Business & Entrepreneurship

3.5 out of 12 — That is the score the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave President Obama’s highly anticipated address on NSA spying last week. And while lauding Obama for recognizing the dangers of government surveillance and the importance of discussing it, Washington University in St. Louis privacy law expert Neil Richards agrees that the president did not quite go far enough to protect individual privacy.

Stuart Bunderson, the George and Carol Bauer Professor of Organizational Ethics and Governance, has accepted an appointment as associate dean of executive programs at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School. He will assume this role March 1.

“The House leadership’s procedural excuses for blocking a vote on critical immigration reform make little sense,” says Stephen Legomsky, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and the recent Chief Counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security. In that position he worked intensively with White House and DHS officials and played a major role on comprehensive immigration reform. “It’s now been 7 months since the Senate passed a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill. Speaker Boehner should allow the people’s elected representatives in the House to consider it without further delay,” Legomsky argues.

Federal appellate judge Bernice Donald, JD, president of the American Bar Foundation, and Thomas Saenz, JD, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, will be the next speakers for the 16th annual School of Law Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series.

President Barack Obama signed a memorandum Jan. 15 directing agencies to allow federal workers to take six weeks of paid sick leave to help with a new child or a sick relative. The president also asked Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act, which would grant Americans seven days a year of paid sick time. Augmenting the Family and Medical Leave Act is one place Congress might start if it wants to combat sex-role stereotypes and advance women’s equal employment opportunity, as well as supporting families in times of illness, say experts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Washington University School of Law alumni Joseph E. and Yvonne L. Cordell have made a $1 million gift commitment to establish and endow the Cordell & Cordell Visiting Professorship in the law school.

Washington University in St. Louis and Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea are partnering to offer a unique learning experience to master the complex world of business by earning two degrees on two continents in their new Global Master of Finance Dual Degree program.

Falling oil and gasoline prices have prompted some in Congress to debate about increasing the federal fuel tax, which helps fund highway and bridge construction, among other projects. Increasing the tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993 and isn’t tied to inflation, to help offset revenue lost through lower prices at the pump may seem like a good idea in theory, but it’s much more difficult in practice, says tax law expert Adam Rosenzweig, JD, of Washington University in St. Louis.

Renewable energy subsidies have been a politically popular program during the past decade. These subsidies have led to explosive growth in wind power installations across the United States, especially in the Midwest and Texas. But do these subsidies work? Not as well as one might think, finds a new study from Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School.

Federal Judge Richard J. Leon’s recent decision ruling the National Security Agency phone surveillance program unconstitutional is absolutely correct as a matter of law, says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “The bulk data collection at issue in the case reveals a tremendous amount about us – who we know, who we confide in, where we go, and with whom,” he said. “It’s exactly the sort of information that should require a warrant before the government obtains it.” Richards was struck by Leon’s willingness to question whether this surveillance program was effective.