Humanities & Society

Surveillance is everywhere, from street corner cameras to the subject of books and movies. “We talk a lot about why surveillance is bad, but we don’t really know why,” says Neil Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “We only have a vague intuition about it, which is why courts don’t protect it. We know we don’t like it, and that it has something to do with privacy, but beyond that, the details can be fuzzy.” Richards’ new article on the topic, “The Danger of Surveillance,” will be published in the next issue of the Harvard Law Review.

A group of some of the country’s top scholars in First Amendment law recently gathered at Washington University in St. Louis to discuss pressing challenges being faced by the first of our Bill of Rights. Three issues rose to the top of the list for Washington University’s first amendment experts: free expression in a digital age; impaired political debate; and weakened rights of groups.

On a recent visit to Washington, D.C., graduate and professional students of the McDonnell International Scholars Academy had the opportunity to hear from and meet with outgoing U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.

When Carl Neureuther, a 1940 graduate of Washington University, set up an endowment in 1987 to support library collections, he was also ensuring support for something more: a lifelong love of reading. The results are in for this year’s Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition sponsored by Washington University Libraries.

Beginning today, WUSTL is hosting more than 1,000 students from across the globe. A president inspires a college student, who goes on to inspire another generation of students. How the Brown School’s Amanda Moore McBride became a link from a president to a new generation of university students.

On Tuesday, April 2, City of St. Louis and St. Louis County voters will have the opportunity to vote on Proposition P, the Safe and Accessible Arch and Public Parks Initiative. Proposition P proposes a 3/16th of 1 cent sales tax increase that would be used to pay for improvements to the Gateway Arch grounds, the regional Great Rivers Greenway trails, and city and county parks.

As part of its Clinton Global Initiative University efforts, Washington University in St. Louis has announced a major institutional commitment to action around the important issue of sustainability.

Washington University Professor Gerald L. Early, PhD, a noted essayist and American culture critic, will receive a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame in The Loop. An induction ceremony will be at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, April 11, outside the Moonrise Hotel, 6177 Delmar Blvd. His star will be embedded at a later time near the corner of Delmar and Eastgate Avenue after construction is completed on the first phase of WUSTL’s Loop Student Living Initiative.

More than 60 of the 118 innovative, far-reaching projects that Washington University in St. Louis students have committed to accomplish as part of this year’s Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) April 5-7 will be on display at Faces of Hope. Also, WUSTL leaders will announce the university’s institutional Commitment to Action, a significant investment in a more sustainable future, during the event from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 27, in the Danforth University Center, 6475 Forsyth Blvd.

Mindfulness — paying attention to one’s current experience in a nonjudgmental way — might help us to learn more about our own personalities, new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests.