Humanities & Society

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.

After President Donald Trump made unsubstantiated claims on Twitter about mail-in voting and Twitter responded by attaching a link to his tweets, Trump threatened to close down the social media giant. “The president appears to have no understanding of or concern for free speech,” says a constitutional law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Neil M. Richards has been installed as the inaugural Koch Distinguished Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. A ceremony and reception were held last October to mark the occasion.

What is it like to teach immigration law during an immigration crisis? Not easy. Katie Herbert Meyer, director of the Immigration Clinic at the law school, discusses the major challenges.

The United States needs a “Defender General” — a public official charged with representing the collective interests of criminal defendants before the Supreme Court of the United States, argues a new article co-authored by Daniel Epps, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

The spring session of the Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series kicks off at 3 p.m. Friday, Jan. 17, in Anheuser-Busch Hall, with a chat with constitutional experts Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the School of Law at University of California, Berkeley, and Lyrissa Lidsky, dean of the University of Missouri School of Law, discussing the future of free speech.

Many questions remain following the Jan. 3 death of Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s potential retaliation. Chief among them: Was the strike legal? “Unless there is much more to the story than meets the eye, the answer seems to be no,” said Leila Sadat, director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute and an expert on international criminal law.