Life News (Law and Public Policy)

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Peter Blanck, chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University, and Claudia Center, a leading disability rights lawyer at The Legal Aid Society–Employment Law Center, have filed an amicus brief requesting a rehearing of Lopez v. Pacific Maritime Association, a case heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

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Jens David Ohlin, an expert on domestic terror and assistant professor of Law at Cornell University, comments on the Obama Administration’s decision to move the trial of the mastermind for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks from a civilian court to a military commission.

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Saint Michael's College graduates with credentials equivalent to current Vermont Law School students will be admitted to Vermont Law School. Perfect match for SMC Environmental Studies majors.

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Yaseen Eldik, a Stony Brook University student from Kings Park, has been named a 2011 Truman Scholar.

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Leaders from the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University met with top White House officials to discuss options for replication of BBI’s Start-Up NY/Inclusive Entrepreneurship program and greater involvement of individuals with disabilities in the new Startup America initiative.

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This summer, the Supreme Court will rule whether to allow the district court certification of the class action gender bias case against Wal-Mart. While much of the attention has focused on the enormous size of the class, the impact of the case is likely to be felt across a range of class action and employment discrimination cases, says Pauline Kim, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis and employment law expert.

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Francis J. DiSalvo, director of Cornell University’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and professor of physical science, comments on President Obama’s call to reduce foreign oil imports by one-third in the next decade.

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Rowan University’s Public Safety Department has become the first university police department in New Jersey to receive national accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA).

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In the wake of the removal of the mural depicting Mount Holyoke College alumna Frances Perkins and other historic labor leaders from the Maine Department of Labor building, College President Lynn Pasquerella has faxed a letter of protest to that state's governor, Paul LePage.

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State laws and policies governing the storage and use of surplus blood samples taken from newborns as part of the routine health screening process range from explicit to non-existent, leaving many parents ill-informed about how their babies’ left over blood might be used, according to a scholar at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. A report on the analysis is published March 28 in the journal Pediatrics.

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Future verification norms for outer space and steps to increase transparency and confidence-building measures and verification in space are to be discussed in two upcoming meetings.

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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) extensively cited the research of Syracuse University Professor Peter Blanck, chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University, in its final rules and regulations for the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Blanck’s work influenced the EEOC’s adoption of a number of its rules.

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Caren Goldberg, a management professor at American University’s Kogod School of Business and an expert on sex discrimination in the workplace, is available to discuss the Dukes v Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., from a management perspective.

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Ali A. Tarhouni, a senior lecturer in the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, has been named finance minister by the Libyan opposition national council.

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Last November, Missouri voters approved Proposition B, which amended state law to more strictly regulate large-scale dog breeders. Now, just four months later, Prop B is set to be repealed if the Missouri House of Representatives and Gov. Jay Nixon follow the state senate’s lead. Can this happen in every state? Only if the voters allow it, says Gregory Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on constitutional law.

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The federal financial bailouts of the last few years received tremendous publicity, but multiple sources of “hidden bailouts” eluded notice, says Cheryl D. Block, JD, law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Some hidden sources of federal financial rescue include new, expanded tax credits, the more liberal IRS interpretation of regulations, and “off-off budget” bailouts by quasi-governmental agencies such as the Federal Reserve Bank, according to research by Block.

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In Libya, the strategy of military intervention could spark a humanitarian crisis, says Associate Professor of Political Science Sarah Lischer. Author of "Dangerous Sanctuaries: Refugee Crises, Civil War, and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid," Lischer studies refugees, humanitarian aid, civil war, and African politics.

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Whether government wins is a matter of semantics. The reason this is a difficult case for the government is that Barry Bonds has denied that he ever knowingly took steroids.

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Michael Dorf, constitutional law expert and professor of Law at Cornell University, comments about the constitutionality of President Obama’s decision to commit U.S. military forces to enforce no-fly zone in Libya.

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Leading experts on what has been called "the new antisemitism" will meet at Indiana University next month for a scholarly examination of anti-Jewish bias and hatred that has arisen across much of the world in the past decade.

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Since the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has met the ambitious implementation deadlines set forth in the law, the agency said Wednesday at a congressional briefing hosted by the American Association for Cancer Research.

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The NFL Network has chosen Gary R. Roberts, dean of the law school on the IUPUI campus, as on-air analyst for the dabor disputes that are threatening the 2011 football season.

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How much would the public be willing to pay for a government-sponsored identity theft prevention program? The answer: about $87 per year. That’s the finding from a four-state survey conducted by Florida State University criminologists, who report that two-thirds of their respondents expressed a willingness to pay for a hypothetical program promising to reduce identity theft by 75 percent.

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Earth remote sensing satellites and social networking tools are in use to help respond to the multi-prong tragedy in Japan of earthquake, tsunami, and the crippling of nuclear power plants.

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Peter Blanck, chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University and University Professor, and Matthew Dietz, a civil rights attorney and BBI Advisory Board member, will argue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Blanck and Dietz will argue the jury properly found that Kaw was fired because the School District believed she had a disabling condition and terminated Kaw based on this belief. “This case is the perfect illustration of the myths and stereotypes that the Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted to prevent,” says Dietz.

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Robert Frank, professor of economics at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and Robert Hockett, professor of Law at Cornell University, comment on the pressing need for the U.S. to invest in its infrastructure.

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17th Annual forum advocates social change.

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In 2009, a historic new law granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing and sale of tobacco products. The FDA will give an update on the implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act at a congressional briefing hosted by the American Association for Cancer Research on Wednesday, March 16.

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Todd DeMitchell, professor and chair of the Department of Education and the Lamberton Professor in the Justice Studies Program at the University of New Hampshire, is available to discuss public unions, collective bargaining, and trends in organizing public-sector workers.

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Workers who have limited rights and are exposed to significant hazards and injuries might sound like something out of a Victorian novel, but it’s a reality for paid domestic service employees who perform tasks such as cleaning, cooking, childcare and care of the elderly.

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Mildred Warner, Cornell professor in city and regional planning, is an expert on privatizing government services. Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, recently suggested privatizing certain government services. Warner comments on Gov. Walker’s proposals.

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Sarah Kreps, an international relations expert and assistant professor of government at Cornell University, comments about the wisdom of U.S. military intervention in Libya. NOTE: Kreps is author of “Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions after the Cold War” (Oxford University Press, 2011).

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Public support of labor unions has reached its lowest level in a quarter century. According to a February 2011 Pew Research Poll Center poll, only 45 percent of respondents expressed positive views of unions. In his studies of major speeches of the American labor movement, Casey Kelly, Ph.D., a communication instructor for Butler University, has found some key historic messages that unions might use to regain support.

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In its 27th survey of American spending priorities since 1973 conducted as part of its General Social Survey (GSS), NORC at the University of Chicago Wednesday released a report on its most recent findings. By a notable margin, education is the top priority.

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UK's new interdisciplinary initiative for policy and social research, QIPSR, will sponsor a conference on immigration this week.

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Aerial bombing missions during counterinsurgency operations are often counterproductive because they drive neutral civilians to the enemy side, according to peer-reviewed research that examined detailed data from Vietnam.

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American Thoracic Society President Dean E. Schraufnagel, MD, expressed his opposition to legislation introduced today by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and Representative Fred Upton (R-MI) to prohibit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from issuing rules on carbon pollution and other greenhouse gases.

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The Supreme Court’s decision March 2 that a military funeral protest by Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church is protected by the First Amendment is a free speech victory, but “there is one note of concern for free speech advocates, which is the opinion’s toleration of ‘free speech zone’ theory,” says Neil Richards, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Former IRS Agent Dennis Raible, M.B.A., C.P.A., an accounting professor at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, has recommendations for 2011 tax season. Above all, Raible advises to file on-time. “The penalty for failure-to-file is a real killer," he says.

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Professors from University of Kentucky's College of Arts and Sciences and Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce are available to comment on the intensifying situation in Libya and provide context for associated uprisings in Bahrain, Iran, Morocco and Yemen.

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The public is on a different page with regard to the federal budget than either the House of Representatives or the Obama Administration, bringing a different set of priorities and a greater willingness to increase some domestic spending and taxes, concludes a new analysis by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation (PPC).

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U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) today reintroduced legislation to ensure that heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are more widely recognized and effectively treated in women.

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The Secure World Foundation (SWF) is hosting a special panel discussion on Tuesday, March 8, 2011: “India’s Military Space Efforts and Regional Security Considerations.”

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Tracy Mitrano, Cornell University’s director of IT Policy and director of Cornell’s Computer Policy and Law Programs, calls on the public to raise its voice in light of the scheduled vote Wednesday by a House subcommittee to rescind the FCC’s December 2010 “Net Neutrality” regulations.

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University of Iowa law professor and Islamic law expert Adrien Wing finds people in the Mideast fascinated by U.S. politics. With reform sweeping the region, she hopes she can help export the Iowa caucuses, or something like it.

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Two University of Virginia law professors demystify the disappearing art of public speaking in a new book that explains how to master vital rhetorical skills.

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Three Cornell University Law School faculty members with an expertise in international law comment on the legality and potential effectiveness of international sanctions against the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s move to strip or significantly narrow his state’s public-sector workers’ collective bargaining rights has significant implications for all unionized workers, both in the public and private sector, says Marion Crain, JD, the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law and director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work & Social Capital.

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With many Americans concerned about rising gas prices, state budgets and inflation — and with battle lines drawn in several states between governments and unions — the U.S. can expect more social media “wars’ in the near future.

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Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is rising to new heights as a space-based satellite sensing tool. LiDAR is among the topics highlighted in the Winter 2011 issue of the quarterly print and online publication - Imaging Notes magazine – devoted to Earth remote sensing for security, energy and the environment.