Author: Neil Schoenherr

The wave of recent student protests on college campuses has revived a long-standing debate about the tension between free speech and policies of diversity and inclusion. That tension is vastly overstated, said free speech expert Greg Magarian.

A Utah juvenile court judge;s decision regarding the foster child of a lesbian couple expose the possible limits of the Supreme Court’s ruling this summer on gay marriage, said Susan Appleton, a national expert in family law.

Washington University in St. Louis has announced the launch of the Center for Health Economics and Policy, to be housed in the Institute for Public Health. The goal of the new center is to improve population health in America by encouraging health policy and economics research and dissemination.

Washington University in St. Louis has received a two-year, $1.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Wolfgang Munar, MD, associate director for Global Social Policy at the Brown School’s Social System Design Lab and associate director of the Institute for Public Health’s Global Health Center, is the project’s primary investigator. The grant money will be used to test a novel methodology that will measure the social structures that enhance or limit adoption of modern contraceptives in rural Ethiopia.

The trial of former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Hotlzclaw, accused of 36 charges resulting from assaults against several black women while on duty, has begun. Though African Americans make up approximately 16 percent of the population of Oklahoma County, there are no black jurors among the eight men and four women serving. The jury selection process allowed for the controversial makeup, said Peter Joy, JD, a criminal justice expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Obama Administration announced Nov. 10 it will seek United States Supreme Court review of a ruling blocking President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration. Timing is crucial, says Stephen H. Legomsky, JD, DPhil, an expert on immigration law at Washington University in St. Louis.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is considering adoption of anti-discrimination regulations that would apply to all health care providers and build upon the Affordable Care Act mandate prohibiting discrimination “on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability.” These new rules would help reduce disparities in the health care system, said Elizabeth Sepper, JD, associate professor of law.

Harold Pollack, PhD, co-director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, will talk about socio-economic and school-based approaches and strategies for reducing gun violence and why they have or have not worked, during a keynote at 2 p.m. Nov. 12 in the Clark-Fox Forum at the Brown School’s Hillman Hall on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

Nancy Staudt, JD, PhD, dean of the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, has been installed as the inaugural Howard and Caroline Cayne Professor of Law. A lecture and reception to celebrate the occasion were held Oct. 22 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall.

The United States Supreme Court agreed Nov. 6, for the fourth time in three years, to rule on challenges to the Affordable Care Act. This time the court will rule on the birth control mandate. A decision siding with large nonprofit corporations in this new case means that employers would prevail at significant cost to employees, said Elizabeth Sepper, JD, religious freedom and health law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.