, when billion-dollar bailouts became second page news to trillion-dollar prayers, when Governor Sarah Palin, the much-maligned Republican Vice Presidential candidate, suddenly seemed lucid with her prognostication that the Credit Crisis of 2008 could be as dreadful as the Great Depression.