Humanities & Society

On April 5, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed into law House Bill 1523, a controversial “religious freedom” bill, which says that the state government cannot punish public employees, social service providers and businesses that refuse to provide services to people because of a religious opposition. The law is unconstitutional, said Elizabeth Sepper, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

The August 2014 death of unarmed Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer captivated the nation and touched off a heated debate about the nature of law enforcement in the United States. A new book edited by Washington University in St. Louis’ Kimberly Norwood explores the underlying fault lines that cracked and gave rise to the eruption in Ferguson, Mo.

An international cohort of designers, engineers, hydrologists, planners and other professionals — along with a handful of Washington University faculty, students and young alumni — have won a global competition charged with developing a 100-year plan for stabilizing the Mississippi River delta. A delta, says the Sam Fox School’s John Hoal, that’s on life support.

The Brown School’s Center for Social Development has launched a new initiative aimed at examining how racism and inequality affect quality of life in the U.S. The Collaboration on Race, Inequality, and Social Mobility in America will examine the impact of inequality and structural racism on people of color.

As the world marvels at the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, it is important to put recent changes in historical perspective, says Washington University’s Elzbieta Sklodowska.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry this week said that the United States has determined ISIS’ actions against Yazidis and other minority groups in Iraq and Syria constitute genocide. The allegations of genocide by the United States government reinforce similar findings made last year by United Nations bodies and provide a clear path for ISIS leaders to be tried in international and domestic courts for their crimes, said Leila Sadat, an expert on crimes against humanity in the School of Law.

President Barack Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, could make Senate Republicans think twice about stonewalling the nomination process, especially as the presidential election nears, said Greg Magarian, constitutional law expert at the School of Law.

While cynics may scoff at the United Nations’ March 20 observance of International Happiness Day, a positive psychology researcher at Washington University in St. Louis says it’s high time for happiness to be taken seriously.

As the Republican Party continues to roll toward selecting its presidential nominee, some party leaders and members of the media have begun to speculate about the possibility of a brokered convention. Such a move would almost certainly hurt the Republicans in the general election, said Washington University election law and constitutional law expert Greg Magarian.

A new poverty risk calculator, co-developed by Mark Rank of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, can determine an individual’s risk of poverty based on four basic factors: race, education, marital status and age.