Humanities & Society

The School of Law’s 22nd annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series fall lineup features leading lawyers, judges, academics and authors addressing high-profile issues such as free speech and racial justice.

Gregory Magarian, professor of law, explains how the Supreme Court has turned the First Amendment on its head.

Bruce Goldstein, JD ’80, is president and executive director of Farmworker Justice, which fights for better working conditions and wages for the 2.4 million farm workers in the U.S.

The School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis has launched a new First Amendment Clinic, aimed at allowing students to gain experience by providing legal assistance to organizations, students, journalists and citizens.

During the July 30 Democratic presidential debate, candidate Pete Buttigieg renewed his calls to “depoliticize the Supreme Court with structural reform.” Buttigieg has endorsed a Supreme Court reform proposal offered by Daniel Epps, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court passed away on July 16, 2019. Greg Magarian, the Thomas and Karole Green Professor of Law, served as a justice clerk for Stevens and offers this remembrance.

Attorney General William Barr announced July 15 a new Trump Administration plan, effective the next day, barring Central American immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States unless they seek it first in other Central American countries, a move that a Washington University in St. Louis immigration expert says “violates the clear language of the law.”

Two students in John Inazu’s first-year “Criminal Law” class embodied the lessons taught during the class about theories of punishment, questions of whether criminal justice can remedy injustice and issues of equity in sentencing.

The Supreme Court’s June 27 decision to kill all federal constitutional complaints about partisan gerrymandering is a tremendous loss for our democratic process, says a constitutional law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.