Our faculty’s research has a bearing on major legal issues of the day, and our professors are quoted regularly as experts on breaking news stories. Among the recent examples:

Blank: U.S. Drones and Targeted Killing

While drones and targeted killing aren’t inherently unlawful, the United States needs to examine and clarify its policies on their use, says Laurie Blank, director of Emory Law’s International Humanitarian Law Clinic.

“The characterization of who we target and when—and how that determination is made … raises serious questions of law and morality,” Blank wrote in an opinion piece for The Guardian.“In a nutshell: are we killing the right people?”

Read the opinion article in The Guardian

Brown: Racial Stereotyping in Tax Law featured on CSPAN-2

Professor Dorothy Brown spoke on stereotypes and the Earned Income Tax Credit on CSPAN 2's Capital News Today. Brown’s remarks were part of a discussion held this summer at Harvard Law School, on “Racial Bias in the Legal System.” The legal scholars in attendance discussed their new book on racial bias and stereotype, for which each of them wrote a chapter.

Watch “Racial Bias in the Legal System” on CSPAN 2

Goldstein: Turner Clinic’s Successful Petition Causes Pause in Nuclear Licenses

On behalf of 24 national and regional organizations, the Turner Environmental Law Clinic drafted a petition—recently granted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission—seeking to suspend all final licensing and re-licensing of nuclear power plants, “pending a court-ordered reassessment of the issue of storing spent nuclear fuel,” according to The New York Times.

Mindy Goldstein, director of Emory Law’s Turner Clinic, notes that the clinic has represented clients in nuclear power matters for more than six years, and that the Commission’s August decision comes following a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decision vacating a regulation that did not address planning for the long-term storage or disposal of spent fuel and nuclear waste.

The New York Times’ “Green” blog

Holbrook: What Apple v. Samsung Means for Future Innovation

Patent law is getting more scrutiny with the Apple v. Samsung decision. Professor Timothy Holbrook says the verdict can be expected to impact companies’ willingness to take risks. “Fine, we’ve got this infringement but we know people like iPhone,” Professor Holbrook said, imagining the thought process at a mobile telephone company. “Let’s try to get as close as possible without infringing.”

Read The New York Times story

See also Professor Holbrook’s comments on Apple’s protection of its design, in Bloomberg News

Pardo: "The Standard of Hopelessness" and Student Debt

The question of student debt is a loaded one, because federal loans are backed by taxpayer dollars. This makes student loans subject to a higher standard to discharge through bankruptcy. Nonetheless, Professor Rafael Pardo and his co-author found that “57 percent of bankrupt debtors who initiated an undue hardship adversary proceeding were able to get some or all of their loans discharged,” according to The New York Times.

Read The New York Times story