126-529: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932. Holmes is one of the most widely cited and influential Supreme Court justices in American history, noted for his long tenure on the Court and for his pithy opinions—particularly those on civil liberties and American constitutional democracy—and deference to
252-478: A case, has led some to characterize him as unfeeling, however. George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen summarized Holmes's views this way: "Holmes was a cold and brutally cynical man who had contempt for the masses and for the progressive laws he voted to uphold ... an aristocratic nihilist who once told his sister that he loathed 'the thick-fingered clowns we call the people'." Although Holmes did not dissent frequently—during his 29 years on
378-450: A combined Oxford and Cambridge team in the oldest continuous international amateur competition in the world. As with other Ivy League universities, Harvard does not offer athletic scholarships . Harvard's athletic rivalry with Yale is intense in every sport in which they meet, coming to a climax each fall in the annual football meeting, which dates back to 1875 and is usually called simply " The Game ". While Harvard's football team
504-631: A commission as second lieutenant in the Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry . He saw considerable combat during his service, taking part in the Peninsula Campaign , and the Wilderness , suffering wounds at the Battle of Ball's Bluff , Antietam , and Chancellorsville , and suffered from a near-fatal case of dysentery. He particularly admired and was close to Henry Livermore Abbott ,
630-402: A democracy: [W]hen men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe ... that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life
756-503: A fellow officer in the 20th Massachusetts. Holmes rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but eschewed command of his regiment upon his promotion. Abbott took command of the regiment in his place and was later killed. In September 1863, while recovering at the Holmes family home on Charles Street in Boston from his third major combat injury, Holmes was promoted to colonel, but he never returned to
882-472: A generation later by the "legal realist" school in America. Holmes practiced admiralty law and commercial law in Boston for fifteen years. It was during this time that he did his principal scholarly work, serving as an editor of the new American Law Review , reporting decisions of state supreme courts, and preparing a new edition of Kent's Commentaries , which served practitioners as a compendium of case law, at
1008-447: A judgment of their own, it by no means is true that every law is void which may seem to the judges who pass upon it excessive, unsuited to its ostensible end, or based upon conceptions of morality with which they disagree. Considerable latitude must be allowed for differences of view .... If the state thinks that an admitted evil cannot be prevented except by prohibiting a calling or transaction not in itself necessarily objectionable,
1134-580: A king, you must kill him." He supported the abolitionist movement that thrived in Boston society during the 1850s. At Harvard, he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, the Hasty Pudding and the Porcellian Club ; his father had also been a member of both clubs. In the Pudding, he served as Secretary and Poet, as had his father. Holmes graduated Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude from Harvard in 1861, and, in
1260-502: A living thought". General propositions do not decide concrete cases. —Holmes's dissent in Lochner v. New York , 198 U.S. 45, 76 (1905) The provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas that have their essence in form, they are organic, living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking
1386-519: A long visit to London to complete his education went into law practice in Boston. He joined a small firm, and in 1872 married a childhood friend, Fanny Bowditch Dixwell, buying a farm in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts , the following year. Their marriage lasted until her death on April 30, 1929. They never had children. They did adopt and raise an orphaned cousin, Dorothy Upham. Fanny "had a charming public persona. She could also be quiet and unassuming.... She
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#17328557258221512-422: A person whose conduct failed to reflect the prudence of a "reasonable man": [I]f a workman on a house-top at mid-day ... throws down a heavy beam into the street, he does an act which a person of ordinary prudence would foresee is likely to cause death, or grievous bodily harm, and he is dealt with as if he foresaw it, whether he does so in fact or not. If a death is caused by the act, he is guilty of murder. But if
1638-553: A popular figure, especially with American progressives . During his tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court, to which he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, he supported the constitutionality of state economic regulation and came to advocate broad freedom of speech under the First Amendment , after, in Schenck v. United States (1919), having upheld for a unanimous court criminal sanctions against draft protestors with
1764-418: A range of intellectual areas in parallel with pursuit of a chosen major in depth fulfills the injunction of former Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell that liberal education should produce "men who know a little of everything and something well". Some introductory courses have large enrollments, but most courses are small: the median class size is 12 students. Funding and faculty mentorship for research
1890-539: A senior thesis. Harvard College students must take a course in each of four General Education categories (Aesthetics and Culture; Ethics and Civics; Histories, Societies, Individuals; Science and Technology in Society) as well as a course in each of three academic divisions (Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences; Science and Engineering and Applied Science). They must also fulfill foreign language, expository writing, and quantitative reasoning with data requirements. Exposure to
2016-446: A system imposed by a deity. Being a legal positivist , Holmes brought himself into constant conflict with scholars who believed that legal duties rested upon natural law , a moral order of the kind invoked by Christian theologians and other philosophic idealists. He believed instead "that men make their own laws; that these laws do not flow from some mysterious omnipresence in the sky, and that judges are not independent mouthpieces of
2142-454: A time when official reports were scarce and difficult to obtain. He summarized his hard-won understanding in a series of lectures, collected and published as The Common Law in 1881. The Common Law has been continuously in print since 1881 and remains an important contribution to jurisprudence. The book also remains controversial, for Holmes begins by rejecting various kinds of formalism in law. In his earlier writings he had expressly denied
2268-591: A unanimous Court that an attempt, purely by language, could be prosecuted if the expression, in the circumstances in which it was uttered, posed a "clear and present danger" that the legislature had properly forbidden. In his opinion for the Court, Holmes famously declared that the First Amendment would not protect a person "falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic". Later in 1919, however, in Abrams v. United States , Holmes dissented. The Wilson Administration
2394-424: A young graduate student who would later become Harvard's 21st and longest-serving president (1869–1909), bought red bandanas for his crew so they could more easily be distinguished by spectators at a regatta. Harvard has several fight songs, the most played of which, especially at football, are " Ten Thousand Men of Harvard " and " Harvardiana ". While " Fair Harvard " is actually the alma mater , "Ten Thousand Men"
2520-603: Is $ 168,800, with 53% of students coming from the top 10% highest-earning families and 20% from the bottom 60%. As of 2024, Harvard College tuition was about $ 57,000 and total costs about $ 83,000. However, Harvard offers one of the most generous financial aid programs in the United States, with need-blind admission and 100% of financial need met for all students. Families with incomes below $ 85,000 pay nothing for their children to attend, while families earning up to $ 150,000 pay no more than 10% of their annual incomes. Financial aid
2646-573: Is an experiment. In writing this dissent, Holmes may have been influenced by Zechariah Chafee 's article "Freedom of Speech in War Time". Chafee had criticized Holmes's opinion in Schenck for failing to express in more detail and more clearly the common-law doctrines upon which he relied. In his Abrams dissent, Holmes did elaborate somewhat on the decision in Schenck , roughly along the lines that Chafee had suggested. Although Holmes evidently believed that he
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#17328557258222772-421: Is available in all disciplines for undergraduates at all levels. Nearly all undergraduates live on campus, for the first year in dormitories in or near Harvard Yard and later in the upperclass houses—administrative subdivisions of the college as well as living quarters, providing a sense of community in what might otherwise be a socially incohesive and administratively daunting university environment. Each house
2898-406: Is best known for its prediction theory of law, that "[t]he prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by law", and for its "bad man" perspective on the law, that "[i]f you really want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict". Soon after
3024-682: Is better known outside the university. The Harvard University Band performs these fight songs and other cheers at football and hockey games. These were parodied by Harvard alumnus Tom Lehrer in his song " Fight Fiercely, Harvard ", which he composed while an undergraduate. By the late 19th century, critics of intercollegiate athletics, including Harvard president Charles William Eliot , believed that sports had become over-commercialized and took students away from their studies. They called for limitations on all sports. This opposition prompted Harvard's athletic committee to target "minor" sports—basketball and hockey—for reform in order to deflect attention from
3150-603: Is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes . [citation omitted] Three generations of imbeciles are enough. Sterilization rates under eugenics laws in the United States climbed from 1927 until Skinner v. Oklahoma , 316 U.S. 535 (1942), in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an Oklahoma statute that provided for the sterilization of "habitual criminals". Buck v. Bell continues to be cited occasionally in support of due process requirements for state interventions in medical procedures. For instance, in 2001,
3276-404: Is considered one of the greatest judges in American history and embodies for many the traditions of the common law. A eugenicist, he authored the majority opinion upholding forced sterilization. Tens of thousands of the procedures followed. From the departure of William Howard Taft on February 3, 1930, until Charles Evans Hughes became chief justice on February 24, 1930, Holmes briefly acted as
3402-456: Is highly selective, with fewer than four percent of applicants being offered admission as of 2022. Harvard College students participate in over 450 extracurricular organizations and nearly all live on campus. First-year students reside in or near Harvard Yard and upperclass students reside in other on-campus housing. Harvard College was founded in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of
3528-547: Is no longer one of the best as it was in football's early days, both Harvard and Yale have influenced the way the game is played. In 1903, Harvard Stadium introduced a new era into football with the first permanent reinforced concrete stadium of its kind in the country. Even older than Harvard–Yale football rivalry, the Harvard–Yale Regatta is held each June on the Thames River in eastern Connecticut. The Harvard crew
3654-615: Is nonresidential but fulfills the administrative and social functions provided to on-campus residents by the other twelve houses for undergraduate students living in the Dudley Co-op, many of the undergraduate students living off-campus (which are small in number), and the Visiting Undergraduate Students who study at Harvard for a term or year. Harvard's residential houses are paired with Yale's residential colleges in sister relationships. The Harvard Undergraduate Council (UC)
3780-509: Is presided over by two faculty deans, while its Allston Burr Resident Dean —usually a junior faculty member—supervises undergraduates' day-to-day academic and disciplinary well-being. The faculty deans and resident dean are assisted by other members of the Senior Common Room —select graduate students (tutors), faculty, and university officials brought into voluntary association with each house. The faculty deans and resident dean reside in
3906-504: Is remembered for prescient opinions on topics as varied as copyright law, the law of contempt, the antitrust status of professional baseball, and the oath required for citizenship . Holmes, like most of his contemporaries, viewed the Bill of Rights as codifying privileges obtained over the centuries in English and American common law, and he established that view in numerous opinions for the Court. He
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4032-420: Is solely based on need; no merit or athletic scholarships are offered. The four-year, full-time undergraduate program has a liberal arts and sciences focus. To graduate in the usual four years, undergraduates normally take four courses per semester. Midway through the second year, most undergraduates join one of fifty academic majors ; many also declare a minor (secondary field). Joint majors (combining
4158-440: Is the theory of our Constitution . It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment." He added that "we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death...." The Journal of Legal Studies has identified Holmes as the third-most-cited American legal scholar of the 20th century. Holmes was a legal realist , as summed up in his maxim, "The life of
4284-508: Is typically considered to be one of the top teams in the country in rowing . Other sports in which Harvard teams are particularly strong are men's ice hockey , squash , and men's and women's fencing . Harvard's men's ice hockey team won the school's first NCAA Championship in any team sport in 1989, and Harvard also won the Intercollegiate Sailing Association National Championships in 2003. Harvard
4410-411: Is what he attributed to the law, rather than his personal philosophy. Central to his thought was the notion that the law, as it had evolved in modern societies, was concerned with the material results of a defendant's actions. A judge's task was to decide which of two parties before him would bear the cost of an injury. Holmes argued that the evolving common law standard was that liability would fall upon
4536-459: The Charles River : Adams , Dunster , Eliot , Kirkland , Leverett , Lowell , Mather , Quincy , and Winthrop . Their construction was financed largely by a 1928 gift from Yale alumnus Edward Harkness , who, frustrated in his attempts to initiate a similar project at his alma mater, eventually offered $ 11 million to Harvard. Construction of the first houses began in 1929, but
4662-485: The Constitution of the United States . As a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Holmes rejected the argument that the text of the Constitution should be applied directly to cases that came before the court, as if it were a statute. He shared with most of his fellow jurists the belief that the Constitution carried forward principles derived from the common law, principles that continued to evolve in American courts. The text of
4788-483: The Massachusetts Bay Colony . Two years later, the college became home to North America's first known printing press , carried by the ship John of London . In 1639 the college (heretofore unnamed) was named Harvard College in honor of deceased Charlestown minister John Harvard (1607–1638) who had bequeathed to the school his entire library and half of his monetary estate. Harvard's first Headmaster
4914-560: The Massachusetts Governor's Council adjourned at 3 pm. Holmes's partner George Shattuck proposed him for the vacancy, Holmes quickly agreed, and there being no objection by the council, he took the oath of office on December 15, 1882. His resignation from his professorship, after only a few weeks and without notice , was resented by the law school faculty, with James Bradley Thayer finding Holmes's conduct "selfish" and "thoughtless". On August 2, 1899, Holmes became chief justice of
5040-635: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court following the death of Walbridge A. Field . During his service on the Massachusetts court, Holmes continued to develop and apply his views of the common law, usually following precedent faithfully. He issued few constitutional opinions in these years, but carefully developed the principles of free expression as a common-law doctrine. He departed from precedent to recognize workers' right to organize trade unions and to strike, as long as no violence
5166-523: The Sedition Act of 1918 , Holmes held that the freedom of expression guaranteed by federal and state constitutions simply declared a common-law privilege for speech and the press, even when those expressions caused injury, but that the privilege could be defeated by a showing of malice or intent to do harm. Holmes came to write three unanimous opinions for the Supreme Court that arose from prosecutions under
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5292-628: The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit cited Buck v. Bell to protect the constitutional rights of a woman coerced into sterilization without procedural due process. The court stated that error and abuse will result if the state does not follow the procedural requirements, established by Buck v. Bell , for performing an involuntary sterilization. Buck v. Bell was also cited briefly, though not discussed, in Roe v. Wade , in support of
5418-540: The nomination and Holmes was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 4. He was sworn into office on December 8. On the bench, Holmes did vote to support the administration's position favoring the annexation of former Spanish colonies in the " Insular Cases ". However, he later disappointed Roosevelt by dissenting in Northern Securities Co. v. United States , a major antitrust prosecution;
5544-462: The president to nominate, and with the advice and consent (confirmation) of the Senate , appoint justices to the Supreme Court. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution effectively grants life tenure to associate justices, and all other federal judges , which ends only when a justice dies, retires, resigns, or is impeached and convicted . Each Supreme Court justice has a single vote in deciding
5670-441: The 1917 Espionage Act because in an earlier case, Baltzer v. United States , he had circulated a powerfully expressed dissent, when the majority had voted to uphold a conviction of immigrant socialists who had circulated a petition criticizing the draft. Apparently learning that he was likely to publish this dissent, the government (perhaps alerted by Justice Louis D. Brandeis , newly appointed by President Woodrow Wilson ) abandoned
5796-682: The 20th Massachusetts because the unit had been largely destroyed. Upon his recovery, in January 1864 Holmes was appointed aide-de-camp of General Horatio Wright , then Division Commander of VI Corps , and later in command of the Corps. Holmes served with Wright during General Grant's campaign down to Petersburg, returning to Washington with the Sixth Corps when the Capital was threatened in July 1864. On July 17, 1864, Holmes
5922-495: The Civil War were often present in his writings. Judges decided where and when the force of the state would be brought to bear, and judges in the modern world tended to consult facts and consequences when deciding what conduct to punish. The decisions of judges, viewed over time, determined the rules of conduct and the legal duties by which all are bound. Judges did not and should not consult any external system of morality, certainly not
6048-460: The Constitution itself, as originally understood, was not a set of rules, but only a directive to courts to consider the body of the common law when deciding cases that arose under the Constitution. It followed that constitutional principles adopted from the common law were evolving, as the law itself evolved: "A word [in the Constitution] is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of
6174-617: The Espionage Act of 1917 that made criticisms of the government or the war effort a crime. Abrams and his co-defendants were charged with distributing leaflets (one in English and one in Yiddish) that called for a "general strike" to protest the U.S. intervention in Russia. A majority of the Court voted to uphold the convictions and sentences of ten and twenty years, to be followed by deportation, while Holmes dissented. The majority claimed to be following
6300-497: The Oxford and Cambridge model, which would eventually constitute a university, though no further colleges materialized in colonial era. The Indian College was active from 1640 to no later than 1693, but it was a minor addition not operated in federation with Harvard according to the English model. Harvard began granting higher degrees in the late eighteenth century, and it was increasingly styled Harvard University, even as Harvard College
6426-419: The Supreme Court (unlike other retired federal judges who may be permitted to do so in their former courts); neither are they known or designated as a "senior judge". When, after his retirement, William O. Douglas attempted to take a more active role than was customary, maintaining that it was his prerogative to do so because of his senior status, he was rebuffed by Chief Justice Warren Burger and admonished by
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#17328557258226552-575: The Supreme Court of the United States An associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States , other than the chief justice of the United States . The number of associate justices is eight, as set by the Judiciary Act of 1869 . Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States grants plenary power to
6678-489: The Supreme Court. The justices, ordered by seniority, are: An associate justice who leaves the Supreme Court after attaining the age and meeting the service requirements prescribed by federal statute ( 28 U.S.C. § 371 ) may retire rather than resign. After retirement, they keep their title, and by custom may also keep a set of chambers in the Supreme Court building, and employ law clerks. The names of retired associate justices continue to appear alongside those of
6804-422: The U.S. Supreme Court, he wrote only 72 separate opinions, whereas he penned 852 majority opinions—his dissents were often prescient and acquired so much authority that he became known as "The Great Dissenter". Chief Justice Taft complained that "his opinions are short, and not very helpful". Two of his most famous dissents were in Abrams v. United States and Lochner v. New York . Associate justice of
6930-672: The United States. The most important of these was his friendship with the Anglo-Irish Clare Castletown, the Lady Castletown, whose family estate in Ireland, Doneraile Court , he visited several times, and with whom he may have had a brief affair. He formed his closest intellectual friendships with British men and became one of the founders of what was soon called the "sociological" school of jurisprudence in Great Britain, followed
7056-409: The active justices in the bound volumes of Supreme Court decisions. Federal statute ( 28 U.S.C. § 294 ) provides that retired Supreme Court justices may serve—if designated and assigned by the chief justice—on panels of the U.S. courts of appeals, or on the U.S. district courts. Retired justices are not, however, authorized to take part in the consideration or decision of any cases before
7182-407: The actual state of the parties' minds. In contract, as elsewhere, it must go by externals, and judge parties by their conduct." In the book, Holmes set forth his view that the only source of law, properly speaking, was a judicial decision enforced by the state. Judges decided cases on the facts, and then wrote opinions afterward presenting a rationale for their decision. The true basis of the decision
7308-461: The assembled land transferred to Harvard. The three Quad Houses enjoy a residential setting half a mile northwest of Harvard Yard. These were built by Radcliffe College and housed Radcliffe College students until the Harvard and Radcliffe residential systems merged in 1977. They are: Cabot , Currier , and Pforzheimer House . A thirteenth house, Dudley Community, formerly called Dudley House ,
7434-471: The case (which has since been appealed) found no evidence of explicit racial bias but did not rule out a small amount of implicit bias . Harvard has implemented more implicit bias training for its admissions staff in accordance with the court's recommendations. In addition, Harvard's admissions preference for children of alumni , employees, and donors has been criticized as favoring white and wealthy candidates. The median family income of Harvard students
7560-639: The case of Buck v. Bell . In 1881, in The Common Law , Holmes brought together into a coherent whole his earlier articles and lectures concerning the history of the common law (judicial decisions in England and the United States), which he interpreted from the perspective of a practicing lawyer. What counted as law, to a lawyer, was what judges did in particular cases. Law was what the state would enforce, through violence if necessary; echoes of his experience in
7686-428: The case, and it was dismissed by the Court. The chief justice then asked Holmes to write opinions that could be unanimous, upholding convictions in three similar cases, where there were jury findings that speeches or leaflets were published with an intent to obstruct the draft, a crime under the 1917 law. Although there was no evidence that the attempts had succeeded, Holmes, in Schenck v. United States (1919), held for
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#17328557258227812-428: The cases argued before it, and the chief justice's vote counts no more than that of any other justice; however, the chief justice leads the discussion of the case among the justices. Furthermore, the chief justice—when in the majority—decides who writes the court's opinion; otherwise, the senior justice in the majority assigns the writing of a decision. The chief justice also has certain administrative responsibilities that
7938-529: The chief justice and presided over court sessions. Beginning with his first opinion for the Court in Otis v. Parker (1903), Holmes exhibited his tendency to defer to legislatures, which two years later he did most famously in his dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York (1905). In Otis v. Parker , the Court, in an opinion by Holmes, upheld the constitutionality of a California statute that provided that "all contracts for
8064-412: The class and society from which judges were drawn. In his 1881 book The Common Law , Holmes argued that legal rules are not deduced through formal logic but rather emerge from an active process of human self-government. He expressed this idea most famously in The Common Law with the statement, "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience". His philosophy represented a departure from
8190-498: The clear and present danger test, stated in 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio , holds that "advocacy of the use of force or of law violation" is protected by the First Amendment "unless such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". In Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (1920), Holmes ruled that any evidence obtained, even indirectly, from an illegal search
8316-495: The colonial period." The University of Oxford and University of Cambridge , two of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the English-speaking world , have long been structured with individual colleges as part of the larger university and with each college including an association of scholars that shared room and board. Harvard's founders may have envisioned it as the first in a series of sibling colleges replicating
8442-442: The community. In the modern world, the advances made in biology and the social sciences should allow a better conscious determination of the results of individual acts and the proper measure of liability for them. This belief in the pronouncements of science concerning social welfare, although he later doubted its applicability to law in many cases, accounts for his enthusiastic endorsement of eugenics in his writings, and his opinion in
8568-428: The courts cannot interfere, unless ... they can see that it 'is a clear, unmistakable infringement of rights secured by the fundamental law.'" In his dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York (1905), Holmes supported labor, not out of sympathy for workers, but because of his tendency to defer to legislatures. In Lochner , the Court struck down a New York statute that prohibited employees (spelled "employes" at
8694-411: The death of Associate Justice Horace Gray in July 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt made known his intention to appoint Holmes as Gray's successor; it was the president's stated desire to fill the vacancy with someone from Massachusetts. The nomination was supported by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge , the junior senator from Massachusetts, but was opposed by its senior senator, George Frisbie Hoar , who
8820-547: The decisions of elected legislatures . Holmes retired from the Court at the age of 90, an unbeaten record for oldest justice on the Supreme Court. He previously served as a Brevet Colonel in the American Civil War , in which he was wounded three times, as an associate justice and chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court , and as Weld Professor of Law at his alma mater, Harvard Law School . His positions, distinctive personality, and writing style made him
8946-417: The defendants' intent] and enough can be squeezed from these poor and puny anonymities to turn the color of legal litmus paper ... the most nominal punishment seems to me all that possibly could be inflicted, unless the defendants are to be made to suffer, not for what the indictment alleges, but for the creed that they avow ..." Holmes then went on to explain the importance of freedom of thought in
9072-691: The enrollment of recipients of the National Merit $ 2,500 Scholarship ; it enrolled 207 such scholars in the Class of 2022. Harvard College ended its early admissions program in 2007, but for the class of 2016 and beyond, an early action program was reintroduced. The freshman class that entered in the fall of 2017 was the first to be majority (50.8%) nonwhite. A federal lawsuit alleges that Harvard's admissions policies discriminate against Asian Americans, who tend to be overrepresented among students with high academic achievement. A 2019 district court decision in
9198-478: The entire university. Radcliffe College , established in 1879, originally paid Harvard faculty to repeat their lectures for women. Since the 1970s, Harvard has been responsible for undergraduate matters for women, though women's Harvard diplomas were countersigned by the President of Radcliffe until a final merger in 1999. Admission is based on academic prowess, extracurricular activities, and personal qualities. For
9324-420: The fall of 1882, Holmes became a professor at Harvard Law School , accepting an endowed professorship that had been created for him, largely through the efforts of Louis D. Brandeis . On Friday, December 8, 1882, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts associate justice Otis Lord decided to resign, giving outgoing Republican governor John Davis Long a chance to appoint his successor, if he could do so before
9450-541: The fall, when it became clear that the war would soon end, Holmes enrolled in Harvard Law School , "kicked into the law" by his father, as he later recalled. He attended lectures there for a single year, reading extensively in theoretical works, and then clerked for a year in his cousin Robert Morse's office. In 1866, he received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Harvard, was admitted to the Massachusetts bar, and after
9576-416: The history of the common law: The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed. The law embodies
9702-447: The house, as do resident tutors. Terms like tutor, Senior Common Room, and Junior Common Room reflect a debt to the constituent college systems at Oxford and Cambridge from which Harvard's system took inspiration. The houses were created by President Lowell in the 1930s to combat what he saw as pernicious social stratification engendered by the private, off-campus living arrangements of many undergraduates at that time. Lowell's solution
9828-436: The infinite." "The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky." Rather than a set of abstract, rational, mathematical, or in any way unworldly set of principles, Holmes said: "[T]he prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law." His belief that law, properly speaking, was a set of generalizations from what judges had done in similar cases, determined his view of
9954-504: The land on which they were built had been assembled decades before. After graduating from Harvard in 1895, Edward W. Forbes found himself inspired by the Oxford and Cambridge systems during two years of study in England; on returning to the United States he set out to acquire the land between Harvard Yard and the Charles River that was not already owned by Harvard or an associated entity. By 1918, that ambition had been largely fulfilled and
10080-563: The later advocates of legal realism and made him one of the early founders of law and economics jurisprudence. Holmes famously contrasted his own scholarship with the abstract doctrines of Christopher Columbus Langdell , dean of Harvard Law School, who viewed the common law as a self-enclosed set of doctrines. Holmes viewed Langdell's work as akin to the German philosophic idealism he had for so long resisted, opposing it with his own scientific materialism. Albert Alschuler , however, wrote, "Langdell
10206-612: The law are those which give it universal interest. It is through them that you not only become a great master in your calling, but connect your subject with the universe and catch an echo of the infinite, a glimpse of its unfathomable process, a hint of the universal law. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, "The Path of the Law", 10 Harvard Law Review 457, 478 (1897) Holmes was considered for a federal court judgeship in 1878 by President Rutherford B. Hayes , but Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar persuaded Hayes to nominate another candidate. In
10332-485: The law has not been logic: it has been experience," a moral skeptic , and an opponent of the doctrine of natural law . His jurisprudence and academic writing influenced much subsequent American legal thinking, including the judicial consensus upholding New Deal regulatory law and the influential American schools of pragmatism , critical legal studies , and law and economics . Holmes was born in Boston , Massachusetts , to
10458-464: The majority had reached its decision on the basis of the economic theory of laissez faire , but that the Constitution does not prevent the states from interfering with the liberty to contract. "The Fourteenth Amendment", Holmes wrote, "does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer 's Social Statics ", which advocates laissez faire . In a series of opinions surrounding the World War I Espionage Act of 1917 and
10584-472: The majority of the court opposed Holmes and sided with Roosevelt's belief that Northern Securities violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The dissent by Holmes permanently damaged his formerly close relationship with Roosevelt. Holmes was known for his pithy, frequently quoted opinions. In more than twenty-nine years on the Supreme Court bench, he ruled on cases spanning the whole range of federal law. He
10710-427: The memorable maxim that " free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic " and formulating the groundbreaking " clear and present danger " test. Later that same year, in his famous dissent in Abrams v. United States (1919), he wrote that "the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market ... That, at any rate,
10836-469: The original "draft" system, masters (now called "faculty deans") negotiated privately over the assignment of students. From the 1960s to the mid-1990s, each student ranked the houses according to personal preference, with a lottery resolving the oversubscription of more popular houses. Today, groups of one to eight freshmen form a block which is then assigned, essentially at random, to an upperclass house. The nine "River Houses" are south of Harvard Yard, near
10962-407: The other justices do not and is paid slightly more ($ 298,500 per year as of 2023, compared to $ 285,400 per year for an associate justice). Associate justices have seniority in order of the date their respective commissions bear, although the chief justice is always considered to be the most senior justice. If two justices are commissioned on the same day, the elder is designated the senior justice of
11088-466: The pragmatic basis of the common-law privileges extended to speech and the press, which could be defeated by a showing of malice, or of specific intent to harm. Famously, he observed in McAuliffe v. Mayor of New Bedford (1892) that a policeman "may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman". He also published an address, " The Path of the Law ", which
11214-493: The precedents already set in Schenck and the other cases in which Holmes had written for the Court, but Holmes insisted that the defendants' leaflets neither threatened to cause any harm nor showed a specific intent to hinder the war effort. Holmes condemned the Wilson Administration's prosecution and its insistence on draconian sentences for the defendants in passionate language: "Even if I am technically wrong [regarding
11340-445: The prevailing jurisprudence of the time: legal formalism , which held that law was an orderly system of rules from which decisions in particular cases could be deduced. Holmes sought to consciously reinvent the common law – to modernize it as a tool for adjusting to the changing nature of modern life, as judges of the past had done more or less unconsciously. He has been classed with the philosophic pragmatists, although pragmatism
11466-510: The prominent writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Amelia Lee Jackson Holmes. Both his parents were of English descent, and all his ancestors had come to North America from England during the early colonial period as part of the Puritan migration to New England . His mother opposed slavery and fulfilled her domestic role as traditionally understood. Dr. Holmes was a leading figure in Boston intellectual and literary circles. Mrs. Holmes
11592-407: The proposition that the Court does not recognize an "unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases". However, although Buck v. Bell has not been overturned, "the Supreme Court has distinguished the case out of existence". From his earliest writings, Holmes demonstrated a lifelong belief that the decisions of judges were consciously or unconsciously result-oriented and reflected the mores of
11718-603: The public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination
11844-730: The requirements of two majors) and special majors (of the student's own design) are also possible. Most majors lead to the Artium Baccalaureus (AB). Some award the Scientiae Baccalaureus (SB). There are also dual degree programs permitting students to earn both a Harvard AB and a Master of Music (MM) from either the New England Conservatory of Music or the Berklee College of Music over five years. In most majors, an honors degree requires advanced coursework and/or
11970-401: The rights of man in a moral sense are equally rights in the sense of the Constitution and the law". Holmes said, "I think our morally tinted words have caused a great deal of confused thinking". Nevertheless, in rejecting morality as a form of natural law outside of and superior to human enactments, Holmes was not rejecting moral principles that were the result of enforceable law: "The law is
12096-403: The sales of shares of the capital stock of any corporation or association on margin, or to be delivered at a future day, shall be void ...." Holmes he wrote that, as a general proposition, "neither a state legislature nor a state constitution can interfere arbitrarily with private business or transactions .... But general propositions do not carry us far. While the courts must exercise
12222-515: The spring of that year, after President Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers following the firing on Fort Sumter , he enlisted in the Massachusetts militia but returned briefly to Harvard College to participate in commencement exercises. During his senior year of college, at the outset of the American Civil War , Holmes enlisted in the Fourth Battalion of Infantry in the Massachusetts militia, then in July 1861, with his father's help, received
12348-455: The statute requiring sterilization of institutionalized persons was unconstitutional, violating what today is called " substantive due process ". Holmes repeated familiar arguments that statutes would not be struck down if they appeared on their face to have a reasonable basis. In support of his argument that the interest of "public welfare" outweighs the interest of individuals in their bodily integrity, he argued: We have seen more than once that
12474-405: The story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. In The Common Law , Holmes wrote that, even though the law "uses the language of morality, it necessarily ends in external standards not dependent on the consciousness of the individual" or on his moral culpability. Foreseeability of harm
12600-565: The time) from being required or permitted to work in a bakery more than sixty hours a week. The majority found that the statute "interferes with the right of contract between the employer and employes", and that the right of contract, though not explicit in the Constitution, "is part of the liberty of the individual protected by the Fourteenth Amendment", under which no state may "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." In his brief dissent, Holmes said that
12726-424: The two. Currently, the senior associate justice is Clarence Thomas . By tradition, when the justices are in conference deliberating the outcome of cases before the Supreme Court, the justices state their views in order of seniority. The senior associate justice is also tasked with carrying out the chief justice's duties when he is unable to, or if that office is vacant. There are currently eight associate justices on
12852-541: The undergraduate class of 2025, Harvard had 57,435 applications and accepted 1,968 (3.4% acceptance rate). For the undergraduate class of 2023, the middle 50% range of SAT scores of enrolled freshmen was 710–770 for reading and writing and 750–800 for math, while the middle 50% range of the ACT composite score was 33–35. The average high school grade point average ( GPA ) was 4.18. The acceptance rate for transfer students has been approximately 1%. Harvard consistently ranks first in
12978-456: The utilitarian view that law was a set of commands of the sovereign, rules of conduct that became legal duties. He rejected as well the views of the German idealist philosophers, whose views were then widely held, and the philosophy taught at Harvard, that the opinions of judges could be harmonized in a purely logical system. In the opening paragraphs of the book, he famously summarized his own view of
13104-463: The whole Court. There are currently three living retired associate justices: David Souter , retired June 29, 2009; Anthony Kennedy , retired July 31, 2018; and Stephen Breyer , retired June 30, 2022. Souter has served on panels of the First Circuit Courts of Appeals following his retirement; Kennedy and Breyer have not performed any judicial duties since retiring. Since the Supreme Court
13230-411: The witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race. The practice of it, in spite of popular jests, tends to make good citizens and good men. When I emphasize the difference between law and morals I do so with reference to a single end, that of learning and understanding the law." Holmes's insistence on the material basis of law, on the facts of
13356-521: The words and a dictionary but by considering their origin and the line of their growth. Holmes also insisted on the separation of "ought" and "is" , confusion of which he saw as an obstacle in understanding the realities of the law. "The law is full of phraseology drawn from morals, and talks about rights and duties , malice , intent , and negligence – and nothing is easier in legal reasoning than to take these words in their moral sense". "Therefore nothing but confusion can result from assuming that
13482-429: The workman has a reasonable cause to believe that the space below is a private yard from which everyone is excluded, and which is used as a rubbish-heap, his act is not blameworthy, and the homicide is a mere misadventure. This "objective standard" adopted by common-law judges, Holmes thought, reflected a shift in community standards , away from condemnation of a person's act toward an impersonal assessment of its value to
13608-472: Was Nathaniel Eaton (1610–1674); in 1639, he also became its first instructor to be dismissed, for overstrict discipline. The school's first students were graduated in 1642. The Harvard Indian College was established, with the capacity for four or five Native Americans, and in 1665 Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck ( c. 1643 –1666) "from the Wampanoag … did graduate from Harvard, the first Indian to do so in
13734-532: Was General Wright who brusquely ordered Lincoln to safety. But for a certainty, the 6 foot 4 inch Lincoln, in frock coat and top hat, stood peering through field glasses from behind a parapet at the onrushing rebels.") and other sources state he likely was not present on the day Lincoln visited Fort Stevens. In the summer of 1864, Holmes returned to the family home in Boston, wrote poetry, and debated philosophy with his friend William James , pursuing his debate with philosophic idealism, and considered re-enlisting. By
13860-415: Was adhering to his own precedent, some later commentators accused Holmes of inconsistency, even of seeking to curry favor with his young admirers. In Abrams , the majority opinion relied on the clear-and-present-danger formulation of Schenck , claiming that the leaflets showed the necessary intent, and ignoring that they were unlikely to have any effect. By contrast, the Supreme Court's current formulation of
13986-552: Was also chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee . Hoar was a strenuous opponent of imperialism, and the legality of the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines was expected to come before the Court. Lodge, like Roosevelt, was a strong supporter of imperialism, which Holmes was expected to support as well. Despite Hoar's opposition, the president moved ahead on the matter. On December 2, 1902, he formally submitted
14112-454: Was claimed to be mentally defective. Later scholarship has shown that the suit was collusive, in that "two eugenics enthusiasts ... had chosen Buck as a bit player in a test case that they had devised" and "had asked Buck's guardian to challenge [the Virginia sterilization law]". In addition, Carrie Buck was probably of normal intelligence. The argument made on her behalf was principally that
14238-702: Was connected to the leading families; Henry James Sr. , Ralph Waldo Emerson , and other transcendentalists were family friends. Known as "Wendell" in his youth, Holmes became lifelong friends with the brothers William James and Henry James Jr. Holmes accordingly grew up in an atmosphere of intellectual achievement and early on formed the ambition to be a man of letters like Emerson. He retained an interest in writing poetry throughout his life. While still in Harvard College he wrote essays on philosophic themes and asked Emerson to read his attack on Plato 's idealist philosophy. Emerson famously replied, "If you strike at
14364-432: Was essentially a shy and private woman [and] stand-offish.... As she grew older, her inclination to solitude became more pronounced, and in time she became a virtual recluse...". Whenever he could, Holmes visited London during the social season of spring and summer, and during his years as a lawyer and judge in Boston he formed romantic friendships with English women of the nobility, with whom he corresponded while at home in
14490-582: Was established in 1789, the following 104 persons have served as an associate justice: Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University , a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts , United States . Part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences , Harvard College is Harvard University's traditional undergraduate program, offering AB ( Bachelor of Arts ) and SB ( Bachelor of Science ) degrees. It
14616-606: Was inadmissible in court. He reasoned that otherwise, police would have an incentive to circumvent the Fourth Amendment to obtain derivatives of the illegally obtained evidence. This later became known as the " fruit of the poisonous tree " doctrine. In 1927, Holmes wrote the 8–1 majority opinion in Buck v. Bell , a case that upheld the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 and the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck , who
14742-553: Was increasingly thought of as the university's undergraduate division in particular. Harvard College is currently responsible for undergraduate admissions, advising, housing, student life, athletics, and other undergraduate matters except instruction, which is the purview of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences . The body known as the President and Fellows of Harvard College retains its traditional name despite having governance of
14868-443: Was innocent of the charge ... of attempting to deduce law from a priori premises". We cannot all be Descartes or Kant , but we all want happiness. And happiness, I am sure from having known many successful men, cannot be won simply by being counsel for great corporations and having an income of fifty thousand dollars. An intellect great enough to win the prize needs other food beside success. The remoter and more general aspects of
14994-424: Was involved, and coercion was not exerted through impermissible means such as secondary boycotts, stating in his opinions that fundamental fairness required that workers be allowed to combine to compete on an equal footing with employers. He continued to give speeches and to write articles that added to or extended his work on the common law, most notably "Privilege, Malice and Intent", in which he presented his view of
15120-421: Was mustered out at the end of his enlistment term, returning to Boston and enrolling at Harvard Law School later that year. Holmes is said to have shouted to Abraham Lincoln to take cover during the Battle of Fort Stevens , although this is commonly regarded as apocryphal. Holmes himself expressed uncertainty about who had warned Lincoln ("Some say it was an enlisted man who shouted at Lincoln; others suggest it
15246-435: Was often an "inarticulate major premise", however. A judge was obliged to choose between contending legal arguments, each posed in absolute terms, and the true basis of his decision was sometimes drawn from outside the law, when precedents were lacking or were evenly divided. The common law evolves because civilized society evolves, and judges share the common preconceptions of the governing class. These views endeared Holmes to
15372-463: Was the first Ivy League school to win an NCAA Championship in a women's sport when its women's lacrosse team won in 1990. The school color is crimson , which is also the name of Harvard's sports teams and the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson . The color was unofficially adopted (in preference to magenta ) by an 1875 vote of the student body, although the association with some form of red can be traced back to 1858, when Charles William Eliot ,
15498-435: Was the key: "the general basis of criminal liability was knowledge, at the time of action, of facts from which common experience showed that certain harmful results were likely to follow." Tort liability, similarly, was imposed when circumstances were "such as would have led a prudent man to perceive danger, although not necessarily to foresee the specific harm". Likewise, with respect to contracts, "The law has nothing to do with
15624-561: Was the student government of Harvard College until it was abolished by a student referendum in 2022. It was replaced by the Harvard Undergraduate Association (HUA). The Harvard Crimson fields 42 intercollegiate sports teams in the NCAA Division I Ivy League , more than any other NCAA Division I college in the country. Every two years, the Harvard and Yale track and field teams come together to compete against
15750-527: Was to provide every man—Harvard was male-only at the time—with on-campus accommodations throughout his time at the college; Lowell also saw great benefits in other features of the house system, such as the relaxed discussions—academic or otherwise—which he hoped would take place among undergraduates and members of the Senior Common Room over meals in each house's dining hall. How students come to live in particular houses has changed greatly over time. Under
15876-527: Was vigorously prosecuting those suspected of sympathies with the recent Russian Revolution , as well as opponents of the war against Germany. The defendants in this case were socialists and anarchists, recent immigrants from Russia who opposed the apparent efforts of the United States to intervene in the Russian Civil War . They were charged with violating the Sedition Act of 1918, which was an amendment to
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