School of Law

Global economies and the Internet are upcoming topics by the next two speakers for the Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series. Economic forecaster and social observer Jeremy Rifkin will speak at 2 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, in Graham Chapel. James Boyle, JD, the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School, will speak at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 29, in the Anheuser-Busch Hall Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

The U.S. Constitution’s global influence is on the decline, finds a new study by David S. Law, JD, PhD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Other countries are increasingly turning to sources other than the U.S. Constitution for guidance in establishing human rights provisions and for general structural provisions in creating their constitutions,” he says. Law, with co-author Mila Versteeg, DPhil, associate professor of law at the University of Virginia, analyzed 60 years of data on the content of the world’s constitutions. “The data revealed that there is a significant and growing generic component to global constitutionalism, in the form of a set of rights provisions that appear in nearly all formal constitutions,” Law says. “Our analysis also confirms, however, that the U.S. Constitution is becoming increasingly out of sync with these global practices.

Washington University in St. Louis will host the “Work & Livable Lives Conference” Feb. 27 and 28 to address current employment-related challenges and how they limit the ability of U.S. households to lead secure and stable lives, raise children successfully, and contribute to the community.  The conference will include panels on household financial fragility, measurement of economic security, the American Dream, labor and employment policy, and health policy and employment. All conference events will be held in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall and are free and open to the public.

The City of New York recently subpoenaed a Twitter account as part of an ongoing Occupy Wall Street criminal case. The Occupy protester named in the case is challenging the subpoena. Privacy law expert Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that it’s not surprising that law enforcement groups are interested in accessing the volume of records relating to our speech that social media platforms generate. “By and large, this data should remain private, and online companies should keep the data confidential and not share it any more broadly than we as users and speakers want it to be shared,” Richards says.

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University in St. Louis has announced faculty scholars receiving Innovation Grants for Community-Based Teaching and Learning. The grants provide faculty members with financial support for curriculum development and implementation.

American Airlines’ plan to lay off more than 13,000 employees and eliminate all four of its pension plans as part of its bankruptcy reorganization could eventually spell the end of the airline and leave its pilots with dramatically reduced pensions, say two experts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Freedom of assembly has become the forgotten constitutional right, with courts’ attention focused more on freedoms of association and speech. Both the Occupy and Tea Party movements, however, are reminders of how the right to assemble has been “at the heart of some of the most important social movements in American history: antebellum abolitionism, women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights Movement,” says John Inazu, JD, PhD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. In his new book, Liberty’s Refuge: The Forgotten Freedom of Assembly, published last month by Yale University Press, Inazu examines why freedom of assembly has become “a historical footnote in American law and political theory,” and what has been lost with the weakening of protections for private groups.

Three Republican primaries or caucuses have ended with three different winners. Upcoming state contests may make the Republican candidate picture clearer, but if division remains, the GOP could end up with a brokered convention. “If the process of voting based on delegates’ commitments does not produce a nominee, then something has to break the logjam,” says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, election law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Magarian discusses the potential for a surprise candidate and the impact of superdelegates.

Andrew Knight, PhD, leads an i teach 2012 session on polling as a teaching tool during the i teach 2012 symposium — a biennial event at which faculty gather to talk about teaching experiences and to learn about new teaching methods and technology — at Seigle Hall Jan. 12. Approximately 150 faculty attended the event, which offered 16 classroom sessions on topics ranging from “Twitter for Teaching” to “Academic Integrity at WU: Myths and Realities.”

Teach For America-St. Louis and the Brown School Policy Forum at Washington University in St. Louis will host a panel discussion on “St. Louis Public Education at a Crossroads: The Outstanding Schools Act, Turner v. Clayton, and the Future,” at 7:30 p.m.  Thursday, Jan. 26 in Brown Hall, Room 100. The event will bring together Missouri legislators and education officials to discuss how Turner v. Clayton is impacting state legislation.