Humanities & Society

Neil Richards, the Koch Distinguished Professor in the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, addressed a Dec. 9 hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, where he pushed for passage of a comprehensive law that would provide appropriate safeguards, enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for consumers when it comes to data sharing.

In The Punitive Turn in American Life, WashU alumnus Michael S. Sherry describes how America applied war tactics to fighting crime.

Questions about Amy Coney Barrett’s religious affiliation and beliefs have dominated public discussion since President Trump announced that she was his pick to fill the U.S. Supreme Court seat left vacant by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing. While her Catholicism is considered controversial by some, should it impact her confirmation? A Washington University in St. Louis law professor weighs in.

The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a list of “anarchist jurisdictions,” which it says have permitted violence and destruction of property to persist. If the Trump administration withholds federal funds from these jurisdictions based on the “anarchist” designation, that withholding of funds would violate the Constitution in at least two ways, says a Constitutional law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, visited Washington University in St. Louis twice during her career — in 1979 and 2001. She met with students and faculty, lectured and even contributed journal articles to the Washington University Law Quarterly and Washington University Journal of Law & Policy. Faculty from the School of Law reflect on her long and influential career.

President Donald Trump’s top picks to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court — Judges Amy Coney Barrett and Barbara Lagoa — would fall ideologically somewhere between Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, shifting the median of court far to the right, suggests a new analysis by Supreme Court experts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Daniel Epps, associate professor in the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, and Steven Smith, Kate M. Gregg Distinguished Professor of Social Science, weigh in on who has the most to lose before the election if a nomination is completed, how this situation differs from the Senate-stalled Merrick Garland nomination in 2016 and why the nomination system needs to change.

In light of President Trump’s recent attacks on the United States Postal Service, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act should be revised to prohibit racial discrimination in voting by the federal government, says a Washington University in St. Louis expert on voting rights.

The U.S. House and Senate are at a stalemate over enacting sweeping police reforms in the wake of the death of George Floyd and other Black Americans. The gulf between the Democratic and Republican proposed solutions is wide and neither side seems willing to bend, says an expert on criminal legal reform at Washington University in St. Louis.