Harvard Law School

===Founding===
Harvard Law School's founding is traced to the establishment of a 'law department' at Harvard in 1819.<ref name="auto1">{{cite web |url=https://hls.harvard.edu/content/uploads/2016/03/Shield-Committee-Report.pdf |title=Recommendation to the President and Fellows of Harvard College on the Shield Approved for the Law School |access-date=June 24, 2016|publisher=Harvard University |archive-date=May 22, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160522120647/https://hls.harvard.edu/content/uploads/2016/03/Shield-Committee-Report.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Dating the founding to the year of the creation of the law department makes Harvard Law School the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. [[William & Mary Law School]] opened first in 1779, but it closed due to the [[American Civil War]], reopening in 1920.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wm.edu/law/about/quickfacts.shtml |title=Quick Facts: W&M Law School |publisher=Marshall-Wythe School of Law |access-date=August 24, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080604133241/http://www.wm.edu/law/about/quickfacts.shtml |archive-date=June 4, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The [[University of Maryland School of Law]] was chartered in 1816 but did not begin classes until 1824, and it also closed during the Civil War.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.law.umaryland.edu/about/mission.html |title=The University of Maryland School of Law: Our History and Mission |publisher=The University of Maryland School of Law |access-date=June 21, 2008 |archive-date=July 2, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080702030533/http://www.law.umaryland.edu/about/mission.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:John Singleton Copley - Isaac Royall - 39.247 - Museum of Fine Arts.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Portrait of [[Isaac Royall Jr.]], painted in 1769 by [[John Singleton Copley|J.S. Copley]]]]
The founding of the law department came two years after the establishment of Harvard's first endowed professorship in law, funded by a bequest from the estate of wealthy slave-owner [[Isaac Royall Jr.]], in 1817.<ref name="auto1"/> Royall left roughly 1,000 acres of land in Massachusetts to Harvard when he died in exile in Nova Scotia, where he fled to as a [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalist]] during the [[American Revolution]], in 1781, "to be appropriated towards the endowing a Professor of Laws ... or a Professor of Physick and Anatomy, whichever the said overseers and Corporation [of the college] shall judge to be best."<ref name="auto1"/> The value of the land, when fully liquidated in 1809, was $2,938; the [[Harvard Corporation]] allocated $400 from the income generated by those funds to create the Royall Professorship of Law in 1815.<ref name="auto1"/> The Royalls were so involved in the slave trade, that "the labor of slaves underwrote the teaching of law in Cambridge."<ref>{{cite web
|url= http://www.harvardandslavery.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Harvard-Slavery-Book-111110.pdf
|title= Harvard and Slavery: Seeking a Forgotten History
|author= Sven Beckert, Katherine Stevens and the students of the Harvard and Slavery Research Seminar
|date= 2011
|page= 11
|publisher= Harvard University
|access-date= December 12, 2018
|archive-date= July 28, 2018
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180728150449/http://www.harvardandslavery.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Harvard-Slavery-Book-111110.pdf
|url-status= live
}}</ref> The dean of the law school traditionally held the Royall chair; deans [[Elena Kagan]] and [[Martha Minow]] declined the Royall chair due to its origins in the proceeds of slavery.

The Royall family's [[coat of arms]], which shows three stacked wheat sheaves on a blue background, was adopted as part of the law school's arms in 1936, topped with the university's motto (''Veritas'', [[Latin]] for 'truth').<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/bulletin/2001/summer/gallery_main.html |title=Issues Archive |work= Harvard Law Today |publisher=Harvard University|access-date=March 10, 2015 |archive-date=October 24, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141024205832/http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/bulletin/2001/summer/gallery_main.html |url-status=live }}</ref>  Until the school began investigating its connections with slavery in the 2010s, most alumni and faculty at the time were unaware of the origins of the arms.<ref name="crimson">{{cite news
|url= https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/4/24/hls-continues-no-seal/
|title= Two Years After Law School Removed Royall Crest, No New Seal in Sight
|author= Aidan F. Ryan
|date= April 24, 2018
|newspaper= The Harvard Crimson
|access-date= December 12, 2018
|archive-date= March 13, 2020
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200313171946/https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/4/24/hls-continues-no-seal/
|url-status= live
}}</ref> In March 2016, following requests by students, the school decided to [[#Heraldic shield|remove the emblem]] because of its association with slavery.<ref>{{cite news|title=Harvard law school drops official shield over slavery links|url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/05/harvard-law-school-drops-official-shield-over-slavery-links|access-date=March 5, 2016|work=The Guardian|date=March 4, 2016|archive-date=March 6, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306082836/http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/05/harvard-law-school-drops-official-shield-over-slavery-links|url-status=live}}</ref> In November 2019, Harvard announced that a working group had been tasked to develop a new emblem.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/11/27/law-school-seal-committee/| title = Harvard Law School Announces Working Group to Develop New Seal |work= The Harvard Crimson| access-date = April 20, 2020| archive-date = March 24, 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210324063128/https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/11/27/law-school-seal-committee/| url-status = live}}</ref> In August 2021, the new Harvard Law School emblem was introduced.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://today.law.harvard.edu/harvard-law-school-unveils-new-shield/|title=Harvard Law School unveils new shield|newspaper=Harvard Law Today|access-date=1 September 2021|archive-date=August 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825002956/https://today.law.harvard.edu/harvard-law-school-unveils-new-shield/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Royall's Medford estate, the [[Isaac Royall House]], is now a museum which features the only remaining slave quarters in the northeast United States. In 2019, the government of [[Antigua and Barbuda]] requested reparations from Harvard Law School on the ground that it benefitted from Royall's enslavement of people in the country.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/11/06/antigua-and-barbuda-want-reparations-from-harvard-because-law-school-slavery-ties/JA1j39FdEDBsPbTjPpTarN/story.html|work=The Boston Globe |title=Antigua and Barbuda want reparations from Harvard because of the law school's slavery ties |access-date=November 10, 2019 |archive-date=November 10, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191110021741/https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/11/06/antigua-and-barbuda-want-reparations-from-harvard-because-law-school-slavery-ties/JA1j39FdEDBsPbTjPpTarN/story.html |url-status=live }}</ref>