As Barak Obama prepares for his second inaugural address Monday, Jan. 21, he faces a nation still bitterly divided over his “legitimacy,” suggests Wayne Fields, PhD, an expert on the history of presidential rhetoric and speechmaking at Washington University in St. Louis.
Corporations’ religious freedom claims against the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate miss a “basic fact of health economics: health insurance, like wages, is compensation that belongs to the employee,” says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, health law expert and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Sepper is featured in the current Harvard Law Bill of Health blog.
Robert Bork was a major figure in the history of American law, and of the Supreme Court, says Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and former law clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. “There is a great irony to Bork’s death this week, a day after the House of Representatives voted to relax the privacy protections in the so-called “Bork Bill,” the federal law that protects the privacy of our video records.”
Melissa Jonson-Reid, PhD, professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, is director of the CDC-funded Center for Violence and Injury Protection. She responds to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
While many may see “taking Christ out of Christmas” as a recent phenomenon, the roots of secular Christmas celebrations and commercialization go deep into American history, says Anne Blankenship, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate at the John C. Danforth Center for Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Ah, the Christmas season. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. A time to celebrate peace, love and the religious beliefs of America’s religious majority – whether you like it or not.
Law requiring Internet posting of feds’ finances will not prevent Congressional insider trading, Kathleen Clark says.
Smoking is both a physical addiction to nicotine and a learned psychological behavior, so the best way to quit is to attack it from both sides, says Sarah Shelton, manager of research and evaluation at the Center for Public Health Systems Science at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. And the answer may be right at your fingertips with your smartphone.
Despite evidence supporting boardroom diversity as a driver of corporate performance, “the percentage of women directors on U.S. boards stagnated some years ago and remains at or near 12 percent, with fewer than 10 percent of boards having three or more women,” says Hillary A. Sale, JD, the Walter D. Coles professor of law at Washington University School of Law. “The pressure to add women directors is, however, growing.” Sale discusses options to grow board diversity.
The Supreme Court’s decision today means the implementation of the Affordable Care Act can go forward, thus improving the delivery and affordability of medical care, says Timothy McBride, PhD, health economist and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.
“I expected the Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA), however, two elements of this decision are very surprising: the fact that the mandate survives under the taxing power while failing under the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause, and the fact that Chief Justice Roberts was in the majority without Justice Kennedy,” says Gregory Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Roberts’ vote looks to me, as a first impression, like a brilliant piece of judicial strategizing.” Magarian is a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens.
Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law, and Timothy D. McBride, PhD, professor of public health, both at Washington University in St. Louis, are available for expert commentary on the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act decision.
With the ballot nearly set for the November election, Mitt Romney looks to become the first Mormon to secure a presidential nomination for a major party. His membership in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints assures that religion — and the separation of church and state — will play a significant role in this presidential election, says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, free speech and election law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “In general, I think it’s appropriate to consider a candidate’s religion as a part of their persona, but the candidate should get a lot of leeway in setting the terms of their religion’s role in political debate,” he says.
The Internet and social media have opened up new vistas for people to share preferences in films, books and music. Services such as Spotify and the Washington Post Social Reader already integrate reading and listening into social networks, providing what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls “frictionless sharing.” “But there’s a problem. A world of automatic, always-on disclosure should give us pause,” says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.
If international lenders refuse to renegotiate substantial reductions in Greek public debt, chances are that whatever government emerges in Greece in the next few weeks will run out of cash by the end of June, says an economist at Washington University in St. Louis.
The National Day of Prayer typically sparks debate about whether the day violates the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. This year’s observance on May 3 however, likely will take on added significance, as 2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Engel v. Vitale, which invalidated official prayer in public schools, says John Inazu, JD, first amendment expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Inazu and Gregory Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and WUSTL law professor, tackle the establishment clause question.
The Jump Start our Business Start-ups (JOBS) Act, an entrepreneurship bill signed into law April 5 by President Barack Obama, could help open an entirely new class of investor to a process they largely have been held out of, says an expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care act has prompted some interesting and provocative issues about – and between – the president and the judicial branch, says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and former clerk for retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. “These alarmed reactions reflect historical ignorance,” he says.
After it rules on the highly contested health-care debate and makes other momentous decisions this term, will the U.S. Supreme have sufficient stores of legitimacy to weather the inevitable backlash? Yes, but barely, says a professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have a major impact on the presidential campaign, says Timothy D. McBride, PhD, health economist and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “The health reform legislation was the signature piece of social legislation passed by President (Barack) Obama’s administration in his first term,” he says. How the court’s decision will influence the election could be quite complex, says McBride.
Participating in an online March Madness bracket or fantasy sport league is harmless fun for most people, but for someone with a gambling addiction, it can be a dangerous temptation. “Now, with states entertaining the possibility of increasing revenue through legalizing internet gambling, it is even more important to pay attention to groups that may be vulnerable to problem gambling, particularly youth,” says Renee Cunningham-Williams, PhD, gambling addictions expert and associate professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “Internet gambling provides youth with increased opportunities to gamble, which is particularly concerning because this generation is arguably the most technologically savvy of any generation in history.”
Social Security’s cost of living adjustments (COLA) are designed to protect against the erosion of retiree purchasing power when prices go up, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). “Now Social Security self-styled ‘reformers’ seek to lower COLA every year based on their claim that COLA overstates inflation,” says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. The proposed substitute for the current CPI formula, ‘Chained COLA,’ is based on the assumption that benefit recipients substitute lower-priced goods as prices go up. “This the assumption is unrealistic for those millions who only have access to convenience stores that typically offer fewer choice and higher prices,” says Bernstein, the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “And, further, it is not reasonable to assume that most consumers can outwit the wiles of merchandising experts.”
The current controversy over the Barack Obama administration’s birth control policy is not, contrary to some arguments, a matter of constitutional law, says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. It is however, a matter of Constitutional principle, Magarian says.
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.
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, recently published 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.
Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble’s move to lay off some 1,600 employees globally, many in the marketing area, foretells a trend in which more companies will move their advertising dollars from traditional to digital media, says a marketing expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
Last year’s hit Super Bowl ad, a Volkswagen spot featuring a boy dressed as Darth Vader, was unique in that it was actually released before the game. This year, nearly all ad agencies are expected to run previews of their commercials before the Feb. 5 Super Bowl on YouTube and other sites, leading a marketing expert at Washington University in St. Louis to question the wisdom of running a television ad at all.
Talent contests are abundant these days. Whether it’s singing, dancing or cooking, it seems someone is always on the lookout for the next “super star.” WalMart Stores, Inc., have even entered the fray, announcing a reality-show like plan to find the next “it” product, a move an innovation expert at Washington University in St. Louis applauds.
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.
Wikipedia and other sites plan to go dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act under consideration in Congress. Three law professors from Washington University in St. Louis, Kevin Collins, Gregory Magarian and Neil Richards, signed a letter to Congress in opposition to the PROTECT IP Act. Read Magarian and Richards’ current comments on SOPA and PROTECT IP.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an important victory for religious liberty says First Amendment expert John Inazu, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. "Hosanna-Tabor is a welcome reminder that the Court has not lost sight of ‘the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.’”
Coors Light has surpassed Budweiser as the No. 2 beer by shipments in the United States, foretelling a downward trend for full-calorie lagers that will continue, says a strategy expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
In the case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas is contesting a federal court’s redrawing of the state’s electoral district lines for the upcoming primary election. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Texas must get preclearance from the U.S. Department of Justice before it can institute any voting changes. “This case gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to weaken or even strike down Section 5,” says Gregory Magarian, JD, election law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “If Texas wins, even if the Court stops short of striking down Section 5 altogether, it will mark a major change in the law. The Supreme Court will essentially be saying that racial voting discrimination by state officials is no longer a problem that justifies a federal remedy.”
Most people would rather not have their video viewing habits easily available to the public — no need for co-workers to know about your love of reality TV. The Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA) protects these records, but the House of Representatives — at the urging of Netflix and Facebook — recently voted to amend the VPPA, allowing companies to share movie watching habits much more easily. “What’s at stake is intellectual privacy — the idea that records of our reading habits, movie watching habits and private conversations deserve special protection from other kinds of personal information,” says Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.
The presents have been opened. The tree has been put away. Now come the bills. What is the best way to tackle holiday debt? Pay down the loan with the highest interest rate first. But consumers often take a slightly different approach, according to a consumer behavior expert at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.
Traditional product advertising — full-page magazine ads and 30-second television commercials — may be going the way of the rotary phone. Emerging concepts such as crowdsourcing, viral Internet campaigns, product placements and guerilla promotions will dominate the marketing and advertising landscape in 2012 and beyond, says a marketing expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
The Supreme Court will hear several states’ legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that the court — in late June 2012 — will deliver a momentous statement about the ever-contentious constitutional balance between federal and state power. “The key element of the states’ lawsuits targets the act’s requirement that everyone in the country must purchase commercial health insurance,” says constitutional law expert Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.
Veterans are returning home to an abysmal economy and a tough job market. “After World War II, employers used to snap up veterans because of their tremendous skills sets gained in the service – whether that be technical, leadership, or other job specific aptitudes,” says Monica Matthieu, PhD, research assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on veteran mental health. “But now, veterans are facing higher unemployment rates than civilians as employers may be concerned about veterans’ struggle with the mental and physical health aftereffects of military service,” she says.
Albert Pujols, the St. Louis Cardinals first baseman and Major League Baseball’s most coveted free agent, is clearly the best player in the game. But whichever team signs him this offseason will be overpaying, says an expert on pay-for-performance at Washington University in St. Louis.
Fannie Mae, the biggest source of money for United States home loans, said last week it will need another $7.8 billion in federal aid following a third-quarter loss of more than $5 billion. As long as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are receiving subsidies, say banking experts at Washington University in St. Louis, there exists potential for another economic meltdown.
With Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on the way out of power, Italian debt has risen to record levels with few solutions in sight. An economist at Washington University in St. Louis who was born and raised in Italy warns that the Italian troubles may foreshadow what’s at stake for the United States as well, no matter how much more reliable its public debt may appear today.
Crowd funding, in which a group of investors pools money to fund a project or startup business — often online through social media and sites such as Kickstarter.com — has gained attention recently as a possible source for stimulating economic growth. But an expert on entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis says crowd funding may not be all its cracked up to be.
On Nov. 8, Mississippi voters will cast their ballots on Initiative 26, which would make every “fertilized egg” a “person” as a matter of law. “Many have rightly condemned this so-called ‘personhood’ initiative as an attack not only on abortion rights, but also on the ability to practice widely used methods of birth control, to attempt in vitro fertilization, and to grieve a miscarriage in private, without a criminal investigation by the state,” says Susan Appleton, JD, family law expert and the Lemma Barkeloo and Phoebe Couzins Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. “But these criticisms fail to identify another flaw in the reasoning of the initiative’s proponents,” she says.
Greece’s government is teetering on the brink of collapse, backing away Nov. 3 from a referendum on staying in the Euro. While events continue to evolve and change rapidly, Greece is likely to default on its entire debt, says an economist at Washington University in St. Louis.
Despite the separation of church and state, religion plays a significant role in political debate. Gregory P. Magarian, JD, free speech and election law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that certain forms of religious argument pose a meaningful threat to democracy, but restricting these arguments would be an even larger threat to U.S. political culture.
Front-of-package nutrition labels already exist on many foods in the U.S., but an Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel recently recommended standardizing and simplifying this information through a rating system modeled after the Energy Star program. "You shouldn't have to be a nutrition scientist to make healthy food choices for your family," says Matthew Kreuter, PhD, member of the IOM panel and director of the Health Communications Research Laboratory at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and other legislators are calling for baseball players to stop using chewing tobacco on the field and in front of their fans. “This is an important public health issue,” says Douglas Luke, PhD, director of the Center for Tobacco Policy Research at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “Not only is smokeless tobacco use hazardous, but young people who use smokeless tobacco are more likely to also start smoking cigarettes." Luke notes that smokeless tobacco use is a growing problem, particularly for the youngest baseball fans.
Social Security recipients will receive a cost of living adjustment (COLA) of 3.6 percent beginning in 2012 — the first increase since 2009 — but it won’t go far enough, says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. “COLA is welcome but will not fully maintain beneficiary purchasing power,” says Bernstein, the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “The formula setting that rate does not meet fully the needs of Social Security recipients, especially when considering medical costs.”
Nestlé Purina’s latest commercial for its Beneful dog food, aimed directly at canines by using high-frequency noises inaudible to humans, should serve to increase the bond owners feel with their pets, says a marketing expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
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