Past Events

This event launched the Center for the Study of World Religion’s new “Psychedelics & Ethics” initiative, which brings together interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners to explore ethical questions surrounding psychedelics. The series seeks to create a forum for constructive conversations about the role of psychedelics in society, with an eye toward justice and care. For our opening…

Legal scholars, immigrant rights advocates, and health professionals have been calling for the end of solitary confinement in immigration detention for more than a decade. But the use of this inhumane treatment has only increased. In a recently published report, researchers from Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, and Physicians for Human Rights exposed the expansion…

Persons with disabilities (PWDs) across their lifespan face higher risk for arrest and incarceration due to extensively documented discriminatory law enforcement practices. According to research in the American Journal of Public Health, PWDs are 44% more likely to be arrested by age 28 than those without disabilities—a problem based in part on unfounded, ableist notions about PWDs’ propensity toward…

Locked in a Hotbox: The Impact of Climate Change on the Incarcerated was a critical examination of how climate change impacts people who are incarcerated. Many jails and prisons are inadequately equipped to handle extreme weather, exposing people who are confined within them to unique health vulnerabilities. This event highlighted how the effects of climate-related events on prisons…

Last summer, 16 young plaintiffs won a pioneering lawsuit against the state of Montana. Their claim: By failing to consider the climate impact of fossil fuel projects, the state had violated children’s rights to a clean and healthful environment. The lawsuit is represented and supported by the public interest, nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust,…

In the wake of the Dobbs decision, Jewish plaintiffs in multiple U.S. states have brought religious liberty-based legal challenges to restrictive state-wide bans on abortion. Plaintiffs argue that these bans violate their religious rights as Jews because they are grounded in the belief that life begins at conception, a belief informed by a particular reading of…

On April 1, 2024, from 9:00AM-6:00PM (EDT) the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School (CHLPI) and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI) hosted A New Way Home: Medicaid and Reentry Symposium. State Medicaid programs have begun exploring new pathways to improve linkage and access to health care for people reentering the community from jails…

Latin America has been at the forefront of judicialization of a right to a healthy environment. Courts in different countries have curbed burning and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, as well as the expansion of wind farms in Mexico; they have ordered the clean-up of river basins in Argentina and ordered the protection of important…

New Ideas for Substance Use Condition Treatment: Could Psychedelics Help? provided an overview of psychedelic treatments, including ibogaine and psilocybin, for substance use conditions. During this panel discussion, an ibogaine researcher, a certified recovery coach with lived experience, and a drug law expert discussed existing research, potential benefits and risks, ongoing policy and legal reforms, and societal…

In this interactive, hybrid event, Alicia Ely Yamin, JD, MPH, PhD, moderated a conversation with investigative journalist and author Tim Schwab about his latest book, The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire. Audiences, both in-person and online, had the opportunity to join in the discussion. This event was part of HGHI’s Scholarly…