Humanities & Society

The School of Law’s 22nd annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series fall lineup features leading lawyers, judges, academics and authors addressing high-profile issues such as free speech and racial justice.

Nearly 1,000 women engaged in sex work in Uganda are being provided with savings accounts, financial literacy skills and vocational training in a study currently underway by researchers from the Brown School.

The newly formed Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis will bring together the best research evidence from across disciplines to solve real-world challenges. The institute launches Sept. 24.

Lawmakers in California have approved a bill that could pave the way for gig economy workers, such as Uber and Lyft drivers, to be reclassified as employees and not contract workers. If the bill becomes law, it will have broad implications for labor in America, says Pauline Kim, an employment law expert in the School of Law.

Restricting the sale of menthol cigarettes to tobacco specialty shops may reduce the number of retailers and increase the cost of smoking, according to new research from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

In her research on mothers, Caitlyn Collins, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, has found that moms in the U.S. (and dads) are struggling to feel like good parents when they don’t get any mandated parental leave.

Gregory Magarian, professor of law, explains how the Supreme Court has turned the First Amendment on its head.

Bruce Goldstein, JD ’80, is president and executive director of Farmworker Justice, which fights for better working conditions and wages for the 2.4 million farm workers in the U.S.

People living in marginalized communities in St. Louis, particularly African Americans, have been enduring, as one study participant said “real problems,” such as violence and racism, that are perceived as more immediate than issues of climate change, finds a study from the Brown School.

Ethically sourced and informed by archaeology, an ambitious new study reports genome-wide DNA information from 523 ancient humans collected at archaeological sites across the Near East and Central and South Asia. Washington University in St. Louis brought key partners together to generate the world’s largest study of ancient DNA, published this week in the journal Science.