WashU Experts

Whatever impeachment moves the Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives makes next, it’s ultimately up to the Republican-controlled and administration-friendly Senate to hold a trial on the matter — and Washington University in St. Louis political scientist Steve Smith anticipates the Senate could make a number of moves to avoid the issue.

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.

CEOs belonging to the Business Roundtable publicly committed to corporate responsibility to society as a whole, “a huge statement from one of the most influential groups in American business,” says a Washington University in St. Louis expert in values-based business.

Recent and upcoming legal battles involving drug makers represent a major tipping point in America’s fight against the opioid crisis, says an addiction expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Trump Administration’s proposed overhaul of the landmark Endangered Species Act will “hasten the extinction of countless species,” says Jonathan Losos, director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis and an international biodiversity expert.

Rhaisa Williams, assistant professor of performing arts in Arts & Sciences, remembers Toni Morrison’s “magnificent wield of imagination.”

During the July 30 Democratic presidential debate, candidate Pete Buttigieg renewed his calls to “depoliticize the Supreme Court with structural reform.” Buttigieg has endorsed a Supreme Court reform proposal offered by Daniel Epps, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court passed away on July 16, 2019. Greg Magarian, the Thomas and Karole Green Professor of Law, served as a justice clerk for Stevens and offers this remembrance.

Humans have already learned much from the very first moon samples collected by the Apollo program astronauts. As NASA plans for its next manned mission by 2024, a leading lunar expert shares his science priorities for the return: “We need to learn how to live and work off Earth and beyond the low Earth orbit.”

Attorney General William Barr announced July 15 a new Trump Administration plan, effective the next day, barring Central American immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States unless they seek it first in other Central American countries, a move that a Washington University in St. Louis immigration expert says “violates the clear language of the law.”