Toby’s blog

Someone just sent this clip my way. Professor Fried talks with Joshua Cohen of Stanford. Thought you might find it interesting. It’s an hour, but you can select clips on different subjects.

In case you missed it on the home page, Cass Sunstein ‘78 is coming to HLS. Read the article here. Rumor has it that he may be offering a 1L reading group in the fall (but I could be wrong).

The official journal of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, the Harvard Law & Policy Review (HLPR) encourages lively debate on pertinent policy questions between progressive legal scholars, policymakers, and practitioners.

Staffer Julia Foresman recently caught up with President Derek Lindblom, 3L, to discuss the HLPR’s focus on finding pragmatic solutions to today’s greatest policy hurdles.

Derek Lindblom: (8:30)

I just got this e-mail from the dean’s office forwarded from Professor Halley and thought those of you out there interested in legal theory might find it appealing:

“On behalf of the Program on Law and Social Thought, I am pleased to announce a new project, the Social Theory Working Group, and to thank the Dean and the European Law Research Center for their support for it.

“The STWG will consist of recent graduates, graduate students and JD students doing research that involves inquiries in social theory, including legal theory. They will invite as guests distinguished current producers of social theory of particular interest to them, arrange the readings and the visits, and generally enjoy themselves, improve their work, and enrich our lives here at the Law School! The first year’s program is very strong: our visitors so far will be Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, Benedict Anderson, Teemu Ruskola and Saskia Sassen.

“Our first visitor will be here this Monday, September 17. Rhacel Salazar Parrenas (Associate Professor in Asian American Studies and a member of the Graduate Group in Sociology at the University of California at Davis) will discuss a set of readings entitled ‘Rethinking Migratory Citizenship.’ See my website for details about the series  http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/jhall…).”

2L Franciska Coleman described her winter term experience abroad:

“This Winter Term was one of the most horizon broadening experiences of my life. I worked at the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC) in Johannesburg, South Africa. The South African Constitution has a positive entitlement to education in the language of one’s choice. However, responsibility for setting educational policy is divided between the Provincial (state) governments and school governing bodies (primarily groups of parents who run the schools, setting language policy, selecting teachers, instituting school fees, etc.).

“This division of power often leads to conflict, for, while the provincial governments have the responsibility of ensuring that Black students leaving overcrowded township schools have places to obtain an education, many of the school governing bodies in the “White” schools use the politics of language choice to continue to exclude Black children. They do this by the adoption of single-medium Afrikaans language policies. As very few Black children speak Afrikaans and most Black parents desire their children to be instructed in English, language has become a marker for race that enables schools to continue to segregate by offering instruction only in Afrikaans.

“The provincial governments have some authority to insist that schools offer instruction in both Afrikaans and English, but it is as yet unclear as to when this is acceptable and how far this power extends, particularly given constitutional provisions for single-medium schools.

“My project focused mainly on looking at the history and legislation that created this extensive parental control over education and the trends in recent legislation and reported and unreported cases that suggest shifts in the legal balance of power. As I have a background in education, I found this a truly fascinating opportunity.

“Even more fascinating was my environment. SAIFAC draws top SJD students from across the African continent, all engaged in doctoral research on a variety of constitutional, human rights, public, and international law issues. The conversations I had with these law students about their research interests and experiences were some of the most enlightening and informative of any I have ever had. In addition, SAIFAC is in the same complex as the South African Constitutional Court (South Africa’s highest court), and I spent several hours at the court in research and in conversation with the judicial clerks.

“Few things have ever been more educational and challenging than discussing Bentham, entitlements, and due process over lunch and tea with SJD students and judicial clerks from such a diversity of legal traditions. I was surprised that so many of the cases I had learned in con law formed a part of a global dialogue on constitutionalism, and while I occasionally felt uncomfortable at my colleagues knowing more about American constitutional law than I knew about the constitutional jurisprudence of their countries, I thank God, Harvard, and Professor Tribe, that I DID know American constitutional law. (And thanks to Professor Dershowitz, I could make very nice Benthamesque hypotheticals. : ) All in all, it was truly a wonderful experience.”