Author: Neil Schoenherr

As Americans lose confidence in democratic institutions at the national level, the country’s least democratic branch of government looks better and better.

President Trump’s recent announcement to suspend funding to the World Health Organization is “counter to our interests in addressing our needs to save the lives and further the health of Americans, as well as an abandonment of America’s position as a global leader,” says the director of Washington University’s Institute for Public Health.

President Donald Trump announced July 7 that the United States has officially begun to withdraw from the World Health Organization. Trump may or may not have the authority to do so, says an expert on health law at Washington University in St. Louis.

While COVID-19 has impacted all individuals, the impact has not been equal. In a new national Socioeconomic Impact of COVID-19 survey, the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis found that liquid assets increased the likelihood that an individual could practice social distancing.

Kimberly Norwood, the Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law, is being honored by Missouri Lawyers Media for her work on diversity and inclusion.

Given that universal mask wearing might be the next step for the country’s fight against Covid-19, it is in all of our best interests if we help each other learn to tolerate and then overcome our anxieties about wearing them.

Whether we move statues or keep them in place, our history in all its complexity needs to remain in plain sight. We cannot lock it behind walls or barricade it with cement. We need to move through that place of pain until the statues themselves become irrelevant.

The takeaway from my experience at Wash U is that companies can do that with some core factors in place: firm, explicit support and resources from leadership; an intentional focus on racial diversity in hiring and advancement; and creating a culture that recognizes and responds to the realities Black workers face.

As the nation struggles with police violence, a new report from HomeGrown StL in the Race and Opportunity Lab at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis recommends reforms to build an equitable, transparent and accountable public safety approach that will include lawsuit liability, a police misconduct database and federal funding mandates.

I fear that removing episodes — some of which actually open discussions about racist representation — simply goes for an easy, non-substantive approach to harder questions about more dangerous racist logics and practices in Hollywood culture.