Harvard’s Affirmative Action Case Creates Buzz on Campus

Fall 2018 | Julian Nunally

 

As you may have heard, Harvard just recently concluded oral arguments in an affirmative action case brought by an activist organization that is filing suits across the nation attempting to make use of race as a factor in admissions illegal under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. For those who want to follow the case, it is called Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (D. Mass). …

Getting to Know Black Faculty at HLS

Fall 2018 | Andrew Gonzales

Professor Nikolas Bowie (JD ’14) is an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School. This fall, Professor Bowie is teaching a course on Local Government Law. In the spring, he will teach courses on Federal Constitutional Law and State law.

His current scholarship examines the origins of federal and state constitutions in order to protect cities from being subordinated by larger governments. He also engages in scholarship considering why the federal and state constitutions were written down in the first place. …

When Bishop C. Holifield was a student at Harvard Law School in 1967 at the apex of the civil rights movement, the fledgling organization he had founded—the Harvard Black Law Students Association—had just two members: himself and co-founder Reginald E. Gilliam.

Source: Celebrating Black Alumni, and Engaging With Activism, at Law School Reunion | News | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard BLSA Press Release — 2016-2017 Committee Chairs

Registration page coming soon!

Social
March-April
HBLSA members’ homes

Get to know some of your fellow HBLSA members in a cozy, informal setting. Social Committee is paying for several HBLSA members to host dinner parties in their homes throughout late March and April!

Please email HBLSASocialCommittee@gmail.com if you are interesting in hosting around 10 people in your home. You can cook as a group or order in–watch movies, talk, or just enjoy each other’s company!

Please email HBLSASocialCommittee@gmail.com as well if you are interested in attending a dinner party. Once we have a list of hosts and attendees, we’ll send out more details on dates, times, and locations.

Social
April 7, 2011, Time TBA
Pound Hall, Ropes Gray

CALLING ALL TALENT!!!

Are you a dancer, singer, lyricist, musician, actor, or performer of any kind? If so, we would love for you to show off your talents at HBLSA’s annual talent show! Please email HBLSASocialCommittee@gmail.com for details and to let us know if you’re interested in performing. The show will be co-sponsored by several other HLS organizations.

December 09, 2010

Harvard Law School became the first-ever repeat-winner of the National Puerto Rico Trial Advocacy Competition.

Returning as defending champions, the Harvard Law School Trial Team advanced to the semi-finals with the highest score and remained undefeated throughout the competition, edging out Georgetown Law in the final round to win first place. The prestigious “invitation- only” competition was sponsored by the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico School of Law and the Puerto Rico Bar Association October 28-30.

The Harvard team was sponsored and coached through the auspices of the Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute. The team included 3L’s Mostafa Abdelkarim and Nneka Ukpai and 2L’s Anthony Hendricks and Ieshaah Murphy.

In addition to the team victory, Murphy and Ukpai together secured a total of 8 Perfect Score Awards and were recognized as Best Advocates in the competition.

In this year’s mock case, a recently paroled convict was charged with murder and armed robbery. The prosecution’s witnesses were two decorated police officers who testified that the defendant confessed multiple times to the murder. The defense witnesses were the defendant’s parents as alibi witnesses. The defense team also had the option to call the defendant. Hendricks and Abdelkarim represented the prosecution while Murphy and Ukpai represented the defendant.

“We are extremely grateful for the support of Dean Minow and the Criminal Justice Institute,” said Ukpai. “We competed against some very skilled adversaries but with the training, patience, and commitment of our coaches, Soffiyah Elijah and Dehlia Umunna, we triumphed to become the first school to ever win this competition twice.”

CJI Deputy Director Soffiyah Elijah and CJI Clinical Instructor Dehlia Umunna have coached other teams at the Law School to several other first place finishes in competitions in Massachusetts and New York.

The Criminal Justice Institute is the curriculum-based criminal law clinical program of Harvard Law School. Its mission is to educate students in becoming effective, ethical and zealous criminal defense lawyer-advocates through practice in representing indigent individuals involved in the Massachusetts court system as well as to research and present issues and debates about the criminal and juvenile justice systems in order to effect local and national reform.

[Originally reported: http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/12/09_trial-advocacy-competition.html]