Newsroom Stories

SmithSenate Republicans and Democrats are preparing for a 30-hour marathon debate on judicial nominations starting about 6 p.m. Nov. 12 and running as long as early morning on Friday, Nov. 14. Republican senators say they want the country to know that Democrats are stalling judicial nominations made by President Bush. Democrats have filibustered on four recent Bush appeals court nominations and may use similar tactics on future nominees. Congressional expert Steven Smith says this is business as usual in Congress and that Republicans have used the same tactics in the past.

A bequest from the estate of Isidore and Edith Silver will establish the Isidore and Edith Silver Washington University Fellowship Fund, it was announced by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. The Silvers bequeathed more than $1 million in support of fellowships for doctoral students of French Renaissance in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in Arts & Sciences, the department where Silver taught from 1957 until his retirement in 1975.

Photo courtesy of Tom Paule PhotographyMarrying for love … and money.Becoming wealthy and creating a happy family are two key components to achieving the American Dream, but do marriage and children have any impact on your chances of becoming rich? “Marriage substantially increases a person’s likelihood of becoming affluent,” says Mark R. Rank, Ph.D., professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis and co-author of a study out this month that looks at earnings over the course of a person’s lifetime. “Having children, however, significantly lowers the probability of becoming wealthy for all people,” Rank adds.

Washington University in St. Louis will host the presidential debate scheduled for 8 p.m. CST on Oct. 8, 2004, according to an announcement made today by Paul G. Kirk Jr. and Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., co-chairmen of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). This is the fourth consecutive time the university has been selected by the CPD to host a debate. The university hosted the first presidential debate held prior to the 1992 election, was selected to host a presidential debate in 1996 that eventually was canceled, and hosted the third and last presidential debate of the 2000 campaign season. “It is an honor and a privilege to once again be chosen to host one of the presidential debates,” said Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. ”

Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations global development network, will be delivering the Stein Lecture in Ethics as part of the Assembly Series lectures at Washington University at 11 a.m. on Wed., Nov. 12 in Graham Chapel. The chapel is located just north of Mallinckrodt Center (6445 Forsyth Blvd.) on the Washington University campus. Assembly Series lectures are free and open to the public. The title of his talk is “Six Months after Iraq: Why the UN Matters.”

Sabrina Ursaner/PADPictured, left to right: Judith Lesser as Irina, Robin Kacyn as Olga and Merrie Brackin as Masha.The Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present David Mamet’s adaptation of Anton Chekov’s late masterwork, The Three Sisters (1901/1991) — considered by many critics to be the finest drama of the 20th century — in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre Nov. 14-15 and 21-23.

PatersonAcclaimed children’s author Katherine Paterson, author of Bridge to Terebithia, will host a pair of events for Washington University’s 2003-04 Center for the Humanities’ Writers Series Nov. 17-18.

Everett Mendelsohn, one of America’s foremost historians of science, will deliver the Thomas Hall Lecture titled “Dolly and the Historians: Science, Politics and Ethics of Cloning” as part of the Washington University Assembly Series at 4 p.m., Thursday, November 13. The lecture is free and open to the public and will be held in Rebstock Hall, Room 215, located just east of Mallinckrodt Center (6445 Forsyth Blvd) on the Washington University campus.

Supreme Court cases are now predictable, thanks to new computer model.As the U.S. Supreme Court moves into its new term, litigants, attorneys and the public will be closely watching its docket and speculating about its decisions. Now, thanks to the Supreme Court Forecasting Project at Washington University in St. Louis, court watchers everywhere will be able to log on to the Internet and obtain a forecast of how individual cases are likely to be decided. The project accurately predicted decisions in 75 percent of the cases heard by the Court in its last term.

Ornette Coleman, inspiration for successful judging.Although United States laws attempt to safeguard the rights and interests of minorities, the subordination of socially disfavored groups persists in part because of informal structures and networks that have the effect of perpetuating social inequality. Christopher Bracey, an expert in the fields of American race relations and civil rights and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that judges must respond to these destructive patterns of social and economic stratification through their interpretation of the law, or successful judging. In his article, “Adjudication, Antisubordination, and the Jazz Connection” (Alabama Law Review, Vol. 54), Bracey says inspiration on how to realize democracy through judging can be found through the free jazz movement, more specifically, the work of Ornette Coleman.