HLS Professor To Serve as Principal Deputy Counsel to Obama

The exodus of top Harvard professors to the Obama administration continued last week with the announcement that Harvard Law School Professor Daniel J. Meltzer ’72 will depart for Washington to serve as principal deputy counsel to the president.

As a principal attorney at the White House, Meltzer is likely to tackle a slew of contentious legal issues facing the Obama administration—including the widely anticipated reversal of controversial Bush administration war-time policies.

“He’s a first-rate scholar on a whole range of issues involving the federal judiciary as well as habeas corpus—everything ranging from torture to Guantanamo,” said HLS Professor Laurence H. Tribe ’62.

The White House Counsel’s Office advises the president on issues including constraints of executive power, judicial appointments, and adherence to federal ethics and disclosure laws. Under President Bush, the office was widely criticized for allegedly rubber-stamping presidential action and failing in its advisory capacity.

“I’m afraid the Office of White House Council during the Bush administration was unconcerned about laws,” Tribe said.

During the campaign, President Obama pledged to make uses of executive authority more transparent and to revise some of these controversial policies and their legal justifications.

Meltzer co-authored an article with Law School Professor Richard H. Fallon in 2007 which asserted that, contrary to Bush-era legal doctrine, civilians held in the United States or Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants have the right to challenge their detainment in a civilian court.

Meltzer is at least the seventh Harvard professor to decamp Cambridge for Washington and the third Law School professor to leave for the capitol. Kennedy School Professor Joseph S. Nye is rumored to be Obama’s choice for ambassador to Japan.

Meltzer could not be reached for comment yesterday.

—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached at egroll@fas.harvard.edu.