Dershowitz said that he believes the Supreme Court's ruling will have a lasting effect on public opinion.

"The determining factor in [the Court's] vote was the names of the litigants. It's a terrible precedent. It delegitimizes the Court as an arbiter of fair decisions," he said.

Columbia Professor of Law Samuel Issacharoff, along with two other Constitutional law specialists, has published the first textbook about the 2000 presidential election--just in time for use in classes this spring.

When Elections Go Bad: The Law of Democracy and the Presidential Election of 2000 came out in January.

And Owen M. Fiss, Sterling Professor of Law at the Yale Law School, said he thinks the election and subsequent Supreme Court decision are important to teach in a law school setting, though he warns that their long-lasting legal effects should not be overestimated.

"The real question law teachers have to face now is the question of overreaction to it," Fiss said. "The court has made mistakes before, and transcended these mistakes."

--Staff Writer Lauren R. Dorgan can be reached at dorgan@fas.harvard.edu.