Humanities & Society

The WikiLeaks controversy raises a number of important legal issues about national security and freedom of the press under U.S. law, says Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Journalists and government officials have suggested that either WikiLeaks or The New York Times (NYT) might face legal liability for publishing the contents of diplomatic cables and other leaked documents. “In order to find either WikiLeaks/Julian Assange or the NYT liable, the government would need to prove two things — first that a law had been broken, and second that enforcement of the law was constitutional under the First Amendment,” Richards says.

Nearly half of all Americans between the ages of 60 and 90 will encounter at least one year of poverty or near poverty, says a recent study by Mark R. Rank, PhD, professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The findings are published in the current issue of Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services.

Try to imagine an environmentally friendly science lab that reduces, reuses and recycles. That’s the challenge posed by the second annual Olin Sustainability Case Competition at Washington University in St. Louis. Students who devise the best plan for green labs will be seeing green — a $5,000 first prize — when the winners are announced in February.

Common Ground, a joint initiative of the Department of History, the Program in African and African American Studies and the Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, all in Arts & Sciences, will host five speakers over the remainder of the academic year. The first, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, PhD, will present Thursday, Dec. 2.

For the first time ever, a team from China is on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The men’s basketball team from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, is visiting WUSTL through Dec. 5 to take part in the 27th annual Lopata Classic basketball tournament.

Gerald L. Early, PhD, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in Arts & Sciences and director of the Center for the Humanities, both in Arts & Sciences, chats with a group of students Nov. 17 in South 40 House about the book Blue Angel by Francine Prose. Prose will be on campus to receive the 2010 Washington University International Humanities Medal Nov. 30.

The field in the 2010 Olin Cup business plan competition was narrowed Nov. 18 as 21 semifinalists faced off in the elevator pitch stage of the race for entrepreneurs at Washington University in St. Louis. Six ventures were selected to advance to the final round of the annual contest that will award $75,000 to the most promising enterprise in February 2011.

Priya Mallika Sury, a 2010 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, has been named a Rhodes Scholar, according to an announcement today by the Rhodes Trust. Sury is among 32 students from across the United States chosen for graduate study at the University of Oxford in England. Winners of the highly acclaimed award are selected on the basis of their undergraduate academic achievements, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor.

Students dance during the annual Diwali, or Festival of Lights, program Nov. 12 at Edision Theatre. Diwali is one of the most widely celebrated and largest student-run productions on campus. It is organized by Ashoka, the South Asian Student Association, and it has been a WUSTL tradition for 21 years.

Washington University in St. Louis School of Law will host a screening of the award-winning documentary Family Affair at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall.