COVID-19 and The Law

Law and Policy to Address Basic Needs and Marginalized Populations

Illustration of scales of justice with COVID

Colloquium Series Co-Hosted by Martha Minow and Emily Broad Leib

“COVID-19 is the most important development in my professional lifetime. The 1918 pandemic, the 1929 economic decline, the 1968 social implosion and the Andrew Johnson presidency all at once is how it’s been described. Labor markets, financial markets and international relations will never be the same.”

Lawrence Summers is Charles W. Eliot University Professor.

COVID-19 in a Federal System: Challenges and Opportunities

Federalism sits at the very core of American government. Yet, the coronavirus pandemic has pushed federalism under the microscope, exposing ...
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Mask Mandates, Unmasked

On his first day in office, President Biden instituted a mask mandate for airports, on many forms of transportation, and ...
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Homelessness and COVID: Compounding challenges and restricted relief

COVID-19 has illuminated some of the unique public health and legal challenges facing currently homeless individuals. Particularly as COVID-19 worsened ...
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Elderly Plaintiffs Caught in the Fray of PREP Act Immunity

As of February 2, 2021, over one-third of U.S. COVID-19 deaths and five-percent of all U.S. COVID-19 cases are linked ...
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Plexiglass barriers for classroom desks

The Rights of Public School Teachers in a Pandemic

With the Biden administration pushing schools to reopen in-person, it is necessary to reflect on the hardships our educators have ...
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Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Economy

The end of the COVID-19 pandemic may be in sight, but how do we prepare for a new economic environment ...
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Getting our Child Co-Workers Back to School Safely—and Avoiding the “Education Contracts of Adhesion” Trap

As more private and public primary and secondary (K-12) schools move to reopen in-person, we need to ensure reopening plans ...
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Journalism During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

“When I announced it, you all said, ‘It’s not possible.’ Come on, give me a break, man. It’s a good ...
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Government Information Dissemination in the Post-Trump Era

On Wednesday, January 20, 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki led the Biden administration’s first press briefing. Though no ...
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Maintaining Child Welfare During COVID-19

When the pandemic began, states across the U.S. witnessed between a twenty to seventy percent decline in reported cases of ...
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Antitrust: A Barrier or Catalyst to the Vaccine Rollout?

In December 2020, health officials administered the first COVID-19 vaccine and President-Elect Biden promised to deliver more than 100 million ...
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How to Launch a Digital Contact Tracing Application: Key Legal Considerations

As previously suggested in Digital Contact Tracing: Hope or Hype?, digital contact tracing, if implemented successfully, can help to control ...
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Staying-at-Home When the Home is Unsafe: The Impact of COVID-19 on Survivors of Domestic Violence (Part 2)

This is the second part of a two-part series about the impact of COVID-19 on survivors of domestic violence. Part ...
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Staying-at-Home When the Home is Unsafe: The Impact of COVID-19 on Survivors of Domestic Violence (Part 1)

While stay-at-home orders are meant to protect Americans, they can also prove deadly for those facing domestic violence. Under these ...
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“Stick to the Science”? FDA, Ethics, and Pandemics

Throughout the current pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health experts have called on the government to “stick to ...
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Farmworker Protection during COVID-19: Will New Jersey learn its lesson?

New Jersey was hit particularly hard by COVID-19 in spring of 2020. There were several factors contributing to its high ...
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The Long-Term Problem of Eviction Moratoria Without Financial Support

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated preexisting vulnerabilities in the rental housing market and created a dire economic situation for both ...
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Government Authority to Respond to COVID-19, the Nondelegation Doctrine, and Legislatures vs. Governors

The most common response to the pandemic has been quick and decisive action from state governors to reduce the spread ...
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COVID vaccine vials

Wait Your Turn: How the Government Can Prevent Individuals from Using Wealth to Cut the Vaccine Line

Since the Food & Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna in ...
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Sticker saying "I Voted"

Expanding the Franchise: Constitutional Mechanisms to Make Election Administration Reforms in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Permanent

By many measures, the 2020 general election for federal, state, and local positions was a success in terms of an ...
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From 9/11 to COVID-19: A Brief History of FDA Emergency Use Authorization

The ongoing fight against COVID-19 has thrown a spotlight on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its power to ...
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Federal, State, and Local Responses to Student Absenteeism during COVID-19

In the past several years, school attendance and absenteeism have been key focus areas of education policy. Consistent school attendance ...
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All Rise, All Mute: Online court proceedings, coronavirus, and access to justice

“[O]ur system of courts is archaic and our procedure behind the times.” - Roscoe Pound (Former Dean of Harvard Law ...
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Protecting Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The absence of a cohesive federal strategy during the pandemic has allowed many businesses to continue operating without standard safety ...
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Unprecedented Expulsion of Immigrants at the Southern Border: The Title 42 Process

In March, President Trump relied on a little-used public health rule to drastically restrict immigration at the United States’ land ...
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Interview with Glenn Cohen

Now that Pfizer and Moderna have begun distributing their COVID-19 vaccines to hospitals across the U.S., a new question has ...
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The Education Divide Caused by COVID-19

The United States has entered a ‘third’ wave of Covid-19 , and many students are entering yet another month of online ...
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COVID-19 and Undocumented Workers: A Catastrophic Confluence

Jacob Morales is pictured at a protest in New Jersey to advocate for the state to pass a bill providing ...
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Protecting Public Health Will Require a Culture Shift Alongside Legal Change

Dr. Anthony Fauci has noted that Australia had the fewest number of flu cases “in memory” during its winter flu ...
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Telework for Caregivers: A Gap in Employment and Disability Law

The pandemic has exposed a gap in our employment and disability laws—a lack of care for caregivers. The workforce is ...
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Stay-at-Home Orders and Religious Freedom: How Courts Balance the Free Exercise Clause and State Emergency Powers

In the wake of the initial impact of COVID-19, state governments rushed to respond to breakouts. The resulting executive orders ...
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The Constitutionality of Technology-Assisted Contact Tracing

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an impossible set of choices for governments, forcing them to weigh the competing interests of ...
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Decarceration and the Coronavirus Pandemic

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, many hoped and expected that the pandemic would serve as a natural catalyst ...
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Force Majeure as term in contract

Contracts in the Age of COVID-19: A Look At Force Majeure Clauses

As businesses continue to confront the harsh economic realities of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, many are looking for legal solutions ...
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COVID-19 and the FDA Emergency Use Authorization Power

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for protecting public health by regulating the production, distribution, and consumption of ...
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Police Should Not Be Enforcing Emergency Public Health Orders

On a weekend when police officers were handing masks to white residents in parks around New York City, NYPD Officer ...
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Travel Restrictions During Coronavirus

Why is traveling during COVID-19 a problem? Whether by airplane, bus, train, or car, traveling increases a person’s chances of ...
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Coronavirus and the Class Action

As coronavirus has upended life across the globe, the disruption has been followed by a wave of class action cases ...
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Election Litigation in the Era of COVID-19

The 2020 Presidential election promises to be unlike any in history. The country is still in the midst of a ...
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Venezuelan migrants in a flatbed truck crossing the Colombian mountains

A Critical Analysis of the International Response to COVID-19: Reflections from Colombia

In the face of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, questions of resource allocation, information access, aseptisation, and biopolitics that were once reserved ...
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Arizona road signs with mask and social distance reminders

COVID-19 in Rural America and the Indian Nations: Refocusing Development to Support At-Risk Communities

For many, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to conjure scenes of once-bustling urban centers grinding to a halt. However, for ...
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Tenants hanging makeshift signs out of windows reading "No Job, No Rent"

Pandemic Property: What Covid-19 Taught Us about Housing Law

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought to light longstanding problems in housing law. This sudden emergency has exposed systemic deficiencies in ...
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Illustration of network: lines drawn between people

Digital Contact Tracing: Hope or Hype?  

In prior pandemics, manual contact tracing has been key to slow the spread. Contact tracing entails conducting interviews with infected ...
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Emergency Measures: Free Speech and Online Content Moderation During Coronavirus

A Conversation with HLS Lecturer evelyn douek In the chaos and confusion of the Coronavirus pandemic, few have stopped to ...
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Returns to Public Investment in Drug Discovery: Some Fundamental Questions

Fred Ledley, Ekaterina Cleary, and Matthew Jackson[1] “I am disposed to ask: "Does teaching consist in putting questions?" Indeed, the ...
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Shield symbol associated with Disinfo Defense League

Voter Suppression: Disinformation and Harmful Narratives around Voting

This memo was originally written by the Disinfo Defense League (DDL) and published by their writers on August 27, 2020 ...
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Prioritizing Life: the Grim Irony of Capital Punishment in the Time of Coronavirus

As it has transformed almost every aspect of social and economic life in America, the Coronavirus pandemic has forced local ...
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