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3. Harvard Law Review investigated for alleged…

Law Schools

Harvard Law Review investigated for alleged ‘spoils system’ that uses race in article selection

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 29, 2025, 12:13 pm CDT

The federal government has opened an investigation into the Harvard Law Review “based on reports of race-based discrimination permeating the operations of the journal,” according to an April 28 press release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

At issue is whether the law review’s policies for membership and article selection violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on race, color and national origin in education programs receiving federal funding.

Allocating opportunities and recognition based on race, rather than merit, is unacceptable, the press release said.

Reuters, Bloomberg Law, ABC News and the Harvard Crimson have coverage.

The civil rights offices of the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services are conducting investigation.

“Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission,” said Craig Trainor, the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, in the press release.

The investigation follows a report by the Washington Free Beacon concluding that race “plays a far larger role in the selection of both editors and articles” than previously acknowledged by the Harvard Law Review. The Washington Free Beacon article was based on leaked internal documents.

The press release cited alleged statements by editors at the Harvard Law Review in which they appeared to favor minority writers. In one instance, an editor allegedly voiced concern that four of the five people who wanted to reply to an article about police reform “are white men.” In another alleged incident, an editor suggested that an article should get expedited review because the author was a minority.

The Harvard Law Review is a student-run organization that is legally independent from the Harvard Law School, according to a statement by a Harvard Law School spokesperson cited by publications covering the investigation.

The school is “committed to ensuring that the programs and activities it oversees are in compliance with all applicable laws and to investigating any credibly alleged violations,” the statement said.

The investigation was launched amid the federal government’s decision to freeze more than $2 billion in grants and contracts with Harvard University, which has sued in response.

See also:

Lawsuits target law reviews at Harvard and NYU, saying they favor women and minorities

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3. House committee drops information request…

Education Law

House committee drops information request about law clinics amid ‘ongoing negotiations’ with Northwestern

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 14, 2025, 10:59 am CDT

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Workforce has withdrawn its request for information on law clinics at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, citing “ongoing negotiations” with the university and an intent to pursue “other means of inquiry.”

The committee withdrew the request Thursday during an emergency hearing in federal court in Chicago, a day after two law professors filed a lawsuit challenging the request.

A letter filed with the court April 10 said the withdrawal was based on the committee’s “ongoing negotiations with Northwestern University” related to alleged antisemitism, Law360 reports.

“We expect to pursue other means of inquiry in coming weeks as part of Congress’ oversight authority under the U.S. Constitution,” the April 10 letter adds.

The committee had initially sought information in a March 27 letter that expressed concern about antisemitism and funding of “left-wing advocacy with its institutional resources,” raising “significant concerns about the university’s role as a steward of taxpayer dollars.”

The suit alleged that the information request violated two clinical law professors’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech and association and their right to petition for redress of grievances. The suit also alleged retaliation for expression of First Amendment rights and violation of their clients’ Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights.

“Here, defendants threaten federal funding to Northwestern based on the viewpoints and associations of plaintiffs and their clients,” the suit said. “Defendants are leveraging funding to regulate speech on the basis of viewpoint and content.”

The committee’s request for information from Northwestern University was one of five information requests sent to colleges March 27, according to a press release announcing the committee’s retreat.

The suit plaintiffs are Sheila A. Bedi and Lynn Cohn, who work with programs operating within Northwestern University’s Bluhm Legal Clinic. Bedi is the director of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, while Cohn is a clinical law professor at the Center on Negotiation, Mediation, and Restorative Justice.

Jon Yates, a Northwestern University spokesman, previously said Bedi’s civil rights clinic represents clients across the political and legal spectrum, and cases chosen by the clinic don’t necessarily reflect the views of the school.

Yates also said the school is collaborating with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law “to fight antisemitism.”

The case is Bedi v. U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce.

Publications covering the dropped request, in addition to Law360, include Reuters and the Daily Northwestern.

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3. Suits seeking continued US funding will likely…

U.S. Supreme Court

Suits seeking continued US funding will likely be routed to Court of Federal Claims after SCOTUS decision, law prof says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 7, 2025, 11:42 am CDT

A decision on Friday by the U.S. Supreme Court in a challenge to an education-grant freeze will likely redirect many other lawsuits regarding Trump administration spending decisions to the Court of Federal Claims, according to a law professor.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision allowed the Trump administration to freeze $65 million in education-related grants while a suit filed by eight states is litigated.

The Supreme Court found that the government was likely to succeed in its argument that a district court lacked jurisdiction to order the payment of money under the Administrative Procedure Act. The law waives government immunity but not for court orders to enforce a contractual obligation to pay money along the lines of the order by U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun of the District of Massachusetts, the Supreme Court said.

Instead, the Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction to hear such suits, the high court said.

Writing at the Volokh Conspiracy, Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, said the ruling “should quickly knock out many other ‘spending’ cases and redirect them to the Court of Federal Claims. This is a court most people have never heard of but will soon become very important.”

The Supreme Court’s decision stayed a March 10 temporary restraining order issued by Joun, report Politico, Reuters, Howe on the Court, the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Chief Justice John Roberts dissented from the decision but did not issue or join a dissent. The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices also dissented.

The Trump administration had canceled the grants because they included diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The states that sued are California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin.

Joun’s order had required the government to pay past-due grant obligations and to continue paying the obligations as they accrue. The judge based the decision on a finding that the challengers were likely to succeed on their claim that the freeze was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

The Supreme Court disagreed with that finding.

Generally, TROs cannot be appealed, but the order issued by Joun was more akin to a preliminary injunction, the majority said.

In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the general rule is that Administrative Procedure Act suits go to federal district courts, even when a remedial order may result in the disbursement of funds.

“So the court’s reasoning is at the least underdeveloped, and very possibly wrong,” she said.

Kagan also criticized the majority for making a decision based on the government’s emergency application.

“The risk of error increases when this court decides cases—as here—with barebones briefing, no argument and scarce time for reflection,” she wrote.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a separate dissent, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“It is beyond puzzling that a majority of justices conceive of the government’s application as an emergency,” Jackson wrote. “It is likewise baffling that anyone is persuaded that the equities favor the government when the government does not even argue that the lower courts erred in concluding that it likely behaved unlawfully.”

The decision is Department of Education v. California.

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3. Trump order blocks public service loan forgiveness…

Education Law

Trump order blocks public service loan forgiveness for employees of ‘activist organizations’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 10, 2025, 11:18 am CDT

Employees of “activist organizations” that support activities with a “substantial illegal purpose” should no longer be eligible for a student loan forgiveness program for borrowers in public service jobs, according to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Friday.

The order and a White House fact sheet say illegal purposes include:

  • Aiding and abetting violations of immigration laws

  • Supporting gender-affirming care for minors (deemed to be “child abuse” in the order) or the transporting of minors “to so-called transgender sanctuary states”

  • Engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination

  • Supporting terrorism, including engaging in violence to influence the federal government

  • Engaging in a pattern of “public disruptions” that violate state tort laws, such as trespassing

According to the fact sheet, the executive order refocuses the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program “on its original intent of encouraging Americans to enter essential public service roles, such as nursing, rather than activist groups.”

The order directs the secretary of the U.S. Department of Education to carry out the directive, report the New York Times, NPR, USA Today, the Hill and the Washington Post.

The New York Times pointed out that the Trump administration has previously described diversity and inclusion initiatives as illegal discrimination and has described anti-Israel protests as terrorism.

“The Trump administration has taken a broad view of what it considers to be support of illegal activities,” the newspaper reports.

The ABA’s full time-employees are currently allowed to participate in the program, which offers loan forgiveness for those who make monthly payments on direct federal student loans for 10 years while working full time in qualified public service jobs.

The ABA was deemed to be a qualified public service organization, which entitled its employees to participate in the program, as a result of a 2020 settlement in a lawsuit by the ABA and four lawyers. The ABA had sued after the Education Department decided in 2016 that its employees were no longer eligible to participate in the program that began in 2007.

Before former President Joe Biden took office, the PSLF program had forgiven debt to just 7,000 borrowers, according to the White House fact sheet. While Biden was in office, the program “ballooned” to wipe out student debt for more than 1 million borrowers, the fact sheet says.

The Washington Post noted that the loan forgiveness order may not take effect immediately.

“Education Secretary Linda McMahon may need to convene a panel of experts for a negotiated rulemaking to change the criteria for qualifying employers and then invite the public to comment on any proposed revision,” the article says.

Or maybe not. Although such changes typically are enacted through a rulemaking process, the New York Times says, “the Trump administration has frequently acted in defiance of apparent legal limits—which is likely to set off waves of anxiety for those relying on the complex program.”

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3. Law prof suspended over exam question, class…

First Amendment

Law prof suspended over exam question, class discussion can sue for First Amendment retaliation, 7th Circuit says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 13, 2025, 2:14 pm CDT

A federal appeals court has revived a First Amendment retaliation claim by a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law who used an “expurgated racial slur” on an exam question, leading to an investigation, required diversity training, a suspension and denial of a pay raise.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Chicago ruled Wednesday in a lawsuit by professor Jason Kilborn, whose 2022 suit was dismissed in December 2023.

His federal suit had alleged retaliation for constitutionally protected speech, due process violations of the 14th Amendment and state law violations.

A university professor’s academic speech is entitled to qualified First Amendment protection under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the 7th Circuit ruled Wednesday in an opinion by Judge Thomas Lee Kirsch II, an appointee of President Donald Trump during his first term.

“We conclude that Kilborn has plausibly alleged that his speech is constitutionally protected and reverse the dismissal of his claim,” the appeals court said.

Because the appeals court revived the retaliation claim, it also vacated a federal judge’s refusal to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims and ordered further consideration.

The university had found that Kilborn violated the harassment section of its nondiscrimination police after an investigation that followed the controversial exam question.

The December 2020 final exam in civil procedure included a hypothetical in which a plaintiff alleged that her managers had called her a “n- – – – -” and a “b- – – -.” Kilborn’s exam included only the first letter of the word followed by underlined blanks. Some students were upset by the question.

The university then investigated allegations that Kilborn created a racially hostile environment for minorities in a class that he taught two semesters earlier by commenting on “cockroaches” and a “public lynching.”

The cockroach comment was part of a discussion on why defendants sometimes settle frivolous cases. The media only covers frivolous cases when the defendant loses, not when the defendant wins, he said. Kilborn said defendants fear that the public will learn about losses in frivolous cases, and “then all the cockroaches come out of the walls, they’re thinking, right?”

In the same discussion, Kilborn said, “I’m not subjecting my corporate bottom line to that public lynching; I’m sorry, that’s not the right word to use.”

In a different discussion on race-based traffic stops, the appeals court said, “Kilborn used an African American Vernacular English (AAVE) accent while repeating the lyrics of a Jay-Z song, which describes the pretextual stop of a young Black man (‘You was doin’ 55 in a 54.’).”

In response, the university refused to give Kilborn an across-the-board 2% merit raise and said he could not return the classroom until he completed an eight-week diversity training program.

Kilborn’s exam question, as well as other remarks investigated by the university, “address matters of public concern, notwithstanding the limited size of Kilborn’s audience,” the 7th Circuit said.

“The exam question was designed to give students experience confronting a highly charged situation that they may encounter in real-life practice and to be a continuation of the learning that occurred in the classroom,” Kirsch wrote. “The content, form and context of the exam question give no indication that it involved a matter of private concern, rather than serving broader pedagogical purposes. Kilborn’s in-class statements performed a similar function. They were designed to engage students and stimulate in-class discussion on topics of significant interest to the broader community, including frivolous litigation and pretextual police stops.”

Hat tip to Law360, which covered the decision.

See also:

UIC law prof must receive online diversity training, coaching before classroom return, letter says

Exam question wasn’t only offensive behavior of UIC law professor, according to internal investigation

Court dismisses part of UIC law prof’s civil rights lawsuit

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3. Supreme Court will decide whether Oklahoma…

U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court will decide whether Oklahoma can fund Catholic charter school

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 27, 2025, 10:16 am CST

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether the First Amendment allows Oklahoma to fund a Catholic online school as part of its charter school program.

At issue is whether funding the school violates the establishment clause and whether excluding the school from the program violates the free exercise clause, according to cert petitions here and here in the two consolidated cases.

The “blockbuster” cases could “redraw the line between church and state by allowing government to establish and directly fund religious schools for the first time,” the Washington Post reports.

The cert grant follows a 2022 Supreme Court decision holding that Maine could not exclude religious schools from a publicly funded tuition assistance program.

Other publications covering the cert grant include SCOTUSblog, CNN, Law360, Reuters and the New York Times. How Appealing links to additional coverage.

The school, formed by the Oklahoma archdioceses of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma, would include religious teachings in its lessons. The state’s virtual charter school board approved the school in June 2023.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in June 2024 that funding the school violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause, the Oklahoma Constitution and a state law governing charter schools. The decision said government control over the school made it a state actor.

The ruling was a win for Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who had opposed funding the school. Other Republican office holders had supported the school, however.

Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School, told the New York Times that a Supreme Court decision that allows funding “would represent nothing less than a sea change in constitutional law.”

“It is difficult to overstate the significance of this opinion for our constitutional order and the larger American society,” Driver said.

The cases are Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond. The case pages are here and here.

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3. SCOTUS will decide whether schools can require…

U.S. Supreme Court

SCOTUS will decide whether schools can require LGBTQ-themed books at story time with no opt-outs

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 21, 2025, 10:27 am CST

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether schools can require teachers to read storybooks to elementary-age children with LGBTQ characters and themes over parents’ objections.

At issue is whether the required instruction with no possibility of opting out violates parents’ First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

SCOTUSblog, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Reuters and the Volokh Conspiracy are among the publications with coverage of the cert grant in Mahmoud V. Taylor.

The SCOTUSblog case page is here.

One of the books, Pride Puppy, is about a puppy that gets lost during a gay pride parade, according to SCOTUSblog. Another, My Rainbow, is about a mother who makes a colorful wig for her transgender daughter.

Both books were removed from the curriculum after the lawsuit was filed, the Washington Post reported in October.

Other books remain, including Love, Violet, which is about a young girl trying to make a valentine for a female classmate.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled 2-1 against the parents in May, holding that the parents weren’t entitled to a preliminary injunction because they had not shown that they or their children were forced to change their religious beliefs or conduct.

According to the cert petition, five circuits now hold that Supreme Court precedent “essentially provides parents no protection once they place their children in the public system.” Only one circuit has found that forced instruction burdens parents’ free exercise rights under the precedent, the 1972 Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder, the petitioners say.

The defendants in the case are the Montgomery County, Maryland, superintendent of public schools, the school board and its members. They argue that there is no circuit split on the issue.

“Every single court of appeals that has considered the question has held that mere exposure to controversial issues in a public school curriculum does not burden the free religious exercise of parents or students,” their brief says.

The parents who challenged the policy are represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit public interest law firm, which issued a Jan. 17 press release here.

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3. Penn Law is quicker to discipline whites…

Law Professors

Penn Law is quicker to discipline whites than minorities, controversial prof alleges in lawsuit

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 21, 2025, 12:29 pm CST

The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School is facing a lawsuit alleging that the school violated First Amendment principles and anti-discrimination laws when it disciplined a professor for her controversial remarks.

Tenured law professor Amy Wax filed the Jan. 16 suit in federal court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, report Reuters, Law.com and Law360.

The law school had suspended Wax with half pay and full benefits for the 2025-2026 school year because of alleged “discriminatory and disparaging statements.” She also lost her named chair position and summer pay “in perpetuity.”

Wax’s alleged controversial comments included assertions that Black law students rarely graduate in the top half of their class and warnings about dominance by the “Asian elite” and the loss of bourgeois culture.

Wax’s suit says the school’s disciplinary proceedings against her are “grossly deficient” and “kangaroo-court-like.”

The school’s speech policy “discriminates based not only on the content of speech but also the racial identity of the speaker,” the suit says.

Professors like herself who are white or Jewish are far more likely to be disciplined for their speech than speakers who are racial minorities, the suit claims.

In addition, the suit says, “some races may not be criticized while other racial or ethnic groups can be—and routinely are—subjected to virulently racist speech without consequence.”

As an illustration, the suit says, the school declined to initiate disciplinary proceedings against a male lecturer who created a cartoon labeled “the Anti-Semite” that depicted three Jewish people drinking glasses of blood labeled “Gaza.” The school did criticize the lecturer, however.

The speech policy also punishes speech based on harm, which means that the school punishes speech based on disapproval and emotional reaction to statements, the suit says. That violates the school’s contractual promise to abide by First Amendment principles, according to the suit.

The suit asks the court to ban discipline against Wax and future enforcement of the speech policy, to declare that the policy violates anti-discrimination laws and the First Amendment, and to award damages.

The suit alleges breach of contract, violation of anti-discrimination laws, and false light invasion of privacy for alleged “cherry-picked” depictions of Wax’s speech that cast her as a “virulent racist.” The suit also reserves the right to sue for violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act for the school’s alleged refusal to delay disciplinary proceedings during her cancer treatments.

The university declined to comment when contacted by Law.com, Reuters and Law360.

The case is Wax v. University of Pennsylvania. Wax is represented by Holtzman Vogel.

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3. Poll: Which ABA Journal magazine cover from…

Year in Review

Poll: Which ABA Journal magazine cover from 2024 was your favorite?

By Jackson A. Thomas

December 20, 2024, 10:35 am CST

We covered a wide array of diverse, in-depth and hard-hitting legal topics at the ABA Journal this year.

Of the many feature stories that we highlighted in 2024, six took the coveted top spot and were selected for the cover of our prestigious 109-year-old magazine. Looking back, we want to know: Which ABA Journal magazine cover from 2024 was your favorite?

Cast your vote by 11:59 p.m. CT on Friday, Jan. 10.

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3. Dive into our favorite long reads of 2024

Year in Review

Dive into our favorite long reads of 2024

By Lee Rawles

December 23, 2024, 9:35 am CST

The end of the year will hopefully bring you some downtime for leisure reading. We’ve curated a list of some of our favorite web and print long reads from 2024. There’s a mix of popular features and some under-the-radar stories that you may have missed. In keeping with the theme, it’s a long list.

In 1991, personal injury lawyers Zachary Bravos and Todd Smith took on the strangest medical malpractice case of their careers—a case that led them to tales of satanic cults, child abuse and cannibalism.

As anyone who pays attention to current events knows all too well, Taylor Swift has become ubiquitous. And in at least two law schools, she’s the subject of a class available to students wanting to gain practical knowledge about the law by studying her various legal entanglements and how she emerged stronger.

There are law firms in which Carrie Garber Siegrist, a senior associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Goodwin Procter, might have had to be secretive about her diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, also known as ADHD. But at Goodwin Procter, Garber Siegrist says, she feels embraced and supported.

The Kentucky Derby has long been known as “the fastest two minutes in sports,” but the 150th Run for the Roses on Saturday will take place without Muth, a horse some say may have been the fastest in the field this year.

Pete Pontzer’s story is a reminder that lawyers can have meaningful and fulfilling lives after retirement. However, as Pontzer quickly admonishes, there are some important steps to take long before leaving a full-time legal career.

Serious injuries have occurred when exuberant football fans engaged in the time-honored revelry of making goal posts a trophy of a significant or improbable win. Some of those harmed have sought to lay blame and seek compensation. In several such cases, it took referees in black robes to sort it out.

Now in its 25th year, the esteemed literary magazine’s weekly competition features a wordless single panel cartoon. Contestants submit a caption for the image. The publication’s editors choose their three favorites from the 5,000 to 10,000 entries. Online public voting—with generally more than a half million votes cast—determines the winner. There is no cash prize for winning, but the bragging rights are priceless. Wood is the contest’s most successful participant—by a lot.

An increasing number of law schools around the country are offering cannabis law courses, but some professors think that even more are needed. “We’re still playing catch-up.”

Many public service attorneys had an overwhelming feeling that massive student loan debt would travel through life with them. But many of those attorneys got relief in the past year, thanks to recent changes to the federal government’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Critics argue that “excited delirium” has no medical foundation, and that its origins are plagued with racism. The term’s role in high-profile police misconduct cases has prompted major medical organizations to repudiate its use.

There has been an explosion of AI-generated music featuring the living or resurrecting the dead. But as artists push the limits of parody, fair use, right of publicity, infringement and authorship, there is one overarching question: Is any of this stuff legal?

Immigrants coming to the U.S. face legal uncertainties along with difficult living conditions and the pain of family separations. Yet a hope that opportunities will outweigh the travails is strong with many new arrivals. That’s something lawyers who help immigrants understand well—including those who are immigrants themselves.

Each state sets its own rules for formerly incarcerated people who want to practice law. In Kansas, Mississippi and Texas, for example, no one with a felony can practice law. But even for those who live in less restrictive states, there are other hurdles to overcome.

“People are like, ‘Why did you go to law school?’ I tell them, ‘I’m setting up a joke that I’m going to tell in 14 years. I’m a planner,’” Liz Glazer says.

While progress has been made in the past 25 years, members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities continue to be underrepresented at the highest levels of the legal profession.

Most dog moms and cat dads accept the hard truth that they will likely outlive their beloved animals. But what happens when pets outlive their humans?

Millennials are more willing than prior generations to switch jobs to achieve a work environment that fits their needs. However, they can “run up against a wall” with billable hours.

Innocence clinics usually don’t work with clients convicted of minor offenses. They focus on more serious crimes where the stakes are much higher: people on death row or those serving life sentences for murder or sexual assault.

Netflix’s Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare, released in December 2023, sounds like a cheesy 1980s slaughter-fest horror film. Sadly, the events relayed by the documentary are far from fiction.

It isn’t often that a bipartisan group of U.S. solicitors general gather in public to discuss their unique role in the legal system and even gripe a little about the U.S. Supreme Court. But that’s what happened recently in a packed hotel ballroom before the ABA 2024 Litigation Section Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.