Massachusetts sends Warren to U.S. Senate

Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren—bankruptcy expert, Wall Street reformer and consumer watch dog—has won a hard-fought race for the U.S. Senate. The Democratic nominee defeated her Republican opponent, incumbent Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.

Said HLS Dean Martha Minow: “I congratulate my colleague and friend Elizabeth Warren on her election to the Senate. Through her important work as a teacher and scholar here at Harvard Law School, she provided a strong voice for those who are too seldom heard, and she emerged as a passionate advocate for fundamental fairness. I truly believe that all of us here at the Law School can be proud that she will now bring that voice and her remarkable skills as an advocate to the floor of the U.S. Senate.”

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Warren served as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, overseeing Congress’s use of the TARP money and monitoring bank bailouts. She was a strong critic of the banking industry and a plainspoken advocate for heightened financial consumer protections.(See 2009 Harvard Law Bulletin story: “Top Cop.”)

Since well before the financial crisis, Warren has advocated for the creation of an agency to protect consumers against deceptive financial products. In 2010, she helped to set up the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which serves that function.

Read the rest of the story on the HLS website.