WashU Experts

As presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump make their last-minute pushes for votes before tomorrow’s election, a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis says the tight race boils down, in part, to poor branding practices.

The 2016 presidential campaign has offered a riveting window into the ways gender and power operate within American culture, said Mary Ann Dzuback, chair and professor of women, gender and sexuality studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.

The claims by Donald Trump and some of his surrogates that this year’s presidential election is rigged against Trump have no basis in logic or fact, says an election law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

It is the ultimate symbol of public trust. Accompanying the president, at virtually all times, is a military aid with a large black satchel known as the “nuclear football.” But for all its prominence in the popular imagination, the football does not contain some sort of “nuclear button” that might allow a president to single-handedly initiate nuclear launch, says Krister Knapp, senior lecturer in history in Arts & Sciences.

As the November presidential election approaches, an expert at Washington University in St. Louis says to expect a bit of emotional angst, no matter who wins or loses.

Pharma giant Bayer has acquired St. Louis-based Monsanto. After months of negotiation, the German company went back to the bargaining table this week, and on Sept. 14 the seed firm’s board approved the $66 billion cash offer. Radhakrishnan Gopalan, associate professor of finance at Olin Business School, said Monsanto needed to accept the deal.

The U.S. Census Bureau has released its poverty numbers for 2015. The poverty rate fell to 13.5 percent from 14.8 percent the year before. The problem with these estimates is that they only provide a snapshot of who is poor in any single year, says an expert on poverty and inequality at Washington University in St. Louis.

Recent scandals involving high-priced generic drugs should prompt us to consider price controls for pharmaceutical companies, says an expert on the health care industry at the School of Law at Washington University.

As Democrats gather in Philadelphia, and Hillary Clinton accepts her party’s nomination for the presidency, it is worth pausing to consider the history of previous female presidential candidates. “Women have been running for president since before they had the right to vote,” said Andrea Friedman, professor of history and of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Washington University in St. Louis. “This has been a very long time coming.”

U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier introduced on July 14 a long-delayed federal bill that would outlaw nonconsensual pornography in the United States. While he supports the law, Neil Richards, privacy law expert at Washington University in St. Louis, think it’s important that the bill be drafted in such a way as to not be a tool for censorship that can threaten our commitment to free expression.