Humanities & Society

Social Security’s cost of living adjustments (COLA) are designed to protect against the erosion of retiree purchasing power when prices go up, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). “Now Social Security self-styled ‘reformers’ seek to lower COLA every year based on their claim that COLA overstates inflation,” says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. The proposed substitute for the current CPI formula, ‘Chained COLA,’ is based on the assumption that benefit recipients substitute lower-priced goods as prices go up. “This the assumption is unrealistic for those millions who only have access to convenience stores that typically offer fewer choice and higher prices,” says Bernstein, the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “And, further, it is not reasonable to assume that most consumers can outwit the wiles of merchandising experts.”

Todd Gitlin, PhD, a noted 1960s cultural scholar and book author, will visit Washington University in St. Louis Wednesday and Thursday, March 28 and 29, to keynote a two-day mini-colloquium exploring the counter-cultural movements of the year 1968, including a special focus on the many literary, social, political and artistic theories spawned by these movements. 

Research has shown that youth violence is a major cause of injury and death among Latinos. However, there is little understanding of violent behaviors of youths within various Latino ethnic subgroups such as Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Mexicans. Lorena Estrada-Martínez, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, recently examined how family dynamics and neighborhood racial/ethnic composition and socioeconomic status (SES) impact youth violence among Latino subgroups. “Higher levels of youth independence can reduce the risk of violence in primarily Latino neighborhoods,” Estrada-Martinez says. 

Rebecca Dresser, JD, the Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law and professor of ethics at the School of Medicine, was diagnosed with head and neck cancer six years ago. For perspective, she reached out to other medical ethicists, who had either had cancer themselves, or had a spouse diagnosed with the disease. The group’s meetings became the basis for the book, Malignant: Medical Ethicists Confront Cancer.

The U.S. Constitution’s global influence is on the decline, finds a new study by David S. Law, JD, PhD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Other countries are increasingly turning to sources other than the U.S. Constitution for guidance in establishing human rights provisions and for general structural provisions in creating their constitutions,” he says. Law, with co-author Mila Versteeg, DPhil, associate professor of law at the University of Virginia, analyzed 60 years of data on the content of the world’s constitutions. “The data revealed that there is a significant and growing generic component to global constitutionalism, in the form of a set of rights provisions that appear in nearly all formal constitutions,” Law says. “Our analysis also confirms, however, that the U.S. Constitution is becoming increasingly out of sync with these global practices.

Mike McLaughlin has had a difficult life. The MBA student at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis was emotionally and physically abused as a child at the hands of his mother and stepfather — a tragedy in its own right but one in which he says helped prepare him for his next big challenge: through-hiking the Appalachian and Ozark trails back-to-back.

Pat Hollinger, a junior majoring in philosophy in Arts & Sciences, placed first out of 10 poets who performed Feb. 17 during the the Fourth Annual Poetry Grand Slam in Edison Theatre. Hollinger performed before three poems before a packed crowd of about 800. He and four other WUSTL poets will represent the university in the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational in Ontario, Calif., April 18-21.

Many children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can benefit from medication for related disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “Unfortunately, there is very poor understanding of overall medication use for kids with autism,” says Paul T. Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. As a step toward improving the situation, Shattuck and colleagues studied psychotropic medication use compared across individuals with an ASD, ADHD and both an ASD with ADHD. “Observations from the present study reinforce the complexity of pharmacologic treatment of challenging behavior in kids with ASDs and ADHD. There needs to be a clearer guide for treating kids with both an ASD and ADHD,” he says.

The American public exhibits deep partisan divisions about the direction that federal fiscal policy should take, finds a new national survey from the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St. Louis. The American Panel Survey will take place monthly, and will measure shifts in attitudes over time.

At Washington University in St. Louis this semester, the Department of Physics and University College, both in Arts & Sciences, will describe a few great experiments in physics. Four lectures will be held at 10 a.m. on four consecutive Saturday mornings, March 10–31, in the Hughes Lecture Room, Room 201 in Crow Hall.