WashU Experts

President Donald Trump’s Oct. 26 announcement that the opioid epidemic is a “public health emergency” rather than a “national emergency” goes against the understanding of most authorities, said an expert on substance use disorder treatment at Washington University in St. Louis.

Congress has allowed the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to expire as of Oct. 1, leading to the demise of one of the most successful government programs ever implemented, said Tim McBride, an expert on health economics at Washington University in St. Louis.

Though recent protests by NFL players during the national anthem are not protected by the First Amendment by law, they matter as free speech, said Greg Magarian, an expert on constitutional law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Rescinding DACA will deprive Houston of a substantial workforce at the very moment the city needs that workforce most, argues water management expert Derek Hoeferlin, associate professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Trump administration on Sept. 4 announced plans to end DACA, which protects nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. The president’s decision is not only regrettable, it was entirely unnecessary, says Stephen Legomsky, the John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus and renowned expert on immigration law.

In the wake of the Aug. 12 confrontations between protesters and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, some progressives are calling for legal restrictions on the display of the Nazi flag. These arguments are entirely understandable, but they often misapply existing First Amendment law, and they suppress free speech values that progressives — more than anyone else — should want to defend, says a constitutional law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

President Donald Trump declaring the opioid epidemic a national emergency is an important statement and first step toward admitting a problem, said an expert on opioid addiction at Washington University in St. Louis, while warning that without science-informed solutions and plans of action, the epidemic will worsen.

As Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia continue to become more prevalent, it may not be long before there is a push for legalizing physician-assisted death in dementia cases in the United States. American officials must thoroughly consider the moral and social consequences of such an action, says an expert on medical ethics at Washington University in St. Louis.

A ban on transgender people serving in the United States military is an attempt to make policy with no logical foundation in evidence or expertise on the matter, said an expert on transgender aging at Washington University in St. Louis.

Despite the efforts of some school districts to say otherwise, the naturally curly texture of the hair of many African-Americans is not unprofessional, distracting or faddish, says an expert on implicit bias and the law at Washington University in St. Louis.