The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s recent decision in Thompson v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., N.E.3d -, 2020 WL 7238390, at 4 (1st Cir. Dec. 9, 2020) represents a substantial.
Jack Patrick Lewis and Maria Robinson
Guest Columnists
Massachusetts has been a beacon of compassion, equity, and justice. From marriage equality to health care coverage, environmental policy to reproductive justice, our commonwealth has led the country. But our state is not without its shortcomings, and nowhere is this clearer than in our immigration policy.
Most immigration policy is determined at the federal level. Massachusetts’ residents, however, are not immune from our state taxes funding the enforcement of federal immigration law in collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.). While some communities in the commonwealth have sought to protect and defend their immigrant neighbors by passing Welcoming or Trust Act ordinances, others have explicitly sought relationships with I.C.E. in the form of 287(g) agreements. Under such agreements, local law enforcement personnel are deputized to carry out civil immigration enforcement: interrogating detainees, plac
A Massachusetts judge dismissed a lawsuit on Thursday from the Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign over Harvardâs investments in companies with ties to the prison industry, bringing an end to a months-long court battle between activists and University officials.
The five plaintiffs â all Harvard graduate students and HPDC members â filed the lawsuit in February 2020 on two counts. First, the plaintiffs charged that Harvard violated its fiduciary duty to manage the endowment in good faith by retaining investments in the prison industry. The plaintiffs also alleged that Harvard engaged in false advertising by pledging to atone for its historical ties to slavery while still retaining financial investments in the prison industry.
The A. J. Gordon Memorial Chapel at Gordon College, a Christian academic institution located in Wenham, Massachusetts. | (Photo: Mark Spooner)
The highest court in Massachusetts heard oral arguments on Monday regarding whether an evangelical Christian higher education institution can lawfully refuse to promote a former professor who held pro-LGBT views.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments virtually over a lawsuit filed against Gordon College by former associate professor Margaret DeWeese-Boyd.
At issue is whether Gordon, founded in 1889, could lawfully deny a promotion to DeWeese-Boyd by citing the “ministerial exception,” a legal principle that allows religious bodies to choose their own ministerial staff with exemption from employment discrimination law.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court says that defendants convicted under the state’s “three strikes” law can be sentenced to probation by a judge in lieu of hefty sentences for their third offense.