School of Law

Privacy lawsuits in the United States usually seek damages for revealing embarrassing but true facts by the media— the so-called “disclosure tort” — but this is a “poor vehicle for grappling with the problems of privacy and reputation in the digital age,” says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “The disclosure tort has never really worked successfully,” he says. “It’s largely unconstitutional.” Richards notes that there are two existing privacy law concepts that may be good supplements or even replacements to the disclosure tort.

Maxine Lipeles, JD, co-director of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic, participates in “speed mentoring” sessions with law students at Washington University School of Law during Women’s Law Day Sept. 21 in Crowder Courtyard of Anheuser-Busch Hall.

Fatou Bensouda, deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), will discuss the current issues facing the ICC at noon Thursday, Sept. 22, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall. She also will receive the 2011 World Peace Through Law Award from the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s “Ponzi scheme” charge and Florida Sen. Mark Rubio’s assertion that Social Security is unsustainable recycle baseless attacks that go back as far as the 1930s, says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. “These are attempts to muster political support by appealing to long-held prejudices to satisfy those who never accepted Social Security,” Bernstein says. “To use them as guides to public policy would undermine our country’s most successful family protection program.”

The Administrative Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA) recently named Ronald Levin, JD, the William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, the 2011 Volunteer of the Year. Levin has served as the section’s chair and as the ABA’s adviser to the drafting committee to revise the Model State Administrative Procedure Act.

Faculty and graduate students from St. Louis-area universities with an interest in labor, households, health care, law and social welfare are invited to take part in a series of Monday brown-bag luncheon seminars to be held on the Danforth Campus biweekly beginning Monday, Sept. 19, through Nov. 28. Presentations will be from noon-1 p.m. in Seigle Hall, Room 348. The series begins with a lecture by Joan C. Williams, JD, the Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law Foundation Chair and director of the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings on “Why Gender is So Unbending: Gender Pressures on Men.”

Labor Day may celebrate the historical contributions of the American labor movement, but the future of the movement is in question. “Unions are under siege,” says labor and employment law expert Marion Crain, JD, the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. “In the public sector, governors seeking to slash budgets are de-authorizing state labor laws that govern the organizing and bargaining rights of state employees. In the private sector, both the federal legislation that supports union action and the administrative body that enforces the law are under attack. Union density is on a dramatic downswing.” At the same time, wage inequality has not been higher since the Great Depression.

The International Criminal Court, civil rights class actions, gun rights, migration and food security are among topics that will be discussed during the fall lineup for the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law’s fourteenth annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series. The series kicks off Tuesday, Sept. 6, with “Mea Culpa: The Role of Apologies in Legal Decisionmaking,” by Jennifer Robbennolt, JD, PhD.

The violence against peaceful protesters in Libya and Syria drives home the need for an international convention for the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, says Leila Nadya Sadat, JD, international law expert and director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law. “The concerted efforts of the international community have helped to bring about a resolution of the Libyan situation, but the situation in Syria continues to deteriorate,” she says. “Reports of civilian roundups in Syria are reminiscent of Nazi roundups of the Jews during WWII. History shows that widespread human rights abuses lead to ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and even genocide.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently filed a lawsuit against the Camdenton, Mo. school district for using filtering software to block websites targeted to the gay and lesbian community. “The Supreme Court has made clear that school districts have great latitude in choosing what educational materials they make available to their students,” says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University In St. Louis. “However, in a case in 1982, a plurality of the Court suggested that schools may not have the authority to remove materials from school libraries based on viewpoint discrimination.”