Boston Lawyer Blog

While some universities ink deals with the Trump administration, others are taking the executive branch to court

Published on: March 19, 2026 | by Jacob Bezner

I previously discussed how some universities entered into agreements with the federal government to end civil rights investigations around topics such as antisemitism, transgender rights, DEI initiatives, and student protest. Other schools chose to bring legal challenges to the administration’s efforts to withhold funds to enforce their policy positions and have been prevailing in court.

Ongoing Legal Battles

Though their legal battle is far from complete, Harvard University has found the most success in suing the Trump administration to restore funding. In April 2025, Harvard, and unions representing Harvard faculty and graduate workers, sued the administration for cutting $2.2. billion in funding to the university and its affiliated hospitals that month. The administration argued that these cuts were justified under Title VI because Harvard had supposedly failed to respond appropriately to antisemitism on campus. In September 2025, a federal judge found that these cuts were illegal because, among other issues, the administration did not follow the proper procedure for withdrawing federal grants under Title VI. While this decision restored the flow of federal funding to Harvard for now, the administration has appealed the decision—leaving open the possibility of a reinstatement of the devastating cuts. UCLA won a similar victory last fall when a judge blocked the administration’s proposed funding freeze to that university based on its alleged concerns around antisemitism, transgender athletes, and DEI initiatives. While the administration initially appealed that decision, it dropped the appeal last month.

Should I use AI to get advice on legal claims?: Understanding the potential pitfalls of using AI in a legal context

Published on: March 16, 2026 | by Naomi Shatz

Legal news is filled with stories about how lawyers, litigants, and judges are addressing the use of large language models (LLMs) like Claude and ChatGPT in court cases. While people are becoming used to using AI as a sounding board or search engine, courts are only just now starting to tackle how these tools can be used in lawsuits, and how to treat the information that is put into and generated by AI. What is emerging is a lack of consensus about the circumstances in which information put into or generated by AI tools can or must be disclosed to the other side in a legal case. Because this is a new and developing area, it is critical to talk to a lawyer before you run your case by ChatGPT. CONTINUE READING ›

SJC confirms broad reach of whistleblower protection

Published on: January 29, 2026 | by Noah Gillen

Earlier this week, the Supreme Judicial Court issued a decision on the rights of public employee whistleblowers. The decision clarified what activity is protected under the Massachusetts Whistleblower Act, G. L. c. 149, § 185 (“MWA”), and addressed whether a public employee who is partially responsible for wrongful conduct, but reports the wrongful conduct, can still seek protection under the MWA. CONTINUE READING ›

Leading universities ink deals with the Trump administration

Published on: January 26, 2026 | by Jacob Bezner

Since taking office, the Trump administration has overhauled enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws on college campuses, particularly the laws that prohibit discrimination on the bases of race and sex. Now, less than one year later, six leading universities—the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Brown University, the University of Virginia, Cornell University, and Northwestern University—have signed deals with the Trump administration. The focus of these deals on specific forms of supposed discrimination occurring on campus—namely antisemitism, “DEI” initiatives, and gender inclusivity in university facilities and athletic programs—illustrate the Trump administration’s enforcement priorities at higher education institutions.

Massachusetts Pay Transparency Law Goes Into Effect

Published on: December 15, 2025 | by Jackson Estrin

Massachusetts Pay Transparency Law Goes Into Effect

In recent years, in an attempt to address concerns related to pay disparities across race, gender and other group classifications, several states have adopted various forms of pay transparency legislation. On a macro level, these laws represent an attempt to remedy pay gaps that have historically existed between workers of different demographic groups. Under a pay transparency regime, workers are provided easier access to information about the pay range of their job, which they are then able to utilize to their advantage when negotiating wages with their employers. On October 29, 2025, the pay transparency provision of “An Act Relative to Salary Range Transparency” went into effect in Massachusetts, and Massachusetts joined the growing list of states that have adopted legislation aimed at increasing pay transparency in the workforce.

The SJC limited the scope of the Wage Act. What does that mean for employees?

Published on: November 4, 2025 | by Tess Halpern

The late 1800s and early 1900s constitute a historical period known as the Second Industrial Revolution. While this time period is marked by significant advancements in technology, such as the invention of the lightbulb and the vast expansion of transportation by railroad, it is also marked by the unsanitary and dangerous factory conditions in which millions of people worked.

During this time, the Massachusetts legislature led the nation by outlawing some of the worst ways in which factory owners were taking advantage of employees. For example, the state limited the number of hours children could work each day in 1842, passed the first factory safety and health law in the United States in 1877, and was the first state to adopt a minimum wage law in 1912.

New federal law criminalizes online sharing of “revenge porn” and requires websites to removei Images on request

Published on: October 23, 2025 | by Niamh Gibbons

As we have previously written, most states have passed legislation in recent years to criminalize the distribution of non-consensually distributed intimate images, often known as “revenge porn.” The federal Violence Against Women Act also allows victims of revenge porn to sue in federal court for damages caused by the sharing of sexually graphic images of them. The recently-enacted Take It Down Act is a new federal statute that makes it a federal offense to publish, or threaten to publish, intimate images or deepfakes (which the Act refers to as “digital forgeries”) without the consent of the person shown in the image, and requires online platforms to remove such images within forty-eight hours of a removal request.

Passage of the bipartisan legislation has been welcomed as a step toward curbing online harassment and exploitation, a problem that is only becoming more widespread as AI makes it easier to access sexual images and create fake ones. Yet as with other laws aimed at regulating online content, the new statute is open to potential challenges, largely on free speech grounds.

Criminal offense and penalties

Massachusetts state legislature considers enhanced protections for librarians and safeguards against book bans

Published on: October 20, 2025 | by Jacob Bezner

As book bans continue to cause controversy nationwide, Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit ideologically driven book bans and protect public school employees from retaliation based on good faith decisions to include or exclude materials from their libraries.

Massachusetts is no exception from the nationwide movement toward ideologically driven book bans. In 2024, the Commonwealth experienced twenty attempts to ban books from school and public libraries, eighth most in the country. This number represented a decline from 2023, when the Commonwealth encountered thirty-seven attempts to ban books, fourth most in the country.

Nationwide, interest groups and government entities have spearheaded campaigns to ban books. Of such campaigns, seventy-two percent are led by interest groups and government entities. In comparison, only sixteen percent of these campaigns are led by parents.

Supreme Judicial Court holds murder charges cannot be based on accidental killing of bystander in course of legitimate acts of self-defense

Published on: October 16, 2025 | by Noah Gillen

Massachusetts courts have recognized self-defense as a defense to homicide as far back as the trial following the Boston Massacre in 1770, where John Adams successfully defended all but one of a group of British soldiers who had fired into a crowd of protesters that had thrown objects at them. In all that time, however, Massachusetts courts had never definitively answered the question of whether the defense applies where in the process of defending oneself, a defendant kills an innocent bystander.

That changed on Tuesday, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court addressed the question in its decision in Commonwealth v. Santana-Rodriguez. The defendant in the case, Kenneth Jose Santana-Rodriguez, was at a salon with his girlfriend when her former boyfriend confronted him. Revealing a gun in his waistband, the ex-boyfriend stated, “You know what’s about to happen.” Believing “it was him or [the ex-boyfriend],” the defendant drew a gun and fired at the ex-boyfriend, but instead hit Trung Tran, a salon employee, who was killed.

In its opinion, the Court concluded that Santana-Rodriguez and similarly situated defendants acting in lawful self-defense cannot be guilty of first- or second-degree murder, but can still be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter if the prosecution proves that a defendant’s exercise of self-defense “was wanton or reckless so as to create a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm would result to an unintended victim.” In coming to this conclusion, the Court applied the concept of transferred intent to the self-defense context. Transferred intent is a theory of criminal liability that allows a defendant who attempts to kill one person, but by mistake or accident kills another, to still be criminally liable for the killing because their “felonious intent is transferred from the intended victim to the unintended victim.” In the self-defense context, when a defendant uses force to defend against an aggressor, but by mistake or accident harms someone other than the aggressor, the justifiability of the defendant’s use of force in self-defense carries over, or “transfers.” As stated in the opinion, the “intent follows the bullet.”

Massachusetts state legislature considers far-reaching AI bill targeting algorithmic discrimination

Published on: October 6, 2025 | by Jackson Estrin

Following the U.S. Senate’s decision in July to remove language in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have limited the ability of states to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the employment and hiring context, states are now free to continue to legislate in this area. In 2024, Colorado passed SB 205, one of the first state laws directly related to algorithmic discrimination. Algorithmic discrimination broadly refers to the phenomenon of using an automated decision-making tool to make or inform a decision that has the effect of discriminating against a protected class. Since the adoption of SB 205, several other states have introduced similar laws targeting the use of AI in the employment context, and following the recent spike in interest in this issue, the Massachusetts state legislature introduced SD 3007, “An Act to ensure non-discrimination by improving algorithmic system.” SD 3007 has the potential to be one of the most comprehensive laws of its kind in the entire country, and could prove to be highly influential as legislators across the country grapple with how to regulate rapidly evolving AI technology.

SD 3007

SD 3007 was introduced on June 26, 2025, and was referred to the committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity on September 4, 2025. The law would cover “any person, business, organization, or government agency that is subject to the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, excluding an individual acting at their own direction and in a non-commercial context.”