JOSH BLACKMAN: Democracy Died in Darkness in Harvard Trial Sidebars: Judge Allison Burroughs refused to unseal an anti-Asian joke shared by a federal employee to Harvard’s Dean of Admissions. “A particularly egregious exercise of sidebar-redaction came during the Harvard affirmative action trial in Boston federal district court. Jannie Suk Gersen, a professor at Harvard, writes about what happened in Judge Allison Burroughs courtroom. During the trial, the judge held lengthy sidebar discussions with counsel, and declined to release those matters in the public transcript. Indeed, those sidebars were not initially included in the record that was transmitted to the United States Supreme Court!”