Humanities & Society

When she was 10, Shirley Padmore Mensah survived a coup in her native Liberia. Due to that and encouragement from her father, Mensah studied at Washington University’s School of Law eventually becoming a judge in Missouri with a deep appreciation of the rule of law.

President Donald Trump on June 20 directed his administration to detain migrant families together instead of separating parents from their children, but one of the nation’s leading immigration experts argues that jailing migrant families is still “cruel and unnecessary” under U.S. law.

Bridging divisions in religion and politics will be the topic of a series of interdisciplinary panels, beginning Tuesday, Feb. 6, sponsored by Washington University in St. Louis’ John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics.

As Americans begin to file their last returns under a fading tax system, as President Donald Trump concludes his first State of the Union with a great emphasis on the economy, as the world watches this country undergo tectonic changes, it’s time to cut through the politicking and positioning. Washington University in St. Louis compiled researchers and experts across campus to attempt to put the new tax reform into perspective, plainly speaking.

Much of the debate over the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act focuses on whether Congress favors rich corporations over poor people. But an expert on tax law at Washington University in St. Louis asks, what about poor corporations?

The Trump administration on Sept. 4 announced plans to end DACA, which protects nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. The president’s decision is not only regrettable, it was entirely unnecessary, says Stephen Legomsky, the John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus and renowned expert on immigration law.

In the wake of the Aug. 12 confrontations between protesters and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, some progressives are calling for legal restrictions on the display of the Nazi flag. These arguments are entirely understandable, but they often misapply existing First Amendment law, and they suppress free speech values that progressives — more than anyone else — should want to defend, says a constitutional law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

The justices of the nation’s highest court have a bird’s-eye view of the nation’s discord. But Lee Epstein trains her binoculars on them as they do their work.

Alicia McDonnell, JD ’95, is a former prosecutor. Today, she encourages law students to pursue careers in public service.

America spoke in November, one month after the candidates collided in the presidential debate held Oct. 9 at Washington University in St. Louis. In the days that followed the historic 2016 election, faculty experts across campus offered their perspectives on the economy, the legislative responses, the cultural and global ripple effects.