Emory Law

This weekend, governors varied widely on their COVID-19 stances: some took measures to shut down restaurants and bars, while others tweeted about being in public and "supporting local businesses." Because of federalism issues, the White House can't do much to force closures, said Professor Polly Price. But the CDC can model responsible action, she said. "The strong direction of the CDC is really helpful here because these are very unpopular decisions--and brave decisions, as far as I'm concerned--to close down public gathering," she said. "To the extent that they need political cover for doing so, if the CDC is giving them this advice, that could give them legal cover."

Health officials nationwide are gauging how to enforce quarantine, and what to do when people don't follow those rules. Right now, it's pretty much the honor system, Professor Polly Price tells the Wall Street Journal. "Public-health people themselves can't arrest someone or force them to stay somewhere, and they try to use that as an absolute last resort."

Most of the thousands of Americans currently under quarantine are at home, but what about the homeless? Professor Polly Price tells CityLab that urban centers with large homeless populations are likely already considering how to humanely handle a shelter outbreak.

Costa Mesa's attempt to block state plans to house coronavirus patients there presents a rare legal question, the New York Times reports. "This is a new one in terms of claiming a right not to have infectious disease introduced into your community," said Emory Law Professor Polly Price. Although cities and towns once claimed "an absolute right" to guard against disease, she said, state-level control over isolation and quarantine has been the norm for more than a century.

A federal judge directed federal and state officials to answer the questions of Costa Mesa, California, residents about plans to bring Americans who have tested positive for the coronavirus to a closed ­mental-health facility in the city, the Washington Post reports. But the judge also cautioned that the city does not have veto power over state and federal quarantine decisions. Emory Law Professor Polly Price agrees. "There isn’t really a federal order to challenge here because the key fact was that California's state public health department . . . they're in complete control."

Accomplished health law scholar and teacher Matthew B. Lawrence will join Emory Law’s faculty as associate professor of law this fall.

A coronavirus quarantine in the U.S. could be difficult, Professor Polly Price writes for The Atlantic. Except at the nation's borders, the federal government isn't in charge. Our defense against epidemic is divided among 2,684 state, local and tribal public-health departments.

"The 2020 Democratic field does not appear to have learned much from the 2008 and 2016 elections," Professor Dorothy Brown writes for CNN. Russian interference in the 2016 election capitalized on our racial divide, she says. The upheaval that followed Barack Obama's election "allows anyone paying attention to see that we have not turned a corner when it comes to racism… Will we turn Trump's election into an opportunity to tackle racism head-on, or remain in our comfort zones? I know one thing: Russia will be watching," she writes.

The Trump administration decision to bar entry to foreigners coming from China won't stop the coronavirus from entering the US, experts tell VOA News. "It is true that the fewer people who potentially carry the virus who come into an area, the less likelihood of further spread," said Emory Law Professor Polly Price, a public health expert. "But, of course, we already know it's in the United States."

In seeking ways to contain the coronavirus, U.S. health officials and politicians no doubt are recalling the 2014 Ebola cases. "It was never a huge threat in the U.S., but it caused a huge panic," Professor Polly Price tells STAT. In Dallas, where the first U.S. case of Ebola was detected, immediate family members of the patient and the two nurses who took care of him were quarantined in their homes, but larger measures, including shutting down transit and school closures, were proposed but never ordered. "They worked through that nicely," Price said.

The CDC is requiring U.S. citizens returning from mainland China to undergo proactive health screenings at ports of entry and spend up to 14 days in self-quarantine--an action it hasn't taken for more than 50 years. While "isolation" refers to separating someone who is already sick, or is believed to be, from healthy people, "quarantine" is used for isolating people that are not yet sick and may never get sick but may have been exposed to something contagious, Professor Polly Price tells ABC News.

Spanish businessman and philanthropist Gonzalo Rodriguez-Fraile has pledged a substantial gift that will support the work of Emory’s Spruill Family Professor of Law and Religion Rafael Domingo.

A high-stakes legal case involving both deportation and DACA took an unusual turn when Honduran consulate officials refused to issue travel documents for a woman U.S. authorities want to deport as an illegal immigrant. Tania Romero entered the U.S. 20 years ago, and her son is attending Yale as a DACA-protected student. Romero has stage 4 cancer and her son says she could die if deported because she won't receive the care she needs in Honduras. Emory Law adjunct professor and immigration attorney Charles Kuck says the legal stance is remarkable. It's "highly unusual for a consulate to refuse to issue a travel document, especially in the Trump era when he has issued executive orders that seek to punish countries that refuse to accept their nationals. It must be a very grave situation indeed."

U.S. President Donald Trump has made protecting Syria's oil reserves a top priority, and is deploying U.S. troops to the oil fields even as he pulled American forces out of the border area with Turkey, clearing the way for a Turkish military assault earlier this month on the Kurds. Experts quoted by VOA, including International Humanitarian Law Clinic Director Laurie Blank question Trump's focus on the oil fields.

President Donald Trump reiterated his intention to keep some American troops in Syria to control the country's eastern oilfields. Experts, including International Humanitarian Law Clinic Director Laurie Blank, warn the president's comments could promote the view that the U.S. involvement in the Middle East is to extort revenue.

President Donald Trump's suggestion on Sunday that Exxon Mobil or another U.S. oil company operate Syrian oil fields drew rebukes from legal and energy experts, Reuters reports. "International law seeks to protect against exactly this sort of exploitation," said Laurie Blank, director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic.

While Georgia law is clear that not properly caring for a child can be a criminal offense, the state (along with most others) doesn't have a law that specifies at what age a child can be left unsupervised. "Age-based rules can be arbitrary and give a false sense of confidence regarding a child's safety," Melissa Carter, executive director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center, told 11 Alive. "An older child might need supervision due to special needs or disabilities, whereas a younger child may have taken babysitting courses that have prepared him or her for greater responsibility."

Professor Deborah Dinner says the LaFleur pregnancy discrimination case decided by the Supreme Court in 1974 "deserves a far more prominent place in our constitutional history and canon." It led to the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 which added pregnancy bias to federal employee laws. "The context of these pregnancy-dismissal policies is that they were routine and widespread across the country," Dinner told Education Week. "My default intuition about any teacher who says she was fired for this at the time is that she was correct."

30 years after Ann Hopkins won a Title VII workplace discrimination case at the Supreme Court, the court is again considering whether discrimination laws protect LGBTQ freedom of gender expression, in two cases brought by gay and transgender employees. Associate Professor Deborah Dinner is quoted by the Washington Post: "... discriminating on the basis of somebody's gender identity or on the basis of their sexual orientation, what an employer in fact is doing is discriminating on the basis of a gender stereotype."

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear arguments concerning a Louisiana abortion law could be far-reaching, including an impact on Georgia's "heartbeat" abortion law. The Louisiana law requires doctors who administer abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. That would drastically limit the number of doctors who may do so. "The impact of these regulations of abortion providers can be almost the same as an actual ban on abortion, but since it is only a regulation on abortion providers, not a direct ban on abortion, it doesn't directly raise the issue of Roe v. Wade," said Emory Law Professor Robert Schapiro. The high court previously ruled a similar Texas law was unconstitutional, but the court's makeup has changed since then. "It certainly will be interesting to see how this court with some new justices on it, particularly Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch, look at this issue of abortion," Shapiro added.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang proposes to give American adults $1,000 per month in basic income to offset job losses from automation. He says we could pay for it with a Euro-style value-added tax, but Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown tells NewsHour that the proposal raises more questions than answers and could disproportionately affect low-income earners. "The devil's in the details," she said. "A VAT on all goods and services is basically taking money out of the pockets of the people you're trying to put the money in."

"The recent saber rattling against Iran raises the question of whether the president can take the country to war on his own," Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary L. Dudziak writes for The Hill. Much of the legal counsel a president receives comes from the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. "But many Office of Legal Counsel opinions remain secret decades after the fact. Because of this, a body of secret law has become a building block of contemporary presidential power," Dudziak says.

USDA inspection reports were widely used by consumers for people finding pets online, until a few years ago. They were taken off the agency's public website shortly after President Trump took office, ABC News reports in a story about buying pets online. Emory Law Professor Ani Satz says those reports and violations were previously used to remove animals from bad situations. "In the big picture protections for animals are woefully inadequate in this context and by taking these reports away they're taking away the one tool that people who believe in upholding the law have to protect these animals," Satz said.

A federal judge has ordered the Georgia Department of Corrections to amend its policies to allow inmates to grow beards up to 3 inches long, if their religious beliefs forbid shaving, says the Daily Report. The judge said the exemption could be revoked "based on the inmate's behavior and compliance with the revised grooming policy." Emory Law faculty Sarah Shalf and Mark Goldfeder were appointed by an appeals court to represent Muslim inmate Lester Smith.

"Recent news coverage reveals that Democrats in the Senate are split over the path they should take regarding rules governing the confirmation of federal judges," Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. "A path forward might be found by looking backward," he says. Nash points to a Carter administration-era agreement between Senators Jacob Javits and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. "For more than 20 years in the closing decades of the last century, the senators agreed to divide responsibility for recommending nominees to the president for federal district judgeships."

"This month marks the fifth anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager who was killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer who was never brought to justice," Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown writes for CNN. While some improvements have come from the resulting Justice Department investigation and report, "the work of progress is unfinished in Ferguson and in the rest of the country. No one is coming to save us from racist violence: we have to save each other," she says.

Some state judges now see millions of dollars poured into their campaigns following the change in political contributions allowed by the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. What gets less attention is how attack ads, often funded by those dollars, influence not only the race, but also sentencing. Judges affected by Citizens United were 7% more likely to hand out harsher sentences after the court decision, Emory Law Professor Joanna Shepherd says on NPR's "Embedded."

"President Trump spoke on Tuesday in Jamestown, Virginia, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of American democracy--the year that Virginia, the first English colony, held its first General Assembly of representatives," Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown writes for CNN. "But this year marks another anniversary: it marks the 400th year the first enslaved Africans were brought to America--specifically to Jamestown."

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution story says Georgia's two immigration courts, in South Georgia and Atlanta, have the second and third highest average asylum denial rates in the nation at 95 percent and 94 percent, respectively. Fewer than one in 10 applicants were successful from 2013-2018. The story also cites Emory Law student research and quotes adjunct professor and immigration law attorney Charles Kuck.

On the last day of the term, the justices surprised many by agreeing to take up DACA, setting in motion for next year the highly anticipated argument over immigration policy and presidential authority left hanging three years ago with the court¿s 4-4 split in a related case, United States v. Texas.

Because the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution bans cruel and punishment, it places certain limits on whom may be executed, including the State may not execute a person who is so mentally incapacitated as to not have a rational understanding of the basic reasons for the execution, in light of Ford v. Wainwright, and Panetti v. Quarterman. This past term, in the case of Madison v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court considered the scope of that limitation.

In Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, 139 S. Ct. 1485 (2019), the United States Supreme Court held that one state cannot constitutionally waive another state's sovereign immunity with respect to suits filed against the second state in the courts of the first state. In so doing, the court overruled its decision in Nevada v. Hall, 440 U.S. 410 (1979).

The Georgia Voice recently interviewed Mary Anne Bobinski, the first female and LGBTQ person to lead Emory Law. She discussed her past experience as a dean and also her connection to Atlanta. "I began researching and writing on HIV/AIDS during law school and, in fact, secured funding from my law school to attend an early conference on HIV counseling and testing led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," Bobinski said. She views advancing human rights as an important commitment. "In my own life, I have seen how lawyers, law professors, and community activists played such important roles in advancing legal protections for people with HIV infection and in promoting equality for the LGBTQ community," she said. "Atlanta's history provides so many inspiring examples of this approach."

Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown's op-ed for CNN addresses Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's comments at a NYC fundraiser. "Biden's remarks Tuesday were a sobering reminder of his checkered legislative history on issues affecting people of color," she writes. "So as he tries to win the Democratic nomination in 2020, Biden should be careful--not cocky, not defiant--about rhetoric that offends people of color. The black vote may be his to lose."

"There is apparently no issue--large or small-involving the rights and advancement of people of color that the president won't weigh in on, with his thumb on the scale," Professor Dorothy Brown writes for CNN. From his family's refusal to rent to blacks in the 70s, his call for the deaths of the Central Park Five, his challenge of Barack Obama's citizenship, and now, the delay of putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, Trump should rightfully be called "our white-supremacist-in-chief," she says, noting, "In 2016, candidate Trump told NBC that stripping his favorite president, the populist and slave owner, Andrew Jackson, from the $20 bill was 'pure political correctness.'"

Professor Dorothy Brown was interviewed on Curbed's "Nice Try," podcast about the 1950s Levittown pursuit of backyard utopia and how postwar suburbia actively kept out African Americans. "These developments typically excluded African Americans, deepening racial inequality and locking millions out of the dream of homeownership, the most infamous being Levittown," the story says, "while William Levitt used explicit racial covenants and other tactics to keep his developments white."

Professor Johnathan Nash recently discussed United States v. Nagarwala, on the Volokh Conspiracy blog. The U.S. Department of Justice brought criminal charges in a case involving alleged female genital mutilation, in violation of a federal statute. A district court dismissed most of the charges, saying Congress exceeded its constitutional powers in enacting the statute. The DOJ later declined to appeal. Now, the U.S. House of Representatives seeks court permission to intervene and seek reversal of the court's judgment on appeal. Nash argues Article III standing barriers facing the House are substantial.

State legislators have fielded calls and questions from residents concerned or confused about Georgia's new anti-abortion law, the AJC reports. HB 481 defines a "natural person" as "any human being including an unborn child." So legal experts need to consider mentions of "natural person" or "human being" in Georgia code to see what the implications might be, Emory Law Associate Professor Fred Smith Jr. says.

A group of constitutional scholars and lawmakers want House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take President Donald Trump to the Supreme Court over the war in Yemen. Vox quoted Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary L. Dudziak on why. It's unconstitutional for a president to unilaterally involve the U.S. in war. "Especially since 9/11, Congress has let power accumulate in the executive branch," Dudziak said. "And Congress does that by sitting back and not objecting, which is why Pelosi's role is really important right now."

The lecture, "The Challenge of Self-Determination in a Neo-Colonial World: Islam and the State on Muslim Terms," asked how Muslims and other post-colonial communities transcend the limitations of political, developmental, intellectual and other dependencies used by European colonial administrations to dominate and exploit colonized communities around the world.

Earlier this year, Atlanta adopted an ambitious climate change goal: To have all homes, businesses and city operations rely largely on renewable energy by 2035. Also, Atlanta-based Southern Company says it hopes to achieve "low- to-no carbon" emissions by 2050. Individual cities and companies may set goals, but a piecemeal approach to greener practice isn't the most efficient path for a global-scale problem, Mindy Goldstein, director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic tells WABE. "You're going to, in a perfect world, have global solutions," she said. "That's just not where we are today."

Democratic presidential candidates say they want to narrow the enduring black-white wealth gap in America. But their proposed policies don't use the most direct way possible--by steering benefits to African-Americans, a New York Times columnist writes. The mortgage interest deduction, disproportionately benefits white families, as do tax advantages for the rich, who are more likely to be white. "The first and most efficient approach is targeting relief to the people who were targeted with discrimination," said Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown.

Emory Law Associate Professor Deborah Dinner gave a detailed legal analysis to 11 Alive on the "heartbeat" abortion law Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law this week. "The Georgia legislation is flagrantly unconstitutional, violates women's fundamental rights to reproductive liberty and privacy, and represents a major threat to the ongoing struggle for gender equality," Dinner said, when asked for her final assessment. Dinner also broke down specific aspects of the law and its enforcement.

Abigail Disney has called out the Walt Disney Co. for paying its CEO Bob Iger an "insane" $65.6 million, more than 1,424 times the median salary of a Disney employee. "A CEO-to-median pay ratio of 1,424 to 1 is certainly shocking--but such numbers are a shiny decoy," Assistant Professor George S. Georgiev writes for the Los Angeles Times. The op-ed discusses a controversial provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act that requires publicly traded companies to report median employee pay and calculate the CEO pay ratio.

Will Georgia's proposed 'heartbeat' abortion law be the one to return the issue of reproductive rights to the Supreme Court? Emory Law Professor Robert Schapiro doubts it. Georgia currently bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The new law would do so once a doctor detects a heartbeat--which is usually at about six weeks, and often before most women know they are pregnant, the AJC reports. "I think if the court is going to revisit Roe v. Wade, it would do so more incrementally, with laws that limit but do not fundamentally undo the right to abortion," said Professor Robert Schapiro.

Emory Law Professor Robert Schapiro was quoted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a metro-Atlanta case on whether gay, lesbian and transgender workers are protected under federal anti-discrimination laws. "Certainly on any issue relating to the LGBT community, the absence of Justice Kennedy is potentially quite significant," he said. "These cases will give insight into how this new configuration of the Supreme Court addresses issues relating to gay and lesbian rights."

Four attorneys will be recognized during Emory Law Alumni Weekend for public service and trailblazing, and for exceptional and distinguished careers. They are: Lewis S. "Mike" Eidson, Lori G. Cohen, John Maggio, and Donna Yip. Interim Dean James B. Hughes Jr. will present the awards during an April 12 reception at the law school.

On April 2, President Donald Trump announced he intends to nominate Steven Grimberg 98L for U.S. District Court judge, to serve in Atlanta. Grimberg is a former U.S. attorney known for prosecuting white-collar and cyber crimes, who served with the Department of Justice for more than 12 years. In 2018, he joined Nardello & Co., where he is managing director, head of the Atlanta office, and general counsel of the Americas.

"President Donald Trump is expected to order U.S. colleges to protect free speech on their campuses or risk losing federal funding," California radio station KPCC 89.3 reports. Associate Professor Alexander Volokh was a guest on the show to discuss the issue. He is chair of the Emory University's Committee for Open Expression, an on-campus free speech organization.

For the second time this term, the U.S. Supreme Court has asked for the solicitor general's views on a case involving Section 101 patent eligibility. The high court's decisions in the past few years have led to the rejection of thousands of patents, mostly in software but also in biopharma. "I think two CVSGs suggests that the court is concerned about the way the doctrine is developing at the Federal Circuit and the broader impact" that its decisions have had, particularly Mayo Collaborative v. Prometheus Laboratories and CLS Bank v. Alice, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Timothy Holbrook told the National Law Journal.

"The collapse of talks between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un in Hanoi means that Pyongyang's nuclear program will continue--and so, too, will the still unresolved Korean War, now nearly 70 years old," Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary Dudziak writes in an opinion article for the Washington Post. "The war, which ended with a truce but not a peace treaty, is famously forgotten in the United States, but it is invoked as legal authority every time a president sends U.S. troops overseas without congressional authorization."

The ERA only needs one more state for ratification. Will Georgia be it? A bipartisan group of women in the state senate are mobilizing around a resolution calling on the state to ratify the ERA, which would amend the U.S. Constitution to guarantee equal rights regardless of sex, Rewire News reports. "We need the ERA to protect women's rights because it would provide explicit basis in the text of the Constitution for the recognition of women's equality," said Emory Law Associate Professor Deborah Dinner, clarifying that these rights currently only exist in state and federal laws, and under a broad interpretation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

US Senator Cory Booker contacted Emory Law Professor Ani Satz to draft what would become the "Primate Protection and Research Modernization Act of 2018" after reading her opinion article on Volkswagen's primate experiments.

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Robert Schapiro spoke with WABE about President Trump's recent declaration of a national emergency in order to secure funds to build a border wall. The Constitution states the power of the purse is the province of Congress, not the president, Schapiro said. However, Congress itself created the emergency exception that allows the president to reallocate money in a true crisis, such as 9/11.

"The CEO pay ratio rule that was implemented as part of the Dodd-Frank Act mandates that companies disclose the ratio between CEO pay and median employee pay, and while the ostensible purpose was to shine light on compensation-related governance issues, two law professors have concluded that, given the vagueness of the rule's requirements, it serves as little more than 'click bait' to incite emotions," the article reads, citing the study co-authored by Emory Law Assistant Professor George S. Georgiev. "Trusted Professional" is the newspaper of the N.Y. State Society of CPAs.

"Opponents of the CEO pay ratio rule have a new ally: a comprehensive academic analysis that methodically constructs a case for the rule's worthlessness," CFO magazine says of a recent paper co-authored by Emory Law Assistant Professor George S. Georgiev. The paper, the first academic analysis of the pay ratio rule following the first round of reporting, has a chance of influencing changes to the rule, Georgiev said. "I think our proposal is fairly reasonable, so that's what we're hoping for," he says. "You can't stop journalists from looking for a headline, but you can put the numbers in context."

Laurie Blank, director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic, recently spoke on the evolution of warfare and predictions about what's next. "From the increasing development of autonomous weapons systems to the expansion of the traditional battlefield to cyber and outer space, the evolution of warfare invites ethical and legal questions about what the future holds," says the Lawfare blog. The panel discussion was held in November 2018, moderated by former Air Force and Army general counsel Chuck Blanchard.

Research by Emory Law Assistant Professor George S. Georgiev was featured in a Bloomberg opinion article on alternative data and the relevance of a new SEC disclosure requirement: CEO pay ratios, or the difference between the CEO's pay and its median employee. Columnist Matt Levine quotes Georgiev's co-authored article: "We suggest that the pay ratio disclosure rule represents a unique approach to disclosure, which we term disclosure-as-soundbite. This approach is characterized by (1) high public salience--the pay ratio is superficially intuitive and resonates with the public to an extent much greater than other disclosure, and (2) low informational integrity--the pay ratio is a relative outlier in terms of certain baseline characteristics of disclosure, meaning that the information is lacking in accuracy, difficult to interpret, and incomplete."

Emory Law professor Dorothy Brown discussed the history of the U.S. marginal tax rate with with NPR's Scott Simon on "Weekend Edition." There was outrage this week at the suggestion of a 70 percent tax rate, but Brown says "Marginal tax rates went as high as 94 percent in the mid-'40s. It was also 91 percent as late as 1963. We had a 70 percent marginal tax rate as late as 1980. And currently, our marginal tax rate is 37 percent. So we've had very high marginal tax rates for many, many years."

Emory Law Professor and CSLR Senior Fellow Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, author of "Islam and the Secular State," is interviewed by UNESCO on how concept, content and context affect meaningful changes in human rights, and also, his "The Future of Sharia," project.

Super Bowl LIII will bring a lot of money to Atlanta-area business on its coattails. However, "The NFL has a history of smacking non-sponsor companies that it believes infringe on the lucrative trademark of its biggest show," says an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story. Non-affiliated companies who use Super Bowl images and label themselves "official," might be in trouble. Some use of the words "Super Bowl" are clear-cut violations, some depend on which company or organization is using them, said Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Tim Holbrook.

McDonald Distinguished Fellow Mark Storslee was recently awarded the 2020 Harold Berman Award for Excellence in Scholarship by the Law and Religion Section of the Association of American Law Schools.

Politico asked 16 historians how the past year will be viewed by coming generations. "2018 will be remembered as the year of cruelty," writes Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary L. Dudziak. From child deaths at the border to President Trump's refusal to sanction Saudi Arabia for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, it was a brutal year, Dudziak said. "The list goes on and on--there is too much cruelty for one paragraph. Congress, and the American people, aided the president's cruelty by failing to do whatever it would take to stop him."

John Witte Jr. has been invited as a Gifford Lecturer for 2020, a celebratory year that marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Scottish jurist Adam Lord Gifford, founder of the esteemed lecture series begun in 1888.

"The access and benefit sharing protocol of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity is based on bilateral agreements between providers and users of genetic resources. There are, however, many cases where genetic resources are dispersed, and difficult to attribute to only one location," reads an IP Watch story. "The issue is being discussed at the biennial meeting of the CBD member states, in particular the possibility of a global multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism to address those genetic resources not yet covered by the protocol." Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Margo Bagley served as a source for the story.

Researchers teasing out genetic codes from plants, animals, fungi, and microbes have deposited quadrillions of digital nucleotide sequences in open access databases, Chemical and Engineering News reports. "Now, more than 110 countries are considering a proposal that would affect scientists' ability to use these data. The aim is for the users to share benefits--financial or otherwise--that accrue from application of this information with the countries that are home to the organisms whose genes were sequenced." Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Margo Bagley was quoted as an expert.

President Trump has tweeted a frightening video of an undocumented immigrant from Mexico talking about killing police in the past and in the future, Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown writes for CNN. But,"The research is clear," she says. "Undocumented and legal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born American citizens." Trump's card is racism, but his ad might prove to be his "biggest political blunder yet," she writes.

"Courts, it is often remarked, control neither armies nor treasuries. Their power comes from their legitimacy," says The Atlantic. Emory Law Professor Joanna Shepherd is quoted in a story about the Republican legislature in West Virginia impeaching state supreme court justices. Post Citizens United, new judicial dark money overwhelmingly came from conservative groups, which resulted in a surge of TV attack ads on judges. They are often missing "any sort of nuance or explanation for why a judge voted that way . . . They fail to mention that there was an illegal search and seizure or something like that," Shepherd said, adding, "The system is forcing judges to act a lot more like politicians than as true judges."

President Donald Trump says he wants to use an executive order to end the constitutional right to American citizenship for children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents, 11Alive reports. Emory Law Professor Alexander Volokh says that idea is meritless. "The idea that Trump can end birthright citizenship by executive order is probably one of the most illegal ideas that Trump has expressed," he said. An executive order doesn¿t override the Constitution, he said, and Congress would have to vote to change the constitutional provision concerning citizenship.

In 1978, The Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed to protect against discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth or other related medical conditions. It was hailed as a victory, but 40 years later, many women don't feel protected. "The Takeaway" interviewed Emory Law Professor Deborah Dinner. "Is the Pregnancy Discrimination Act Doing Enough? The answer is no," Dinner said. "We need affirmative protections to accommodations for pregnant workers and for other temporarily disabled workers, too."

Emory Law Professor Nicole Morris will participate in the Federal Trade Commission's, "Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century," a two-day event held in Washington, D.C. Morris will speak at the Oct. 23 roundtable, "Understanding Innovation and IP in Business Decisions," moderated by Suzanne Munck, the FTC's deputy director and chief counsel for intellectual property.

Emory just announced its Class of 2018 '40 under 40,' which includes four Emory Law alumni. They are: Brandon Goldberg, Stacy Tolos Kane, Kurt Kastorf and Sara Toering.

Emory Law professor George Georgiev's research was quoted Bloomberg Opinion in regards to Google failing to disclose that Google+ exposed their users' private profile data. "Since the threshold for what is material increases as firms get bigger, however, at the very largest firms even matters that are significant or sizeable in absolute terms may be deemed immaterial and remain undisclosed," he said.

Except for a few cases, the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court docket may not yield much in the way of IP law, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook tells the National Law Journal. In last year's Oil States Energy Services LLC v. Greene's Energy Group, LLC, the court explicitly said it wasn't deciding whether other plaintiffs who obtained their patents before the America Invents Act could bring a similar challenge. Holbrook views that as a signal. "I do think that they'll take a retroactivity case because they signaled it so much," he said. "You don't make that statement unless you think it actually needs to be addressed."

A new solar ordinance, created by Emory Law's Turner Environmental Law Clinic, UGA and Georgia Tech was shaped to fit Georgia's particular needs--from its large commercial timber tracts and farm fields to its delicate coastal ecosystem, Energy News Network reports. It's already been adopted by several cities and counties, and more are expected to follow suit. "All of us did this work pro bono," said Clinic Director Mindy Goldstein, "to ensure the process was both neutral, academically rigorous and without bias."

"Entrepreneurship is a journey which involves both discovery and markets," Bernie Carlson writes in Forbes. "The (TI:GER) Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results program creates teams which combine a PhD. scientist or engineer, two MBA students and two law students from Emory University in order to commercialize a new technology."

Despite heightened attention across the nation on sexual harassment, Georgia has no consistent system for investigating complaints. The state also can't say how many of its nearly 70,000 employees have filed complaints recently, because it has no centralized system for tracking them, according to a recent investigation by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Emory Law Professor Deborah Dinner was asked to examine documentation of a Georgia Patrol secretary's case, and found "plenty to suggest that the officers' behavior ... was harassing," the story says. "It does seem like men were routinely sexualizing her," Dinner said.

A new, free immigration law clinic has launched in the Atlanta area, thanks to a partnership between Emory Law, local immigration attorneys and the Mormon Church. Emory Law students perform intake and then route advice-seekers to volunteer lawyers for on-the-spot consultations about their immigration questions. More-complex cases go to local firms or nonprofits. "We have substantial needs here, and the Atlanta Immigration Court is not so favorable to immigrants," said Assistant Dean for Public Service Rita Sheffey.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp has targeted Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams over her $54,000 debt to the IRS. Abrams says she's paying it back. Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown, an expert on tax law, told WABE: "Its' fairly common for the IRS and taxpayers to work out debt. You agree to a payment plan, you keep the payments up, everybody's happy." She also questioned whether the attacks will resonate with voters. "You're not going to necessarily make headway with the average American that is in debt," she said.

Decades after Roe v. Wade, both the political left and right are concerned about workplace pregnancy, but for vastly different reasons, Professor Deborah Dinner tells The Atlantic. She discusses the lesser-known 1974 case, Geduldig v. Aiello. "Businesses used the notion of reproductive autonomy to characterize pregnancy as a private choice with private costs, Dinner writes, so feminist, labor, and civil rights groups chose to emphasize that childbearing was in fact a public need and a social good."

Representatives from the Turner Environmental Law Clinic, Georgia Tech's Strategic Energy Institute, and the University of Georgia have published the Georgia Model Solar Zoning Ordinance and accompanying explanatory guide.

"Many are shocked to learn Georgia is a top solar producer," Emory Law Professor Mindy Goldstein writes for the AJC. "This year, the Solar Energy Industry Association ranked Georgia 10th in solar nationwide." But siting is important. "Smart solar siting achieves the right balance between encouraging solar development and protecting local community culture and resources," she says. Emory Law, Georgia Tech, and the University of Georgia combined expert sources to create the Georgia Model Solar Zoning Ordinance and accompanying educational guide.

The Emory Global Health Institute (EGHI) has announced the recipients of its 2018 Seed Grant Program, including Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Margo Bagley.

With the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy and the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to succeed him, much may change on the United States Supreme Court. Justice Kennedy served as the deciding vote in many closely contested cases, including siding with his more liberal colleagues in rulings affirming the right to same-sex marriage, upholding affirmative action in higher education, and protecting the right to an abortion.

The recent decision of Husted v. A Philip Randolph Institute, delivered on June 11, 2018, illustrates how leaving a gap between state and federal control of voting regulation can frustrate the purposes of the statute.

The Supreme Court dealt a significant blow to public-sector unions in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, ruling 5 to 4 that states could not require government employees to pay union fees.

How does a case make its way to the highest court in the land? Associate Professor Fred Smith Jr. was interviewed for Georgia Public Broadcasting's "On Second Thought" show to answer that question. They started with a recent death penalty case, Foster v. Chatman, which originated in Georgia. The U.S. Supreme Court receives about 8,000 petitions for certiorari each year, but only about 80 are granted.

After the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, President Donald Trump will try to appoint "another reliable conservative," Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. "On a court of nine, there will always be some Justice whose beliefs place him or her in the middle among his or her colleagues," he writes. "Therefore, assuming President Trump's nominee will not be a swing vote, a sitting Justice will assume that role. It is likely that the new swing vote will be Chief Justice Roberts."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's resignation has led to discussion of how the court may swing to the right, given President Donald Trump's goal to appoint a more conservative jurist. Emory Law professor Jonathan Nash told 11Alive he expects a nominee will surface soon. "I think we'll have a nomination by then [the new term in October]," Nash said. "I don't know if we'll have a confirmation by then."

The Supreme Court's decision in WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., which had had clear implications for patent law, "leaves to future cases a variety of important issues," Professor Tim Holbrook says. The court's decision was a narrow one, "but the opinion will likely will work as a roadmap for future litigants to raise them," Holbrook writes in a recent opinion article.

Emory Law faculty members will participate in the Poland-US Conference on the Rule of Law on June 26 in Warsaw.

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, many believed the court would answer the vexing question of which policy interest prevails when nondiscrimination laws and religious liberties collide. But the court did no such thing. Instead, the justices effectively punted, leaving that question unanswered.

The U.S. Supreme Court is due to rule soon on partisan gerrymandering, where state legislators draw electoral maps to entrench their party's power. But states are already turning to some form of a separate commission for redrawing U.S. House districts to rein in the politicians. Emory Law Professor Michael Kang said eyes are on Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who sometimes sides with liberals in major cases. In a 2004 case his concurring opinion left the door open for courts to intervene if a "workable" standard for identifying and measuring impermissible gerrymandering could be devised. "If he can convince himself that an approach is sound and objective, then I think he'd love to intervene," Kang said. "I don't know if he finds any of the approaches convincing enough."

Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder was quoted by the Christian Science Monitor on what the U.S. Supreme Court's 7-2 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop meant. "This is a balancing test," Goldfeder said. Equality for the LGBTQ community and the free exercise of religion "are all valid rights and they all deserve to be listened to, and that's why it was so hurtful what the Colorado Commission did, which was almost to pretend there wasn't another side to this question."

The NFL's announcement that players who do not stand for the national anthem could be fined highlights the clash of values over what defines equality and patriotism, Emory Law Associate Professor Fred Smith Jr. tells the Washington Post. "This is clearly a very fraught issue in the American political imagination," he said. "Generally speaking, I don't think people want to see large powerful entities, whether it be Facebook or anyone else, telling us what to think and what to say and how to say it. But the constitution is a protection against government power. And for private entities, like the country itself, it's a work in progress."

Democrats hope their wide-ranging plans to confront corruption in Washington will resonate with voters ahead of the midterms this fall. Those plans including overturning Citizens United. "Reform is always popular for the party out of power," Emory Law Professor Michael Kang tells PBS NewsHour. There are a lot of obstacles, though. Democrats proposed a series of policies to improve election infrastructure that would likely run into resistance or clash with other changes planned by state state and local governments, which have broad authority to run elections, Kang said.

The wording in West Virginia's "sore loser" law may keep Don Blankenship's hopes to run as an independent (after losing a primary) alive. Emory Law Professor Michael Kang is quoted by New York magazine on the election. Kang noted the law cited by the Secretary of State prohibits independent runs after a primary loss from candidates who are not already "candidates in the primary election for public office." Because Blankenship was--not is--a candidate for the primary election for public office, he may have room to argue.

As solar takes off, Turner Environmental Law Clinic Director Mindy Goldstein wants to ensure that it grows wisely. She's part of a team determining how to do that in Georgia. The goal is to develop a solar zoning ordinance that will help county and city officials balance their communities' solar development with preservation of its culture and native habitats by preventing deforestation and maintaining agricultural spaces.

Emory is one of 39 schools that earned a 'green light" rating for free speech on campus from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) after revising sections of its conduct code and policies governing campus bias incidents. Emory Law Associate Professor Alexander Volokh is chair of Emory's Committee for Open Expression, which worked to update policy to reflect Emory's values. "The credit really belongs to Emory's administrators, from President Claire Sterk on down, who strongly support open expression on campus--as well as to the University Senate that adopted the Open Expression Policy five years ago," Volokh said.

As calls for a merit-based immigration system mount, the notion that similar rules might have barred their ancestors from entering the country has ignited anger among some native-born Americans, a CNN story says. "My grandparents are exactly the kinds of people (who) would have been excluded from a 'merit-based' approach to immigration," says Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary L. Dudziak. Their son, Dudziak's father, later became a nuclear physicist. "Whenever anyone says, our people, i.e. white people, we came over the right way and we followed all the rules, what I say is my grandmother, for whom I am named, basically came over unlawfully,"

Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani now says Trump repaid his attorney Michael Cohen for $130,000 in Stormy Daniels hush money. Vox consulted Emory Law Professor Michael Kang on the implications. "Giuliani's admission suggests that Trump and his campaign willfully failed to disclose it, which could trigger criminal liability under campaign finance law. Having said all that, the case against Trump for willful failure to disclose is still not a complete slam-dunk," Kang said.

That an Arizona woman was killed by a driverless car is a tragedy, Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder writes in the AJC. But we shouldn't overlook that driverless cars will also save lives, he says. "We currently have a system that allows human drivers, with all of their ticks, quirks, bad habits and malfunctions, to operate massive heavy machinery at incredibly high speeds, a system that results in approximately 37,500 deaths a year in the U.S. In fact, the U.S. Transportation Department says that about 94 percent of fatal accidents are caused by human error."

Officials at a Florida high school where a student made a poster prom invitation that many found racist are considering disciplinary action, the Washington Post reports. Emory Law Associate Professor Fred Smith Jr. says the school may not have grounds, especially in light of the student wasn't on campus at the time. "Just like the rest of us, students have the ability to say things that are offensive. And the reason why we have free speech is to protect unpopular views," he said. "Given that he was off of the school campus, the mere fact that his speech was offensive would strike me as an insufficient basis for the school to punish him."

Getting into a top law school is competitive. Emory Law's Senior Assistant Dean for Admission, Financial Aid, and Student Life Ethan Rosenzweig tells U.S. News that there are ways to distinguish yourself in a sea of candidates, beyond your GPA.

The neo-Nazi group, the Nationalist Socialist Movement, will hold a rally in Newnan, Ga., on April 21, and many have objected to the city granting a permit for the event. Some say hate speech should not be protected. "The safe thing for a government actor to do is not to engage in any kind of content regulation," said Emory Law Associate Professor Fred Smith Jr. "Even when people are going to say something most people in the community would find odious, our constitutional tradition is that people absolutely nonetheless have to be able to say those things."

When commenting on the recent U.S. strikes on Syria, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley called them, "justified, legitimate and proportionate." But were they legal? Laurie Blank, director of Emory Law's International Humanitarian Law Clinic, examines the difference in her opinion article, published in Lawfare.

As America deals with the human and financial costs of an opioid epidemic, there's a giant lawsuit coming to the federal court system that many compare to those brought against tobacco companies. Multi-district litigation lawsuits are rare but are increasing as the economy nationalizes and courts are being used to solve problems that the government can't, says a Washington Post story. "The MDL is being entrusted with the most difficult problems of our time," said Jaime L. Dodge, director of the Institute for Complex Litigation and Mass Claims at Emory Law. "At some level I think there's a recognition that in some of these cases it's not just a dollar or cents, it's about fixing ongoing societal problems."

Emory Law Professor Kathleen Cleaver was interviewed along with fellow historian Peniel Joseph for C-SPAN's series, "1968: America in Turmoil."

Oklahoma lawmakers may soon sanction private adoption agencies turning away same-sex couples, Religion News reports. Melissa Carter, executive director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory Law, opposes Georgia legislation similar to Oklahoma's, calling it unneeded and "unnecessarily hostile from a values standpoint." But she adds: "I don't think it's true that we've seen either a notable increase or a notable decrease (in adoptions) as a result of these bills."

Georgia Secretary of State (and GOP gubernatorial candidate) Brian Kemp's claim that he twice fought the Obama administration on Voter ID laws is a stretch, Politifact Georgia finds. Emory Law Professor Michael Kang says the Obama-era Justice Department pre-cleared the laws referenced. "In fact, many election law experts were surprised that the Justice Department under President Obama didn't maintain an objection to these laws," Kang said.

Associate Dean Kay Levine was interviewed on WXIA-TV about the impact of social media in legal matters. "In the beginning stages of the case, attorneys and the judge are allowed to ask questions of prospective jurors. We trust that jurors will be honest," she said. But they rely on other jurors to report improper conduct. "We do not know what a juror is doing, when she goes home at night. or when he is on a lunch break. We do not know if they are accessing a cell phone or talking to friends. It is almost impossible to prove."

How much money does YouTube make? It is a secret: Alphabet Inc., which owns YouTube, does not break out revenue for it separately, Bloomberg reports. The story cites Emory Law Professor George S. Georgiev's article "Too Big to Disclose: Firm Size and Materiality Blindspots in Securities Regulation," which shows how large firms legally take advantage of the materiality standard to avoid disclosure of important matters.

"The problem of sexual abuse against children in our community is a stubborn one," Emory Law Professor Michael Broyde writes in a column for The New York Jewish Week. "The truth regarding this is very complex--addressing it requires nuance and complexity, and not merely good wishes and love. No one wants abuse to occur, and we all want to preserve what is valuable in the Jewish educational system." Broyde offers six policy points to move forward when abuse is investigated.

Georgia's lieutenant governor threatened to block legislation that includes lucrative tax benefits for Delta Air Lines because the company dropped a partnership with the National Rifle Association following a recent Florida school shooting. "In terms of legality, the legislature has a broad ability to grant tax exemptions or not grant tax exemptions," Emory Law Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Robert Schapiro said. "So it doesn't violate any constitutional principle" to pull support over the NRA debate.

Some Georgia senators say allowing adoption agencies to turn away married gay couples will result in more adoptions of foster children, according to a recent bill. Georgia shouldn't pass laws that encourage adoption agencies to turn potential parents away, said Melissa Carter, executive director of Emory Law's Barton Child Law and Policy Center. Gay children could be harmed if SB 375 passes and faith-based adoption agencies send them back to foster care, she said. "Children will stay in foster care longer, and the longer they stay in foster care, they're less likely to be adopted," Carter said.

Melissa Carter, executive director of Emory Law's Barton Child Law and Policy Center, was quoted in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story that alleges a volunteer coach with the Pope High School wrestling program sexually abused young boys for years, despite one mother's efforts to have him arrested. In 2017, the coach pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two boys in Pennsylvania. Carter said there appeared to be multiple occasions when adults in positions of responsibility for children failed them. "The law itself is just a minimum, and often the law doesn't answer for us what the ethical or moral thing to do is," Carter said. "We all, as adults, should be aware of the signs and symptoms of abuse."

Drew Findling 84L has gained some renown as a courtroom killer for an array of high-profile acts. But he has also taken on the role of a mentor, and even a father figure, to some clients as they try to outrun societal disadvantages (and youthful recklessness) in favor of fame. "It is increasingly disturbing to me, the 'X' that is on the forehead of people in this industry," Findling tells The New York Times. "There's such a target on these young guys," he said. "Every once in a while someone is going to make a mistake. But no one looks at all the good that comes out of what they do."

It's important for citizens to participate in the lawmaking process by lobbying for changes they want to see, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Tuesday at Emory Law, during an appearance that included a conversation with her former law clerk, Professor Fred Smith Jr. "I believe with all my heart that unless we become engaged in our country and become active participants in making a difference in the world we're in, that we will be nothing but bystanders otherwise, and nobody should live their life being a bystander," she said.

Proposed changes to Georgia's adoption laws are overdue, says Barton Child Law and Policy Center Executive Director Melissa Carter. Changes include shortening the time a birth mother can change her mind after signing adoption documents from 10 to four days, and allowing adoptive parents to reimburse the birth mother for basic living expenses during the pregnancy. Present laws haven't been updated since 1990. "Prospective adoptive parents will look to adopt children in other states where the laws are more friendly," Carter said. "This bill is a necessary and overdue modernization of our adoption laws."

The diesel exhaust experiments Volkswagen performed with monkeys were cruel, but hardly unusual in the corporate world, Emory Law Professor Ani Satz writes for The Hill. "Corporate behavior that seeks to maximize profits outside ethical decision-making often involves fraud, environmental harm, and harm to humans and animals because it entails complete disregard for obligations to stakeholders other than shareholders," she writes.

A City of South Fulton councilwoman has proposed a controversial law that could send parents to jail and fine them for their children 's crimes. Paul Howard, the Fulton County district attorney, said in a statement that he thought the proposal could be unconstitutional. "It's hurting the wrong person," said Randee Waldman, director of Emory Law's Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic. "They're not standing next to their kids while they're committing crimes."

Artificial intelligence is is already being adopted for military use, raising questions as to what role the technology will play in the end-of-days, says a Breaking Israel News story. Although AI poses many ethical and theological questions, Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder says the development of technology was in fact intended by God to be part of man¿s role in being a partner with God in Creation.

Chinese acquisitions of U.S. companies dropped 56 percent in volume to $44.5 billion, dragged down by concerns about U.S. national-security deal reviews and shifts in China's foreign investment policies, Bloomberg reports. Emory Law Professor George Georgiev mentioned the impact of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, which evaluates deals that may have national security concerns. "I think CFIUS has always been a wild card," Georgiev said. "When you don't have regulatory certainty, it creates problems."

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary Dudziak is quoted in Political News on the end of the Warren U.S. Supreme Court.

This week's decision by a panel of three federal judges in a North Carolina gerrymandering case sends a warning against all such partisan efforts, including in Georgia, Emory Law Professor Michael Kang tells WABE. The judges found that Republicans had illegally drawn North Carolina's congressional district map to give GOP candidates "a solid advantage for most of the seats," NPR reports. "For the most part, whoever controlled state government thought they could gerrymander on a partisan basis," Kang said. "So I think that sort of license to do whatever you want in gerrymandering is put on hold."

An opinion article concerning lateral moves by judges, by Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash, was published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal. The subscriber-only op-ed was based on Nash's 2017 article in the Vanderbilt Law Journal, which you may read by following the link.

Manuel Burga, former president of Peru's soccer federation, was the first person to be acquitted among over 40 people and entities in the soccer world who were charged with a scheme to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks. Of those, 24 pleaded guilty. Burga was cleared of a single racketeering conspiracy charge. He was represented by Bruce Udolf 79L. A former prosecutor, Udolf is now president of his own firm, where he concentrates his practice in white-collar criminal defense, investigations and corporate compliance.

Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown was interviewed on CNN about the pending GOP tax plan, in a segment titled "critics blast GOP tax plan as giant cut for the rich." She was asked whether the middle class would benefit. "Absolutely not," she said. "This is designed to put money in the pockets of shareholders, which tend to be very high-income." While tax cuts for individuals would expire after eight years, corporate tax cuts would be permanent, she said.

Atlanta mayoral candidate Mary Norwood has challenged the outcome of the Dec. 5 runoff, citing votes from recently annexed parts of the city that she argues should not have been counted. Professor Michael Kang was quoted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Ordering a new election is an extraordinary remedy that's normally not done," he said. "You'd have to show it cast enough doubt that it's impossible to reconstruct without having to have a new vote altogether. And that burden is high."

The Reverend Raphael G. Warnock PhD, senior pastor of Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, will give a lecture in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.

Six women filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein and associated companies, alleging that their coordinated efforts to cover up a pattern of egregious sexual misconduct amounts to racketeering. Successful RICO suits come with significantly higher damages, Emory Law Professor Morgan Cloud told Business Insider. "If they win, they are entitled to recover treble damages--three times their actual damages--and their costs of litigation, including attorneys' fees," he said.

The Georgia Association of Club Executives have sued state officials over a new tax on strip clubs, asking it be declared unconstitutional. Those lawyers engaged Emory Law Associate Professor Alexander Volokh as a consultant. "I do think there is a good First Amendment argument against the law," he said, adding the U.S. Supreme Court has "recognized in many cases that nude dancing is a form of speech that gets some protection. The question is, just how much protection does it get?"

Emory Law Professor Associate Professor Alexander Volokh writes about Emory University's "green light" status for its commitment to free speech and open expression on campus in his latest Washington Post op-ed. Emory University received a "green-light" free-speech rating from The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

Artificial intelligence is progressing swiftly, and "scholars already imagine a time when robots and intelligent machines may deserve--and be accorded--some sort of rights," says a recent article in NBC's MACH. Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder is quoted: "I have a responsibility to treat all that seem human as humans, and it is better to err on the side of caution from an ethical perspective," he said.

Emory Law's Center for Transactional Law and Practice marked its 10th anniversary last month by convening the first meeting of its inaugural advisory board.

CNN reports Gen. John Hyten said he would resist any illegal orders from President Donald Trump--or any president--to launch nuclear weapons. "He'll tell me what to do, and if it's illegal, guess what's going to happen?" Hyten said at a security forum. "I'm gonna say, 'Mr. President, that's illegal.'" Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Professor Mary Dudziak tells Vox: "The military is restraining the civilian leadership rather than the other way around."

Tax reform could be crafted to create inclusive growth, but the proposed GOP plan will only exacerbate the racial wealth gap and lift inequality growth, according to economists and tax lawyers, Newsweek reports. "Tax law is generally created with white taxpayers in mind and this is another example of that," said Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown, who focuses on tax policy by race and class. "This plan privileges the way whites experience America."

The State Bar of Georgia's innovative Lawyers for Equal Justice incubator program offers millennial attorneys an opportunity to launch their own firms and earn a living while serving a different market--moderate-income people--where there is a huge unmet demand for legal services. It graduated its first class of law firm proprietors recently. Emory Law alumni are among both the graduates and the program's organizers.

Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission asks whether a wedding baker can deny service to a same-sex couple on the basis of religious convictions against gay marriage. In an amicus brief filed with several other legal scholars, Emory Law Professor Barbara Woodhouse writes, "To permit business owners to engage in sexual orientation discrimination would ostracize and stigmatize children because of their relationship to or association with their LGBT parents--an outcome inconsistent with the foundational understandings of legal and social equality in the United States."

"Normally when a celebrity comes out, there is widespread celebration in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. Then there's Kevin Spacey. The LGBTQ's response to his coming out? Condemnation. And rightfully so," Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook writes for CNN. "Whatever the truth of this situation, it is a portrayal of what sexual assault and harassment is about: the powerful taking advantage of the vulnerable."

The Internet Research Agency--a Russian "troll factory"--used social media and Google during the 2016 electoral campaign to deepen political and racial tensions in the United States, the Atlantic reports. Except for the technology used, however, these tactics are not exactly new. The Cold War coincided with the beginning of the civil rights movement, and the two became intertwined in how the Soviets used the racial strife. "Early on in the Cold War, there was a recognition that the U.S. couldn't lead the world if it was seen as repressing people of color," Emory Law Professor Mary Dudziak says.

Trump's Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly, was wrong to call Congresswoman Frederica Wilson an "empty barrel" at a recent press conference concerning President Trump's phone call to the family of a serviceman killed in Niger, Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown writes for CNN. Nor should he have misquoted her 2015 comments at the dedication of an FBI building. "With this press conference, Kelly has done his president and the country a disservice. He took a tragic situation and made it worse. He owes his boss and the country an apology," Brown writes.

In the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting that left 58 dead, Emory Law Professor Frank Vandall suggests some ways to prevent such tragedies. "There are steps that can be taken short of the confiscation of guns," he writes for the Daily Report.

In memo aimed at dismantling discrimination protections for transgender persons, Attorney General Jeff Sessions gets the law wrong, Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook writes for CNN. "The attorney general and Department of Justice do not get to decide what 'is a conclusion of law.' The courts do. And the courts have recognized that federal law does protect transgender people as a form of discrimination based on sex," he says.

WABE interviewed Emory Law Professor Michael Kang about Gill v. Whitford, the gerrymandering case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this week, on how it could affect Georgia elections. "Georgia is definitely a big partisan gerrymandering state," he said. "Any decision on the law of partisan gerrymandering is likely to have some sort of impact here." State Republicans solidified their power thanks to districts they drew in 2011, Kang said, and Democrats tried to do the same back in 2001. "Even when the majority party is doing a bad job, it's very hard to throw them out because the deck is stacked in their favor," he added.

There's a reason politicians prefer tax code spending over spending through the budget, Marketplace reports. Because once policy is in place, it doesn't come up for review like budget spending does. "When you start talking about changing these tax expenditures, changing the provisions of the code, then it becomes public again," said Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown. If you take away that tax break you sold before, it looks like a tax increase. "Everybody comes out of the woodwork and says this is the worst thing possible."

NPR asked Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown to discuss the GOP's latest tax proposal, and she found it will likely benefit those who are wealthy and white. Keeping the mortgage interest deduction will "benefit more whites than blacks and Latinos, who don't own homes to the same extent," Brown said on Weekend Edition. And "retirement plans from private employers tend to go to those who hold jobs at the higher incomes which, again, tend to be disproportionately white. So we know that even with the minimal sketching that we see in the Trump tax plan, rich, white Americans are going to benefit the most."

Emory Law Professor Michael Perry is among the 44 constitutional law scholars represented in an amicus brief filed at the Supreme Court this week, which argues the Trump administration's "travel ban" is unconstitutional. The brief is featured at the TakeCare blog, which includes a link to the brief in the first paragraph.

James B. Hughes, Jr., associate dean for academic affairs at Emory University School of Law, has been appointed interim dean of the school.

Judge Elizabeth "Lisa" Branch was nominated by President Donald Trump to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to fill the spot vacated by Judge Frank Hull, who is taking senior status, the Daily News reports. Branch was appointed to the Georgia Court of Appeals in 2012 leaving a position as a commercial litigation partner at Smith Gambrell & Russell.

Sonia Sotomayor, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, will speak on Wednesday, September 13, from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. in Glenn Memorial Auditorium on the campus of Emory University.

Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal interviewed Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown on President Donald Trump's recent statement that job creation would improve race relations. Brown disagrees. "Here's the problem," she said. "The research shows us that even when you are a black graduate with a Harvard degree, you are treated not as well as white graduates with a Harvard degree. There is research that talked about the number of employer responses and they found that blacks needed to apply to far more jobs in order to get responses from employers than whites did. So the private sector, employers are not colorblind when they hire."

The failure of nurse Kaci Hickox to collect any money after being held by state officials for 80 hours in a tent outside a hospital, even after twice testing negative for Ebola, illustrates the difficulties of getting compensated for allegations of excessive quarantine measures, the New Jersey Law Journal reports. Quarantine litigation now mostly concerns tuberculosis, says Emory Law Professor Polly Price. Litigants who feel their quarantine conditions are excessive have prevailed in court, but generally on petitions for injunctive relief, rather than cases seeking damages after the fact, she said.

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby quoted Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder's new book in a column on the growth of polygamy. "This is the first book that explains not only why the legalization of plural marriage may be on the horizon in America but also why the idea is not really as radical as you might at first glance think; why the legal arguments against it are surprisingly weak; and how ... it would not actually be that difficult to accommodate," Goldfeder's book begins.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 4-2 in Ziglar v. Abbasi--a case brought by detainees in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, alleging grave mistreatment at the hands of federal executive branch officials. "Here, oddly, four justices--what I have called a 'minority majority"--is technically enough to constitute a majority," Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes in a column for The Hill. He argues such opinions should receive limited precedential effect.

On June 23, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court once again applied the Sixth Amendment ineffective assistance of counsel doctrine to attorney errors during plea negotiations. In Lee v. United States, a six-member majority led by Chief Justice Roberts found a Sixth Amendment violation where an attorney incorrectly advised a noncitizen defendant that guilty pleas do not trigger deportation, and the defendant established "by substantial and uncontroverted evidence" that he would not have pled guilty but for this advice.

What makes the decision in Trinity Lutheran so interesting is that while the facts were really clear, the justices seemed generally unable to agree on what exactly the case was about or how to frame it.

The future of a program that protects young immigrants from deportation is uncertain, as some Trump administration officials say Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, will likely not stand up in the courts, WABE reports. Many states sued the Obama administration over the program, but the Supreme Court deadlocked on the issue. Emory Law Professor Polly Price said while the Supreme Court now has nine justices, it's hard to predict how they would rule. "It's not clear yet how they would have ruled if they¿d been presented with DACA itself," she said.

Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder is among those singled out by the Atlanta Jewish Times this year for remarkable achievement at a young age. He is the Spruill Family Senior Fellow at Emory's Center for the Study of Law and Religion and director of Restoring Religious Freedom: Education, Outreach and Good Citizenship.

After months of denial by the Trump team about communication with Russia during the 2016 election, Donald Trump Jr. confirmed he met with a Russian lawyer in hopes of receiving damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Politifact reports. Was it illegal? It's possible a court could find that "information" satisfies the legal requirement if it's considered valuable to a campaign. "Contributions definitely do not need to be in the form of cash to constitute a thing of value," said Emory Law Professor Michael Kang. "However, it also needs to be said that this is an unusual situation quite unlike the usual context for an illegal foreign contribution, typically in the form of money rather than information."

A lawsuit that could have implications for how the government takes private property is being weighed by the Georgia Supreme Court, and the case between a Marietta property owner and the city will determine whether protections laid out in the state's 2006 Landowner's Bill of Rights statute are mandatory. The city argues they are not. "It is an interesting issue, about whether these rules are simply aspirational guidelines that municipalities should follow versus actual rules," said Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook. "What's the point of having this Bill of Rights if municipalities are free to ignore it?"

"The Advocate Health Care Network opinion was authored by Justice Elena Kagan, an appointee of President Barack Obama," Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. "While Kagan has exhibited a penchant for textualism over the years, this opinion is a tour de force in textualist interpretive technique."

In Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project, the Supreme Court stayed portions of lower courts' preliminary injunctions, "thus allowing substantial swaths of the temporary travel ban to go into effect. The cases may not ultimately result in a complete victory for the Trump administration (insofar as the Court has yet to rule on the merits, and issues of potential mootness loom over the case)," Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill.

If a Supreme Court Justice steps down in the next few years, and President Donald Trump appoints another, there undoubtedly will be challenges to Obergefell v. Hodges, even if Trump views same-sex marriage as settled, Professor Timothy Holbrook writes for CNN. "A new justice could easily vote to overrule Obergefell. But the chief justice's vote in Pavan may be a harbinger of a willingness to protect the hard-earned rights of marriage equality. At least it is a glimmer of hope to the LGBTQ community."

Asa Candler Griggs Professor of Law Mary Dudziak was featured recently on C-SPAN, delivering the keynote address at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations annual meeting, titled, "American Experience with War and Death." Dudziak, a leading U.S. legal historian, is the society's president.

"With controversy seemingly engulfing the Trump administration on a daily basis, it is noteworthy that the president earlier this month announced a second substantial slate of lower federal court judicial nominees," Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. "This slate of judges confirms three aspects of the president's strategy for selecting judges for the federal courts that the previous slate suggested."

Judson Graves 75L, a longtime partner with the international law firm Alston & Bird, has been appointed interim dean of Emory University School of Law, effective Aug. 1.

President Donald Trump has added veteran Washington lawyer John Dowd 65L to the team representing him in the investigations of possible collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia, Reuters reports, including the criminal probe being led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

A Mexican woman whose highly publicized deportation case in Georgia thrust her into the national debate over immigration may stay in the United States and be temporarily protected from deportation, U.S. District Judge Mark H. Cohen 79L ruled on June 12, The New York Times reports.

Did politics play a part in the Fourth Circuit's 10-3 decision to enjoin enforcement of President Trump's proposed travel ban? "It is hardly surprising that, faced with a highly politically salient and divisive case, a court comprised lopsidedly of judges appointed by Democratic Presidents would vote overwhelmingly in a liberal direction," Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill.

"For many African-American families, securing a college degree holds the promise of securing a middle-class life with financial stability," a Chicago Reporter story says. But a recent study finds that for middle-class blacks, "social mobility is a double-edged sword." Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown is quoted on how neighborhood diversity affects home prices. "Research shows homes in majority black neighborhoods do not appreciate as much as homes in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods."

Lawrence Joseph Jefferson's 1985 death sentence has troubled federal judges for years. In April, U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper 67L reaffirmed the position he took a decade ago, in a 71-page opinion that argues Jefferson's trial counsel--one of whom is now a Cobb County Superior Court judge--had been constitutionally ineffective.

Last year, the Palestinians spent $300 million, or nearly 7 percent of its total budget, on paying terrorists and their surviving family members, Fox News reports. "It's unbelievable," Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder said of the payments. "[The PA] literally publish the fact, in their laws, that they are incentivizing terrorism. Then they publish a budget which says how much they are paid to incentivize terrorism. This is an open and shut case, you can't ask for better evidence than a literal physical confession."

President Trump continues to select federal judge nominees from lists created by right leaning think tanks during his campaign. There are certainly enough vacancies, about 150 positions, on the lower federal courts to keep the White House busy, Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes in an essay for The Hill. "As these nominations roll in, we will gain more traction on how Trump plans to remake the federal judiciary," he writes.

Georgia may feel the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overruling voting districts in North Carolina, according to a WABE story. Emory Law Professor Michael Kang said the decision could have a big impact in Southern states like Georgia, where party preference tends to fall along racial lines. "I think states felt like as long as they could point to partisan reasons to explain what they were doing, they could defend it in court," Kang said. "And that seems a little bit less true, a little bit less certain after [Monday's] ruling."

Richard Freer has been named Charles Howard Candler Professor. Michael Kang has been named Thomas Simmons Professor. Jonathan Nash has been named Robert Howell Hall Professor. Polly Price has been named Asa Griggs Candler Professor. Teemu Ruskola has been named Jonas Robitscher Professor.

The appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel in charge of the Russia investigation has quelled the anxieties of many Americans, an ABC report says. The decision to use special counsel puts legally complex or politically thorny cases "at least one degree away from the day to day political back and forth," said Emory Law Vice Dean Robert Ahdieh. "As a political matter, Mueller was a very smart choice in terms of the political discourse and taking down the temperature," Ahdieh said. "In essence he has completely wiped the slate clean."

One Georgia "dreamer" has had her Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protection against deportation revoked. Emory Law Professor Polly Price says the action reflects the new administration's deportation priorities. Jessica Colotl, who works as a paralegal, got a mailed notice this week that her DACA status was terminated. "It's emblematic of the broader scope that ICE has taken recently in terms of who they're targeting and what their priorities might be," Price says.

President Trump's executive order to loosen a federal law governing religious leaders endorsing political candidates could cut a number of ways, says Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder. The Johnson Amendment is vague and problematic because it limits free speech, but enforcement is rare. "Pastors are breaking it on a weekly basis," he tells the AJC. But a true repeal could cause rifts in congregations. "People have relied on the Johnson Amendment to keep their churches together," he said. If pastors are pressured to endorse candidates from the pulpit, portions of their congregations will be alienated as a result.

Turner Environmental Law Clinic students traveled to Florida this month for a hearing on Florida Power & Light's plans to build two more nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point site. The controversy has been running for seven years, but could be decided by year's end, said Clinic Director Mindy Goldstein.

In a recent story on Americans embracing conscientious objector status in their private and professional lives, Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder was quoted on religious liberty. "I believe as an American that, in general, it is a good thing for society to shape laws in ways that allow people to live their lives in ways consistent with their sincerely held religious obligations," he said. "It's in our First Amendment for a reason: It is extraordinarily important as part of the American constitutional experiment that separated us from previous societies, and made us a better nation. At the end of the day, that's a cornerstone, the bedrock of our society."

Chad Connelly, A GOP candidate in South Carolina's special congressional election was still on the Republican National Committee's payroll when he began his campaign in February, raising questions among some party members and politicos about the RNC's role in the race. There's a risk the party could give money to the employee-candidate beyond the contribution limit, said Emory Law Professor Michael Kang. "The bigger thing here is the appearance," Kang said. "It may be that it doesn't look very good."

Neil Gorsuch is the first U.S. Supreme Court justice to join the court mid-term since Samuel Alito did in 2006, a Bloomberg story says. But he shouldn't have much trouble getting up to speed for his first day today, said Emory Law Associate Professor Alexander Volokh. Preparing for arguments should be easy given his decade on a federal appeals court. "He's just going to be reading the briefs in the cases, and he knows how to do that," Volokh said.

Was President Donald Trump morally justified in launching 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base in response to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's chemical attack on his own citizens? CNN asked experts from five faiths. Emory Law Professor and Rabbi Michael Broyde responded: "As I understand the facts, Trump struck a military target directly connected to the gas attack. To the extent that there is ever a situation in which military force is proper and appropriate, from a Jewish legal and ethical standpoint, it is to defend civilians against just such an attack. Attacking the airfield is the most ethically defensible thing to do."

Former president Jimmy Carter says he hopes President Donald Trump's words and actions will "reinvigorate" the women's movement in this country, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The U.S. tendency to champion human rights and international law has weakened in the past few years, he said, a trend that's intensifying now. Carter was Emory Law's invited speaker for the annual David J. Bederman Lecture on April 6.

Beneath the radar, President Trump nominated Judge Amul R. Thapar to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. "The nomination says something about Trump's strategy for filling the numerous vacancies on the lower federal courts," Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. "And in the long run, it may have a larger impact than the nomination of Gorsuch" for the Supreme Court.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal says he opposes a Senate effort to add "religious liberty" protections to a bill dealing with adoptions, a change that could allow private adoption agencies receiving public money to refuse to place children with LGBT families. Melissa Carter, director of Emory"s Barton Child Law and Policy Center, is also concerned the bill could be defeated because of the proposed change. "It's certainly a possibility that the entire bill could be lost as a casualty of these efforts," she said. Lost in the fight is how much the present laws need an update, she says. "As a legal practice, adoption is a highly technical area. Over time it needs to be updated and modernized."

A change intended to modernize Georgia's adoption laws would allow private foster and adoption agencies to refuse services based on their "mission as evidenced by its written policy, statement or other document." But child advocates say that may violate federal law and have a negative effect on children in state care. "This could very much harm them in the disruption of our placement protocols, in curtailing the resources that we currently have, and frankly, in conveying a sense to any given child that 'you are unwanted'--again, and again, and again," said Melissa Carter, director of Emory Law's Barton Child Law and Policy Center.

After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. responded in self-defense against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan "and has since used force against al Qaeda and several affiliated groups from Pakistan to Yemen to Syria to Somalia and beyond," Emory Law's Laurie Blank writes in a column for Jurist. It raises two important questions, she says. "How long does self-defense last ... and how far can a state go--both in the geographic sense and in the sense of the legitimate aims of using force--when acting in self defense?"

A Georgia voter redistricting plan has raised charges that it is designed to dilute the influence of minority voters and protect members of GOP who came close to losing their seats in the last election. Republicans say there is nothing "sinister or underhanded" about the bill. If passed, the redistricting may be open to court challenge. "The issue in Georgia, and in the North Carolina cases, is whether the predominant intent of the legislature is racial or partisan," said Emory Law Professor Michael Kang.

SEC officials didn't attend an annual conference for Wall Street bond dealmakers in Las Vegas last week, Bloomberg reports. The agency is bracing for deep spending reductions in President Donald Trump's budget proposal, the story says. "We're already seeing a quieter enforcement regime" since the change of administration, said Emory Law Associate Professor Urska Velikonja. "The number of enforcement cases is likely to be down considerably going forward."

Immigration Court judges in Atlanta are failing to uphold ethical standards that ensure immigrants receive fair and impartial treatment, according to a seven-week study by Emory Law students and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which was recently featured on the Immigration Prof Blog. "These observations confirm the Atlanta Immigration Court's reputation as a system where judges fail to respect the rule of law," said Adjunct Professor Hallie Ludsin of Emory Law School, who led the law students in their court monitoring.

The Trump administration is struggling to revise its executive order limiting travel to the United States for citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries, McClatchy News reports. A new order needs to address two key aspects to prevent another suspension, Emory Law Professor Polly Price says. It must honor green-card holders' permanent resident status and not apply to the temporary visas of those already here. It also needs a better justification of why these countries are being singled out so it doesn't appear to be based on religion. "It's reasonable to believe that green card holders would have constitutional rights, at least to some degree," she said. However, temporary visitors who haven't yet entered the U.S. "don't have any rights that we can review."

"The US Department of Agriculture recently removed all government inspection reports of animal facilities from its website, abolishing transparency of businesses and universities using animals and severely undermining the ability to prevent even the most extreme animal abuse," Emory Law Professor Ani Satz writes for CNN. Some were reposted later, but "reducing public access to inspection reports undermines government accountability and animal protection."

"The Trump administration showed its hand on Friday, when the Department of Justice withdrew its request that a Texas district court lift its stay in a case dealing with access to bathrooms for transgender students," Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook writes for CNN. "The action by the DOJ in Texas on its face seems minor. In fact, it is quite revealing. LGBTQ rights will not be defended at the federal level. Those in favor of LGBTQ equality will need to defend themselves against efforts in states to ban the use of restrooms and to embrace so-called religious-liberty bills. The fight is now our own. We won't be able to look to this administration for help."

Under the Trump Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement officers say, they are now authorized to use their discretion to make more arrests than they did under the Obama Administration. Last week, they began an aggressive push to do that. President Trump promises to increase arrests and deportations as soon as he can. There are other considerations, says Emory Law Professor Polly Price. "It's completely dependent on Congress," she tells WXIA, "to add more staff to ICE, to add more staff on the border, and also... to fully staff and add to the immigration courts."

EPA Director Scott Pruitt's mission to roll back Obama EPA regulations, particularly on climate, could be as simple as rereading the Clean Air Act, Bloomberg News writes. "If confirmed as administrator, Pruitt could revive some of the arguments he had offered against Obama-era EPA regulations, reading new limits on the agency's power that could pass judicial muster," the story says. Nash commented on how using the Chevon rule affects agency policy.

President Donald Trump's derisive comments about judges, including Federal District Judge James Robart, whom he labeled a "so-called judge" have been widely criticized, Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. But Trump is only continuing a trend that began long ago. "Those who are troubled by his comments would do well to address the problem as a whole rather than fixate on the Trump as the sole offender," he writes.

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch frequently dissents when a court majority seeks to impose federal authority over other governing bodies, says an Associated Press story. Emory Law Associate Professor Alexander Volokh says Gorsuch's views on the power of federal agencies could be particularly important with Donald Trump in the White House. "For anyone who is concerned about abuses of power under Trump," he said, "that sort of person would really welcome a theory that would limit how much authority the agencies would have to say what the statutes mean."

Emory Law professor Polly Price spoke with CNN's Jonathan Mann about the real-life and legal implications of the suspension of President Trump's travel ban. She doesn't expect a quick decision on the merits of the case, calling it an enormously complex issue. However, Trump's argument that his executive order is not subject to judicial review could set up a constitutional conflict, she says.

Despite the fact they believe former President Obama was denied his right to appoint the next U.S. Supreme Court justice, Emory Law's Visiting Professor Fred Smith Jr. writes he hopes Democrats will not play tit for tat at confirmation hearings. "Judge Gorsuch is a brilliant jurist. And while I will likely often disagree with him on the rights of the accused, the right scope of extra-textual concepts like 'sovereign immunity,' or how broadly to understand statutes like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, he should be treated with respect and receive a fair hearing," he says.

When the University of California, Berkeley canceled an appearance by Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos because of violent protests, President Trump appeared to threaten, via tweet, to cut the college's federal funding. The government can't pull funding by retroactively saying federal money is contingent on protecting free speech, Associate Professor Alexander Volokh told the Chronicle of Higher Education. "If the funding comes explicitly with strings attached, which is that you must adequately protect free speech on your campus if you want these funds, and if the university takes these funds knowing the condition, that's one thing," he said.

There is reason to believe, Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill, that Gorsuch's greatest impact (at least in the short-term) will be on the question of how much deference courts should afford agencies when they interpret federal statutes. "Signals from Gorsuch's court of appeals opinions indicate a desire by the judge to restore some measure of judicial supremacy over statutory interpretation," he adds.

Charles Shanor will retire this month after 41 years of teaching. In addition to his role as a beloved professor, he also established institutions that will endure at Emory Law well beyond his tenure. In 2013, Shanor created the Emory Law Volunteer Clinic for Veterans with Director Emeritus Lane Dennard and two student leaders; he currently serves as co-director.

Professor Alexander Volokh has known Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch for more than 20 years. "Generally, I don't have any expectation that Trump will do the right thing, so I'm unexpectedly pleased that--of the three judges who were apparently on Trump's short list--Judge Gorsuch is probably the best on civil liberties issues," he writes for the Washington Post's Volokh Conspiracy.

Black sites and extraordinary renditions indicate by their very name that they lie outside the norm of ordinary behavior, writes Laurie Blank, director of Emory Law's International Humanitarian Law Clinic. Reports that President Trump is preparing an executive order that could reinstate the use of secret overseas prisons for detention and interrogation would violate international law, she writes in an op-ed for The Hill.

Immigration law experts, including Emory Law Professor Polly Price. raised concerns about President Trump's recent executive order which affects immigrants and refugees from Muslim-majority countries. "Green card holders cannot be rejected from returning to the U.S. without a hearing before an immigration judge," she tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But you can still be detained, and there's no guarantee of a speedy hearing. Immigration courts have a backlog of around 10 months, she said. "A green card gives you legal rights," Price said. "You can't be returned without due process." Temporary travel privileges, such as tourist or student visas, guarantee nothing. "There's no appeal at almost any stage," Price said. '"Most of the decisions aren't reviewable. If you look Middle Eastern, youre in for a difficult time."

Donald Trump recently vowed to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid. But for that to be effective, the government "must have the ability to not only negotiate prices, but also to put some pressure on drug makers to secure price concessions," Emory Law Professor Joanna Shepherd writes for Morning Consult. "Policy-makers must fully understand what it means for government to negotiate directly with drug makers, and what the potential consequences are for price reductions, access to popular drugs, drug innovation, and drug prices for other consumers."

Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook commented on a recent case where a judge denied two transgender mens' petition to change their names. Courts across Georgia have granted name changes to transgender men and women for years. However, one judge ruled, "changing their names would have been 'a type of fraud on the general public.'" The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed the decision.

Dean Robert Schapiro's message of diversity and service at Emory University Schoo of Law on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

As the world reflects up on the presidency of Barack Obama and prepares for a transfer of power, CNN presents 11 commentaries on his legacy. Professor Dorothy Brown comments on the exceptionalism of electing the first black President versus the reality of racism. "Symbolism, it turned out, was a bad thing for addressing anti-black racism in America", said Brown. "The symbolism of a black President prevented America from grappling with the reality of how exceptional his victory and his story really was."

Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder was quoted in the New York Times on the Justice Department's decision to file a lawsuit against a New Jersey township. It alleges discrimination against Muslim residents who want to build a mosque there. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act was intended to protect all religious faiths, but 11 of the last 13 cases brought by the Justice Department have involved Muslims. "The law, by its very nature, deals with particularly vulnerable populations," Goldfeder said. "It's so easy for towns to hide discrimination behind layers of land-use procedure."

On Nov. 9, pharmaceutical stocks soared as Donald Trump's election victory eased concerns about government intervention in drug pricing, Emory Law Professor Joanna Shepherd writes for Morning Consult. Pharmaceutical stocks had generally underperformed this year as the market, like much of America, awaited a Clinton victory. Trump had less to say on drug pricing, hence the market's favorable response to his unexpected victory. "Yet, as the end of the first post-election month draws near, we are still uncertain whether Trump is friend or foe to the pharmaceutical industry," she writes.

For Georgia Public Broadcasting's "Lessons from Left Field," Celeste Headlee and Sean Powers talked with Emory Law Adjunct Professor Janet Metzger about her classes on courtroom theater. "The law school conducts classes you expect--contracts, torts--but it also offers one you might not: drama. The professor behind it--and before it--is Janet Metzger. We talked with her and law student Prasad Hurra about the class."

Jacynta Brewton is Emory Law's new director of alumni relations. She joins the law school from the University of Maryland's School of Medicine.

In December, parties to the Nagoya Protocol, an international treaty governing the use of genetic resources from medicinal plants to pest-killing microbes, plan to discuss whether and how the agreement should apply to digital DNA sequences. The treaty was was meant in part to prevent richer nations from unfairly benefiting from genetic resources originating in poorer countries, Science magazine reports. However, It's one thing to declare that your laws protect digital sequences, and another to actually find and pursue those who violate them, says Emory Law Professor Margo Bagley.

While speculation swirls over the content of Donald Trump's presidential agenda, one task that President Trump will surely face once he takes office is to fill the Supreme Court seat that has remained open since Justice Antonin Scalia's death. Moreover, beyond the Supreme Court, Trump will appoint numerous lower federal court judges, Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill.

Randee J. Waldman, director of Emory Law's Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic, was recognized with the Champion of Justice Award.

Claire Sherburne 16L has been named the first recipient of the Aaron L. Buchsbaum Fellowship, which was established in 2014 by the late Buchsbaum and his wife, Esther.

When Baker & Hostetler Partner Emily Crosby learned how children of incarcerated parents struggle, she contacted Emory Law's Barton Child Law and Policy Center to do something about it. The Support Kids of Incarcerated Parents (SKIP) program recently marked its success with a gala featuring "Orange Is the New Black" author Piper Kerman. Director Melissa Carter tells the Daily Report 11 percent of Georgia's foster children have an incarcerated parent. About 70 percent of children with a parent in jail or prison end up incarcerated themselves.

After 40 years of protests, California's San Onofre Nuclear Plant waits to be dismantled. For the activists who fought to close the plant, the victory is bittersweet, says a Bloomberg story. The reactors will disappear, but 1,600 metric tons of radioactive waste remain. A Texas facility has proposed to store as much as 40,000 metric tons of waste, for as long as 40 years. Allowing an interim site "lets the utilities off the hook," making them less inclined to push for a permanent solution, said Mindy Goldstein, director of Emory Law's Turner Environmental Law Clinic.

Drew Early, co-director of Emory Law's Volunteer Clinic for Veterans was featured in a report on the clinic's work on behalf of Georgia veterans, including Veterans Affairs appeals for medical and other benefits. Early said the clinic is currently working on about 160 cases.

Millions of dollars have been invested in this year's high-stakes battle for institutions that were once considered above politics: state supreme courts. Some spending is being used to paint justices as soft on crime, the Associated Press reports. That sort of advertising is problematic in judicial races because it can affect how courts make decisions, said Emory Law Professor Joanna Shepherd.

In an open letter published in the Daily Report to Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, retired judge Thelma Wyatt Moore 71L, president of Advocacy for Action, Inc., asks him to consider increasing the diversity of the state Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and Fulton County Superior Court when filling recent vacancies.

Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook is a guest on the omny.fm show, "At Night with Dan Riendeau," where he discusses a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court will soon decide to what degree the shape of a smart phone can be patented and how much an infringer will have to pay.

Decades of court decisions created the "California Rule," which guarantees government workers the pension that was in place on the day they were hired. But a California appeals court declared in August that public retirement plans were not "immutable" and could be reduced. Emory Law Associate Professor Alexander Volokh called the decision "a big change from what the doctrine has been so far" and expressed doubt that it would be upheld, in a Los Angeles Times story about the case.

On Oct. 11, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the patent dispute between Apple and Samsung. "This is the first time the Supreme Court has addressed design patents in more than a century," Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook writes for The Conversation. "This generally sleepy area of intellectual property has awoken. And, reading the tea leaves from the oral argument, it seems that Samsung will likely win at the Supreme Court." Holbrook joined a brief that says Samsung should not have to give up all the profits that resulted from swiping some of Apple's design features. "Based on how the oral argument went, I'd wager the Supreme Court thinks that outcome was wrong, too," he says.

On Oct. 12, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia named Sam Olens 83L president of Kennesaw State University. Olens assumes his new role on Nov. 1, 2016. He is currently Georgia's attorney general. "Sam Olens' two decades of public service and outstanding leadership qualities make him the right person to lead Kennesaw State University at the right time," said Board of Regents Chair Kessel Stelling, Jr.

After two U.S. Supreme Court judges recused themselves from a case involving post-9/11 detentions, Politico quoted Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash on the issue. If only six justices hear the case, it could make it easier for conservatives to prevail since four of the justices still on the case are Republican appointees, the story says. Only four justices are needed to grant certiorari in a case. "It may be the conservatives voted for cert because they may actually have a chance to win," Nash said.

"In August, in United States v. McIntosh, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that criminal defendants have standing to assert violation by the Department of Justice of a congressional appropriation rider as a basis for obtaining an injunction against the DOJ," Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. "The ruling, grounded in the solid legal foundation of Supreme Court precedent, may provide a basis for Congress to allow private actors to challenge executive branch overreach."

Clawback policies have become the norm in the U.S., especially at larger companies. Wells Fargo's policy is triggered by financial restatements. The policy allows the bank to recover unvested stock awards where misconduct "might reasonably be expected to" cause "reputational or other harm." Emory Law Assistant Professor George S. Georgiev noted Wells Fargo only acted to enforce its clawback policy after public reaction to the issue became too loud to ignore. "I would favor more oversight by boards over additional complexity in compensation practices," he said. Additional complexity only makes it easier, and creates multiple opportunities, for executives to game the system, he said.

Revelations that Donald Trump may have used $916 million in losses to sidestep paying federal income taxes for nearly two decades doesn't demonstrate exceptionally crafty tax work, Professor Dorothy Brown, a scholar in tax policy, told the AJC. "It's basic," she said. While the system may be flawed, using such a loss is legal. "If there's a genius, it is not the guy who signed the return, but the person who prepared the return," Brown said.

The New York Times says in 1995, Donald Trump reported a nearly $1 billion loss from his businesses--a loss large enough to have potentially allowed him to earn an average of $50 million a year, tax-free, for 18 years. Trump appears to have done what many other rich Americans have done: hire cunning professionals to help them preserve their wealth and avoid taxes. As Professor Dorothy Brown puts it, "It's not criminal, but it's awful, it's unfair, it's unjust."

Wells Fargo says it will recover $60 million in stock grants from two top executives in the wake of the phony account-opening scandal. It fired 5,300 employees for opening bogus accounts, returned $2.6 million in improper customer fees and paid a $185 million fine. Those figures pale, though, compared with Wells Fargo's $1.9 trillion in assets and $23 billion in earnings last year. "Even though the fraud was on a massive scale, at the same time, the impact on the bottom line was fairly minimal," said Emory Law Assistant Professor George S. Georgiev. "Often in these borderline cases, you can tell yourself a story as to why something is material or not depending on what you want the outcome to be."

Professor Tim Holbrook spoke with law.com about what promises to be a blockbuster term for intellectual property cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. There are four IP cases on the docket and potentially more coming, Scott Graham writes. In Samsung Electronics v. Apple, the court will address design patent damages for the first time in more than 100 years. Also on the docket: Life Technologies v. Promega, where the federal circuit held that supplying a single component from the United States for a multicomponent invention manufactured abroad can give rise to induced infringement. Holbrook wrote an amicus brief in that case, and expects a reversal.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump's assertion he would "take all the oil out of Iraq," violates international law, says Laurie Blank, director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic. "There is a remarkably robust and comprehensive framework of law that applies specifically in war to regulate the conduct of hostilities and the protection and treatment of persons," she writes for Jurist. "Occupation is not a license to bleed a country dry," she adds. "The days of war as conquest are long over."

U.S. prosecutors pursuing alleged bribery in Africa have Och-Ziff, one of the world's largest and most powerful hedge funds, in their sights. In addition to a large fine, U.S. authorities have said they now want individuals to be called to account for corporate crime, according to the Financial Times. Another worry for the company is potential loss of "qualified professional asset manager" status. "Losing QPAM would make life more difficult for Och-Ziff," said Emory Law Associate Professor Urska Velikonja.

Donald Trump's stance that the U.S. should have taken oil out of Iraq following the 2003 invasion would have been a violation of the fourth Geneva Convention and likely other international agreements, Laurie Blank tells the Wall Street Journal. Blank is director of Emory Law's International Humanitarian Law Clinic. "Under the fourth Geneva Convention, when you are an occupying power, you are a caretaker, you are administering the territory," she said. "The idea is to keep it as close to status quo as possible and give it back. It's not yours to do with it what you want."

Associate Professor Alexander Volokh is the incoming chair of Emory's Committee on Open Expression. He was quoted by the Chronicle of Higher Education in a story which examines the current debate both inside and outside academe on the concept of "safe space." (subscription required)

Georgetown's announcement it will rename buildings, establish an institute to study slavery, and extend preferential treatment in admissions for descendants of the 272 slaves it sold in 1838 "are all welcome steps," says Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown. However, the sale "at its core was a financial decision," she writes. "Georgetown needed money and sold 'property' to enable it to pay debts and keep the doors open." The university should set aside $3.3 million (the inflation adjusted amount of the 1838 sale proceeds) "in a fund administered by a court-appointed official to oversee the requests of the descendants ... for how they want Georgetown to atone to them."

Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook says Epipen's allusion to the drug supply chain and health insurance companies as part of the reason behind its recent price hikes is difficult to understand. "I don't find it terribly legitimate because it's not clear to me how different that is than in the past," he tells Medpage Today. "Maybe the Affordable Care Act created this dynamic in some way--that may explain some pressure on the price but I don't think it explains that significant of a jump."

Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook talked with BYU Radio about how patents affect pharmaceutical prices, following the recent controversy over the hike in the EpiPen's cost. The company has since announced it will begin selling a generic version for half price.

Earlier this month, Trump proposed "extreme vetting" to ban immigrants who believed Sharia law should supplant American law. But while this might play well to some of his supporters, it is detached from reality, according to a recent CNN story. Muslims who say they want Sharia law are not necessarily extremists. "Sharia as an ethical normative system underpinning the laws that are enacted through constitutional institutions--much in the same way that Americans consider Christianity as underpinning American law and culture," says Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Abdullahi An-Na'im.

Professor Tim Holbrook writes for The Conversation on the forces behind the rapidly escalating price for an EpiPen. The patent system is not to blame, he says. A lack of competition and the FDA's regulatory role are. "At present, companies will charge prices that the market can bear for these drugs," he writes. "The FDA is in a unique position to act. It should revisit its role in this regulatory structure to ensure it is striking the appropriate balance between protecting patients from flawed drugs and ensuring drugs get to market to reduce prices."

Vice Dean Robert Ahdieh recently discussed the value of a juris master degree with Bloomberg News writer Blake Edwards. Emory Law launched its JM program in 2011, and now admits about 40 students annually. Medical and business schools are already offering law-related classes to meet a need more naturally met by law schools, he said. Emory Law JM applicants are typically older and well-informed, evidence of sustainable demand. "Among mid-career professionals, we're seeing substantial interest," Ahdieh said.

Professor Polly Price was a guest on New Orleans/WWL-FM "First News 9 AM" program to talk about presidential candidate Donald Trump's position on immigration and his ideas concerning U.S. foreign policy.

Describing meaningful internships is key when applying to law school, says Emory Law Senior Assistant Dean for Admission Ethan Rosenzweig. But the experience should determine placement. "If the internship is a central focus of student's application or reasons to pursue a career in law, then I'd recommend that the experience should be woven into the personal statement," he tells U.S. News and World Report. Also, don't be afraid to include ones that weren't great, he adds. Sometimes the strongest applications describe what the applicant didn't enjoy and how that helped refocus their goals.

It's wrong for judges to enter the political fray, Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's disparaging remarks about presidential nominee Donald Trump were no exception. "It thus was entirely appropriate, and a most welcome development, for Justice Ginsburg to recognize the error of her ways and apologize," he writes.

Are the wealthiest colleges educating enough low-income students? Some argue that given their affluence and tax breaks, they should do more, says a recent Chronicle of Higher Education story. Colleges strive to be the best at things they care about, says Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown, but few strive for racial or socioeconomic diversity. "As long as they're in the range of their peers, then everything is good. Somehow mediocrity was fine when we're talking about diversity."

Voting rights advocates filed a lawsuit against Gwinnett County which says district lines for both the county Board of Commissioners and Board of Education "dilute minority voting power, as well as the at-large voting method for the county commission chair," WABE reports. More than half the county's population is black, Latino or Asian-American, yet no minority has been elected to either board, the story says. The suit reflects the post-Shelby era, says Emory Law Professor Michael Kang. "Everything is shifting to these types of Section Two claims that puts the onus on the plaintiff to bring suit," Kang said.

Donald Trump's recent comments on whether it's important to press for the rule of law in Turkey illuminate his campaign's 'America First' ideology, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary Dudziak writes for the New York Times. "He rejects the idea that American moral leadership matters."

The Clean Power Plan is the centerpiece of the Obama administration's efforts to combat climate change. Shortly after it was issued, 27 states and industry groups brought suit in the D.C. Circuit, arguing it exceeds the EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act. West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, is likely to be one of the most important environmental cases in decades. But a series of unexpected twists have rendered the future of the regulation less certain.

A federal judge has struck down part of a Georgia law aimed at allowing employees to end their union memberships at any time. It's a victory for union supporters in a region that tends to be friendlier to employers. Emory Law Professor Charles Shanor said the National Labor Relations Act has allowed unions to negotiate for periods of time in which members can't just stop paying their dues, usually for up to a year. "What Georgia's saying is: no, the person can turn around and take it back the next day. Well that removes the ability of the union to fiscally plan for operations over, let's say, the next one year period," he said.

Bright-line vs. balancing test: In the Merrill Lynch case, the Supreme Court had an opportunity to limit the state-law federal-question jurisdiction to the federal-question statute itself, Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. "Instead, it chose to extend it to a jurisdictional provision of the federal Securities Exchange Act that provides for exclusive federal court jurisdiction over any suit 'brought to enforce any liability or duty created by' the Securities Exchange Act or the regulations promulgated thereunder."

Writing for The Hill, Professor Jonathan Nash sees parallels between the historic Marbury v. Madison case and FBI Director James Comey's decision not to seek criminal charges against presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. "Comey left ultimate judgment to the political system and the ballot box, and preserved as best he could the integrity of the FBI as an independent actor within the Department of Justice and the executive branch," Nash writes.

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 4-4 on United States v. Texas, which would have shielded some immigrants from deportation. Professor Jonathan Nash suspects the court was sharply divided both on standing and merit. "We can reason that the court split on both states' standing to file suit (a procedural issue) and also on the merits (the substantive issues). The breadth of this divide highlights the importance the identity of the person who will join the court as its ninth justice, and presumably break ties like these."

Brexit will be viewed as historic on many levels, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But many investors are concerned about the immediate effect on the stock market. "Short-term, if you are in an index fund, today is not a good day," K.H. Gyr Professor of Private International Law Robert Ahdieh told the AJC on Friday. "But it's not impossible that Monday, people will say, hey, there's an opportunity to buy."

The Supreme Court's decision upholding the University of Texas' affirmative action program has little direct impact on Georgia public colleges--but Indirectly, it's likely to increase discussions about how to increase campus diversity, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story says. "Today's opinion in some ways just upholds the status quo," said Visiting Professor of Law Fred Smith. "Whether public colleges in Georgia want to look at more ways to increase diversity is not so much a constitutional question, so much as a policy question."

In "The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation,"Natalie Y. Moore quotes an idea from Emory Law's Dorothy Brown that would remedy low housing demand and depreciation values in communities that are even partially black: no mortgage interest deduction unless the neighborhood is integrated.

Donald Trump again called to ban Muslims from entering the United States after a mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub, Politifact reports. He said Pew Research found 99 percent of those in Afghanistan support "oppressive Sharia law." Different countries interpret and apply Sharia law differently, and as with other religions, interpretations change over time, said Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Abdullahi Ahmed An-Nai'im. "Sharia is understood to be the religious obligations of Muslims, but it is a normative system in which Muslims have profound differences and always have," he said.

Welcome to the Year of the Whiner, where complaining about the process of electing a president is nonstop, says U.S. News. One example: states that moved up their primaries despite party rules. "There does seem to be more of the griping about rules this year," said Emory University Law Professor Michael Kang. "Sanders and Trump are nontraditional candidates, and they have different kinds of supporters who are not familiar with or comfortable with the rules," he added. "When the two collide, they are generally not happy about it."

The creation of an Islamic state in Malaysia and the enforcement of Shariah law poses dangers for all its citizens, Emory Law Professor Abdullahi An-Na'im said, speaking at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur. "This is not an issue only of concern for non-Muslim citizens, but for Muslim citizens, because people who will control the state in this way will define what Islam means, what any Muslim can do or believe. That's where the danger is," he said.

The ACLU is challenging a ruling that shaved four weeks from Georgia's standards concerning abortion--from 24 to 20. The organization says it did not receive proper notice of an Oct. 30 decision in time to appeal. Sovereign immunity has protected the state from litigation previously, but may not this time, said Emory Law Visiting Professor Fred Smith Jr. A phrase in Georgia's constitution may prevent the principle from being applied in cases where a law's constitutionality is being questioned, he tells WABE.

In a wide-ranging interview with Mirjam Katzin, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law Martha Albertson Fineman discusses her decades of work in feminist legal theory and her examination of society, families, the myth of autonomy and how vulnerability affects us all.

Ira Pittman, a 62-year-old choir director, says he was given the choice to either retire or be fired after church members at Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church discovered he was gay. Pittman had worked there for more than 20 years, according to a WABE story. The church decision isn't illegal, says Emory Law Professor Charles Shanor. "Georgia has no law which bars discrimination by private employers," he said. Shanor is former general counsel for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pittman has filed a complaint with the federal agency.

Student loan borrowers who want to discharge loans need to convince a bankruptcy judge that repaying the loans would cause them to face "undue hardship." Judges can interpret "undue" to mean either "excessive" or "unjust." Interpreting undue to mean excessive raises a much simpler question, Katy Stech writes in the Wall Street Journal. "How would the borrower be affected if told to fully repay the loans? Would that burden be too much?" "The more it becomes an economic calculus, it should be easier" for borrowers to prove, says Emory Law Professor Rafael Pardo.

North Carolina's refusal to back down on its "bathroom law" requiring transgender citizens to use restrooms aligned with their birth gender has led to a rare drawing of lines in the sand, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook told the Wall Street Journal. Republican leaders say they will not respond to recent notice by the U.S. Justice Department that the law is a civil rights violation.

Although there are now only eight U.S. Supreme Court justices following Antonin Scalia's death, a tie vote by the court may sometimes actually create more guidance on some issues, Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt illustrates that, in regard to the Full Faith and Credit Clause, he says. "Scalia's absence resulted in the court providing guidance on the second issue--guidance that would probably never have come to light had Scalia been on the court," he writes.

"So-called no-injury class actions, in which class members can't show a clear-cut harm, primarily line the pockets of plaintiffs lawyers," Corporate Counsel says, citing Emory Law Professor Joanna Shepherd's recent empirical study. "As you'd expect, plaintiffs lawyers and defense lawyers have very different reactions to the study's findings," the story continues. "Although 60 percent of the total award may be available to class members, in reality they typically receive less than 9 percent of the total," Shepherd says.

A new Georgia law concerning testimony by police officers under investigation for use of deadly force makes strides toward ending what some say was an unfair advantage compared to other defendants whose cases are being considered by a grand jury. While officers may still make a statement, they now must answer questions by grand jurors and prosecutors, and cannot be present for the whole proceeding. Emory Law Associate Professor Kay Levine says some people are still worried about the close relationships between police and local prosecutors. "They are sometimes associated with being on the same team," she said. "There are people that feel like part of the problem here is that Georgia has a troubling history of cases involving police officers and violence."

Adjunct Professors Matthew McCoyd and Randall Kessler talked with WABE 90.1 about jury selection in the case of a father accused of leaving his 22-month-old son to die in a hot car. Jury selection in now in its third week. McCoyd, a former DeKalb Country district attorney, notes it's the only time attorneys can speak with jurors. "The lawyers are establishing their individual, personal credibility with the jurors when they're talking to them," McCoyd said. Kessler says lawyers are looking for nonverbal cues, too. "If they shudder. If the thought of this crime makes them wince and they can't even look you in the eye when talking about it, that might not be a good person for the defense," Kessler said.

Unforeseen events and financial missteps can wreck households. But for minorities, "it's far, far more likely," according to an Atlantic story. "Tax law is a political, a social, and an economic document. So of course there are going to be racial disparities," Professor Dorothy Brown said. "To say, 'the tax law is neutral' is just nonsense." One example is the "marriage penalty" which disproportionately affects black couples. Whites are also more likely to have access to pensions and other retirement plans, which help build tax-free wealth for later in life.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating possible abuse of LGBT inmates in Georgia prisons, according to an 11 Alive report. "This is a great sign that this administration is concerned about the LGBT community, making sure they are protected--making sure they are treated as humans because they are," said Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook. LGBT prisoners may require greater protection, he adds. "Oftentimes [they] are even more vulnerable given either that they are perceived differently and may be assaulted more frequently," he said.

In May, Melonie Wright 16L will walk down the aisle to receive her law degree. But the story behind that deserves to be told, Yesha Callahan writes in The Root. Wright retells her journey from pre-K, to running track in college, then overcoming domestic violence. Now, she's preparing for Emory Law's diploma ceremony.

As Republican lawmakers continue to pass bills aimed at protecting the religious freedom of those opposed to same-sex marriage, a new separatist social vision is evolving, Harry Bruinius writes in the Christian Science Monitor. Those with "sincerely held religious beliefs," including businesses that provide public services, can separate themselves, or opt out of social obligations surrounding same-sex marriage. "People are getting further and further entrenched in their positions and digging lines in the sand in a way that isn't helpful to anyone," says Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder. "And it's pretty terrible for our national culture."

T. Alexander Aleinikoff, a leading scholar in immigration and refugee law, will give the annual David J. Bederman Lecture on Wednesday, April 6 at 12 noon in Emory Law¿s Tull Auditorium.

Paypal had planned to open an operations center in Charlotte, N.C., and bring 400 jobs to the state. But after N.C. passed a law stipulating that transgender individuals must use restrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate, the company killed those plans. A Christian Science Monitor story referenced a CNN op-ed by Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook, which notes a religious freedom law passed in Indiana last year cost the state about $60 million in tourist and convention revenue. "Both Georgia and North Carolina have marketed themselves as being good for business," Holbrook said. "Indiana apparently was not a big enough canary in the coal mine."

What if a supermajority of states could override a federal law or Supreme Court ruling? Article V of the Constitution allows a minimum of two-thirds of the states to call for a convention to propose amendments and go around Congress. But it's never happened, and is unlikely to, Emory Law Dean Robert Schapiro told Fox News. "Given the divided times which we face, and given the broad brush of these amendments, I think it's unlikely to garner the kind of support that would be necessary actually to reach that two-thirds benchmark."

The Georgia General Assembly just passed a religious freedom bill which resembles the one Indiana passed last year. "That bill has cost Indiana at least $60 million in tourist revenue," Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook writes for CNN. But Georgia's bill is worse, and there's still time for the governor to veto it. "The bill, if signed into law, could have significant economic consequences for Atlanta," he says.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal says he aims for middle ground on pending religious exemptions legislation. "It is important that we protect fundamental religious beliefs," Deal said. "But we don't have to discriminate against other people in order to do that. And that's the compromise that I'm looking for." Emory Law Assistant Professor Alexander Volokh reviewed the bill and said, "If your goal is to not sign anything that allows for discrimination, you have to veto this bill. At the very least, it allows faith-based organizations to refuse to serve whoever they want for religious reasons."

"It is widely known that Donald Trump is being sued, including in class-actions--by thousands of people who charge that he defrauded them of millions of dollars," Emory Law Professors Morgan Cloud and George Shepherd write in a co-authored opinion article for the Wall Street Journal. "But there seems to be public confusion about how these lawsuits might affect the presidential campaign. Despite what Mr. Trump says, it appears likely that he will be called to the witness stand before the November election."

Emory Law Professor George Shepherd has been invited to testify before a House of Representatives subcommittee, on the issue of how the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council affects the leeway agencies have to interpret laws passed by Congress since. "Since the Supreme Court's ruling in Chevron, there has been increasing confusion in the courts, Congress, the legal bar, and legal academia on the issues of whether, when and how courts should defer to federal agencies' interpretations of the statutes they administer," according to a committee release. The hearing is before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law. Visit https://judiciary.house.gov/ for a live webcast of the hearing at 1:30 p.m. March 15.

"Human drivers will soon be one of those things--like the rotary phone or the typewriter--that you will have to tell your grandkids about," Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder writes in a CNN op-ed. That might not be a bad thing: 33,000 Americans die annually in automobile accidents, 93 percent of which are caused by human error. Goldfeder examines the rise of Google's driverless cars and how they may affect the present legal standard of a "reasonable driver."

Gov. Nathan Deal says a campus carry gun bill may be softened in the next few days to accommodate concerns by the Board of Regents. Campus Carry overwhelmingly passed the House last week despite concerns from parents and educators. Emory Law Professor Frank Vandall spoke during a state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the matter. "Immature people should not have guns," he said.

Turner Environmental Law Clinic students recently attended oral arguments in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals concerning a challenge to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) regulation governing nuclear waste storage.

Paola Arzu Stange 01C 05L and her husband, Kirk C. Stange, have established the Stange Law Firm Scholarship to honor top competitors in Emory Law's moot court program.

The SEC, the EPA and the EEOC all have Atlanta regional offices, Professor Paul Zwier writes in an editorial co-written Reuben Guttman 85L. "Atlanta is not just a center of international trade, it is also a center for compliance enforcement. With the growth of multinational corporations whose businesses are not defined by geographic boundaries, government agencies and their regional offices that enforce compliance must leverage limited resources to maintain a watchful eye and enforce the laws. Today, this may mean collection of evidence abroad."

Emory Law Senior Lecturer Mark Goldfeder says he doubts the U.S. Supreme Court would accept an appeal involving a Muslim inmate in Michigan who sued prison officials for violating his First Amendment free exercise rights. He allegedly received only 1,300 calories per day during Ramadan. "I would be surprised if the Court took it because it is less about qualified immunity and more about defining the underlying right," Goldfeder says.

President Barack Obama has several options when nominating the next U.S. Supreme Court justice, Emory Law Professor Michael Broyde writes for CNN. But 7th U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner is "the Michael Jordan of law," Broyde says. "The President should appoint a leading legal mind at the end of his career. Posner is a leading intellectual light of the past half-century in law."

Presidential candidate Donald Trump has declared waterboarding would be merely an introductory interrogation technique, Director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic Laurie Blank writes in an op-ed for The Hill. "The dangers of this rhetoric are enormous. Torture is illegal," she says. "Tough talk of torture, enhanced interrogation techniques and carpet-bombing may make good campaign copy, but such rhetoric and acts not only violate the law, but ultimately undermine the very essence of leadership and morality."

For more than a decade Coca-Cola has sought trademark rights for the word "zero" in relation to beverages--especially soft drinks. The company has a decent shot at winning, but it's not altogether clear, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook tells the AJC. Numbers can be trademarked in some situations, Holbrook said. "It's harder to win trademark protection for a word that is descriptive (like the word 'beer' for the name of a beer) than it is for one that is merely suggestive and requires a further leap in thinking," AJC reporter Matt Kempner writes.

Emory Law Dean Robert Schapiro, who clerked at the Supreme Court during the late Justice Antonin Scalia's tenure, considers the conservative judge's legacy. "Justice Scalia's opinions, full of erudition, wit, and occasional vitriol, will long be quoted and will fill the pages of legal textbooks," Schapiro writes, in an opinion article for The Conversation. "But the memorable opinions will largely be dissents."

Justice Antonin Scalia's pointed retorts will be read and quoted for a long time, Emory Law Associate Professor Alexander Volokh tells 11 Alive News. But there was more to the late justice than his conservatism, he adds. "It's important to remember that he made an important mark on areas that are not liberal or conservative at all," Volokh said. "For example, he was always a very strong proponent of strict separation of powers."

The Georgia Legislature recently passed a bill that permits carrying guns in restaurants, churches and school parking lots. The "Safe Carry Protection Act" allows individuals to carry firearms almost anywhere in Georgia, Emory Law Professor Frank Vandall writes in the Daily Report. "As long as the proprietor does not forbid it, firearms may be carried in restaurants, bars and churches. Firearms are prohibited within 150 feet of a polling place, on the premises of a nuclear power facility, inside state mental health facilities, and inside a school building," Vandall writes.

The U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous summary reversal in the Idaho case might at first blush seem "of little interest and practical importance," says Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash. But the case has ramifications elsewhere, including Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's recent administrative order to state probate courts to not issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Visiting Professor Fred Smith Jr. was interviewed on WABE 90.1 about a recent Georgia Supreme Court decision involving students who say protection against deportation under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program supports their claim. Smith and WABE's Denis O'Hayer discussed how sovereign immunity influences the students' argument that they are eligible to pay in-state college tuition rates.

The release of a prominent attorney's son on what is effectively a $15,000 bond for alleged crimes including arson, a 20-mile police chase and aggravated assault on a officer has raised questions about whether the low bond is related to his father's influence. The attorney's firm recently hosted a re-election campaign event for the judge who set bond, according to an 11 Alive story. "The code by which judges operate calls for them to take into account not just conflict of interest but the perception of conflict of interest by the public," said Emory Law Professor Jonathan Nash.

Emory Law Associate Professor Alexander "Sasha" Volokh commented on the growing number of bills before the Georgia legislature that touch on religious freedom issues. They include the "Pastor Protection Act" which its sponsor says affirms clergy's First Amendment right to refuse to marry a same-sex couple.

Senior Lecturer in Law Kathleen Cleaver is featured in an edition devoted to alumni who came of age and distinguished themselves during the civil rights era. The story details Cleaver's journey including growing up in segregated America, her work as communications secretary of the Black Panther Party and continuing career in law.

Khan Academy's move to patent a testing method in its online educational programs is a commentary on how much the system has changed in recent years, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook tells Inside Higher Ed. "It shows how the patent system has reached into areas that historically the ordinary person have thought patents should not belong in," he said. "When you think patents, you think pharmaceuticals. You think rockets. You don't think education."

Tiffany & Co. is taking on Costco to protect its distinctive six-prong engagement rings, Fortune magazine reports. Tiffany says Costco advertised its own rings with the word "Tiffany" and has sued. Costco has argued the term is generic. Professor Tim Holbrook says the company is vigorously defending its uniqueness. "They definitely wanted a decision out there that says, 'No, you can't genericize their name'," Holbrook said. "It's about setting an example that Tiffany will not allow other parties to use its name in this way."

This year's fight over the "religious liberty" bill is shaping up to revolve around the same debate it did last year: the fate of an anti-discrimination amendment tacked onto the measure, the AJC reports. Emory Law Associate Professor Alexander Volokh commented at a public hearing. "Everybody who can dream up a religious exemption will try to push that in the courts," he said. "And almost always, they will lose. And particularly for discrimination cases."

Marietta attorney Lance Cooper 89L was profiled in Atlanta Magazine's January issue, in a story detailing his work on the lawsuit that alleged a faulty GM ignition switch led to the death of Brooke Melton in 2010. The case resulted in a massive recall of the company's vehicles.

Politico asked several historians, "Which president had the best last year in office?" Emory Law Professor Mary Dudziak says President George Washington made a powerful choice in not seeking a third term (which is now a constitutional requirement). Obama can lead by choosing not to act, she says. "Instead of bypassing Congress, if Obama refused to project American military force in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere without an authorization from Congress, it would set a striking example and serve as a powerful legacy," Dudziak writes.

Yale Law Professor Stephen Carter chose John Witte Jr.'s book, The Western Case for Monogamy Over Polygamy, as one of seven of the best histories of the year. "[It's] an important book for those who want to support same-sex marriage but worry about the slippery slope," Carter writes in his column for Bloomberg View. Witte is director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion.

In December, Volkswagen announced Ken Feinberg will administer an alternative dispute resolution program related to charges the automaker cheated on its emissions reporting. "What¿s strong about Feinberg's program is that it's economically comparable to what someone would get through litigation, where at least 25 percent of the money goes to an attorney," said Emory Law Professor Frank Vandall, who specializes in product liability litigation. "And it can take 10 years before you get a penny."

Emory University School of Law presents a lecture by Sherrilyn Ifill, president & director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The event will be held Thursday, January 14, at 6 p.m. in Tull Auditorium at 1301 Clifton Road, Atlanta, 30322.

In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is reported to have said: "There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less--a slower-track school where they do well." He was referring to the "mismatch theory." That theory couldn't be more wrong, writes Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown.

The father of a 6-year-old whose skull was shattered by a foul ball at Turner Field in 2010 has amended his lawsuit to include Major League Baseball as a defendant. The suit originally claimed the Atlanta Braves were at fault for not extending netting farther into foul-ball territory. Now, the father says MLB should turn over results from its investigations of players for performance-enhancing drugs, that allow players to hit harder, faster balls. Professor Richard Freer commented on the case.

On WABE's "Closer Look," Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown discussed her class exploring the "Ferguson Movement" and how the discussions over police-involved shootings have changed over the course of the semester.

Professor Polly Price commented on the story of Jamil, a Syrian who fled the civil war and spent two-and-a-half years trying to immigrate to the United States. He arrived in Georgia the day of the Paris terror attacks. "We don't take for granted they are who they say they are," Price said. "We get into the weeds. 'Tell me about your village. Where did you live? What do you do for a living?' Then [resettlement agents] will repeat it several days later to make sure their story doesn't change."

Last week, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal was among at least 30 U.S. governors who have asked to bar Syrian refugees from resettling in their states. The ACLU has filed suit against Indiana's governor, and is considering similar lawsuits in other states. Emory Law Professor Polly Price agrees with the ACLU that the policy violates the Equal Protection Clause. "You're identifying a group based on national origin, or religion," she said. "These are protected grounds under both the federal and state constitution."

A group of lawyers is suing Gov. Nathan Deal, saying the three judges he recently appointed to Georgia's Court of Appeals should have been elected, WABE reports. Professor Jonathan Nash said it's unlikely, even if a judge decides the appointments weren't legal, that the challenge would affect the eight other appointed judges or their past rulings. "Once the appointees take their seats on the court, it's kind of too late. You can't unscramble the egg," he said.

The vast majority of Muslims feel moral revulsion and outrage about the violence perpetrated by ISIS, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im writes for The Conversation. "ISIS' claim of Islamic legitimacy can be countered only by a viable alternative interpretation of Islamic law."

More than 100 Georgia minors under the age of 18 are in adult prisons. That's due to Georgia's so-called "seven deadly sins" law, which is shorthand for the seven charges that vault juveniles to adult court. The approach was meant to deal with kids who were becoming "super-predators." Melissa Carter, who leads Emory Law's Child Law and Policy Center, says it's time to revisit get-tough on youthful offender laws.

Misleading numbers and a confused mission, the hallmarks of troubled financial firms, dog one of their regulators too

We are extremely proud of our Volunteer Clinic for Veterans, which was founded by two Emory Law students in 2013.

In all but the rarest circumstances, people who declare bankruptcy still have to repay their student debt, Bloomberg reports. The Education Department can deny people bankruptcy if its lawyers can show that debtors are spending too much on such things as fast food, cable television, or even their pension plans. "When we focus so much on the minutia of each and every individual expense, it can become a distracting sideshow where we aren't really answering the big picture question, which is, is there any ability to repay the amounts that are owed?" says Professor Rafael Pardo.

Led by Mindy Goldstein, Turner Environmental Law Clinic students met with co-counsel to discuss litigation strategy for a case pending in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to challenge the NRC's new regulation known as the "Continued Storage Rule."

Emory Law has named Michael S. Kang the second recipient of the David J. Bederman Research Professorship. The professorship is awarded annually to recognize the outstanding contributions of a faculty member and offers a research leave to support continuing outstanding scholarly work.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions resulted in $4.2 billion in sanctions in fiscal 2015, the SEC said, about the same level as the penalties leveled the previous year, when it handled 52 fewer actions, Reuters reports. Associate Professor Urska Velikonja's recent work faulted SEC reporting metrics, saying problems allowed the agency to "mask the fact that the core enforcement has remained steady since 2002."

One of the things that sets student loan debt apart from all other types of debt is that it's almost impossible to get rid of it. But according to a Marketplace story, a couple of cases working their way through the legal system could change that. "It seems like there's a lot of buzz and activity and maybe the climate is right to finally get some sort of resolution to this issue," said Robert T. Thompson Professor of Law Rafael Pardo, who adds that in the 10 years he's studied the topic he hasn't seen this much legal activity surrounding it.

Speakers at a symposium targeted tort reform and contracts requiring arbitration as evidence that "war" was being waged against the United States civil justice system. The panelists at the Pound Symposium, held Oct. 15 at Emory Law, did debate whether the word "war" was appropriate, according to a Daily Report story.

Emory Law and the Pound Civil Justice Institute will sponsor a symposium Thursday, Oct. 15, on ¿The `War¿ on the Civil Justice System.¿

In a two-day workshop, Deborah Dinner, associate professor of law, will be joined by authorities in family and labor law, corporate law, welfare history, economics and policy who use the concepts of vulnerability and resilience to argue for a more responsive state.

"The Supreme Court has interpreted the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution to entitle criminal defendants to effective assistance of legal counsel," David J. Bederman Research Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill, concerning Maryland v. Kulbicki. "A unanimous per curiam opinion, indicating that the justices thought the issues in the case were clear ... sheds light on what constitutes 'effective' assistance in light of evolving science and technology."

The U.S. airstrike that hit the Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was a horrible tragedy, writes Laurie Blank, director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic. But was it a war crime, as the organization immediately asserted? "This incident highlights not only the challenges and tragic consequences of war in populated areas, but also the dynamic interplay between media coverage of military operations and the legal regulation of armed conflict," she says.

The U.S. airstrike that hit the Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was a horrible tragedy, writes Laurie Blank, director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic. But was it a war crime, as the organization immediately asserted? "This incident highlights not only the challenges and tragic consequences of war in populated areas, but also the dynamic interplay between media coverage of military operations and the legal regulation of armed conflict," she says.

In the 2014 fiscal year, the SEC filed 755 enforcement actions, "the highest number of cases in the history of this commission," noted SEC Chair Mary Jo White. She's also noted that the agency levied a whopping $4.1 billion in penalties as part of those actions. Associate Professor Urska Velikonja says the SEC is padding "deeply flawed" enforcement statistics. In a study slated for publication in the Cornell Law Review, she calculates that the way the agency has counted the number of cases it has pursued has made it looked like a far fiercer and more effective sheriff than it may actually be.

The Khartoum government is likely to escape further censure and scrutiny at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva this week after its officials met secretly with the United States' delegation, says a story in Africa Confidential. "The only consistency in the work of the UN Human Rights Council is its unfailing capacity to disappoint the lowest of expectations," said Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Abdullahi An-Na'im, alluding to an increasing number of alleged human rights abuses by the National Congress Party government.

When it comes to patent law, it's all quiet on the U.S. Supreme Court front, Scott Graham writes in law.com. So far there's not a single patent case--or trademark or copyright, for that matter--on its 2015-16 docket. Some patent law experts believe the court is taking a break from patent law after a period of exceptional activity, including a record six decisions in 2013-14. "I don't think we'll see six" this term, said Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook. "I wouldn't be surprised if we saw none."

It's an open secret that the Securities and Exchange Commission rolls out a high number of enforcement actions in September, the last month of its fiscal year, to try to beat the previous year's tally, says a Sept. 24 Bloomberg Business story. But the SEC's drive could be more than harmless padding. It a misleading impression of the agency's effectiveness in policing financial markets, according to Emory Law Associate Professor Urska Velikonja, who examined more than a decade of the regulator's enforcement statistics for a forthcoming law journal article."These statistics often show up in the press and in Congress," Velikonja said. "They ought to be accurate."

As Kansas City copes with thousands of abandoned, eyesore properties in the aftermath of the Great Recession, it's looking beyond trying to fill them with new houses and residents, according to a story in the Kansas City Star. The city is following what has worked in some other cities, says Sam Nunn Professor of Law Frank Alexander, an expert on land banks. He notes the adopt-a-lot program is one of the fastest ways to get vacant parcels to residents who care about them and will do the maintenance.

Kathleen N. Cleaver, Emory Law senior lecturer, reflects on the past and present civil rights movements for African Americans.

Andrew H. Jones 14L says "manners were once, but are no longer, viewed as a social asset" in his exposition of civil discourse in the current political climate.

Emory Law is launching a master of laws (LLM) specialization in law and development starting this spring, the Emory Wheel reports. "Students will have the opportunity to study the intersections of economic development and corruption, the courts and human rights," said Vice Dean Robert Ahdieh. The new program was launched in collaboration with the Law and Development Institute (LDI), and will address the increasing global demand for lawyers who understand development issues, particularly economic development.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to forgo an independent bid for the White House if he loses his quest for the Republican nomination. But the enforceability of that pledge is an open question, Professor Michael Kang tells the Los Angeles Times. He called the pledge "an attempt to replicate the effect" of so-called sore-loser laws, which stipulate that a registered primary candidate cannot switch parties or become an independent to run in a general election, though states rarely apply them to presidential candidates.

Aloke Chakravarty 97L spoke at this year's Welcome Week convocation about how Emory Law inspired him to make a difference.

Donald Trump has revealed his immigration plan, including a controversial proposal to end granting automatic citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, Mia Bush writes in Voice of America. Professor Polly Price says most people don't understand the potential administrative nightmare that would be created by repealing the 14th Amendment. Repeal would affect everyone, Price said, adding that anyone in the U.S. needing to prove their citizenship--when applying for a driver's license or a Social Security number, for example--would be required to prove their parentage.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump's call to deny U.S. citizenship to the children of undocumented migrants misleads the public, Professor Polly Price writes for The Hill. "Whatever the merits of his proposal to change the rule of birthright citizenship, it cannot be accomplished through legislation by Congress," Price says. "If the rule is to be changed, it must be through the arduous process of amending the federal constitution." Price calls such proposals "racial measures in their purpose and effect."

"The American tax code is one of the most impenetrable elements of our society. Surprising, considering how it affects your life every single day," according to Vice News' "The Business of Life." Vice Provost and Professor Dorothy Brown was a panelist on a recent episode of the show. The premise was to break down how taxes are distributed--"and what happens if you try to evade them." Brown was joined by Lee Sheppard of Tax Notes and Ben Casselman of FiveThirtyEight.

The recent encounter between presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and #blacklivesmatter representatives was revealing, Vice Provost and Professor Dorothy Brown writes for CNN. Racial bias in policing and the criminal justice system wasn't created by blacks, and they should not have to provide a solution, she says."Clinton was onto something when she said she would talk to white people, because that's exactly what she needs to do," Brown says. "[She] should begin each of her stump speeches with a discussion of her plans to end systemic racism in the criminal justice system..

When you hear the term "alternative school" you might think of troubled children or students who can't cut it at regular public schools. While that's true for some students, alternative education programs vary widely. "If we're actually sending our kids to alternative placements, if we wish for them to succeed, if we wish for them not to spend their life behind bars or in low-paying or minimum wage or any jobs, we need to provide them with quality education when we are removing them from school," says Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic Director Randee Waldman.

Associate Professor Julie Seaman's op-ed in the New York Times discusses the case of Sandeep Bharadia, who received a life sentence in 2003 for sexual assault. It now appears DNA evidence (that was not introduced at trial) exonerates him. But Georgia precedent says he isn't entitled to a new trial. "What is most troubling about the Georgia Supreme Court's decision is that the issue of innocence becomes irrelevant if there has been a failure of due diligence," she writes. "In effect, the ruling elevates finality over justice to the point that an innocent person can be imprisoned, even executed, because of errors made by his lawyer. Absent a constitutional safety net, an innocent person convicted after a procedurally adequate trial is out of luck."

The Daily Report covered Tuesday's panel discussion at Emory Law, that included Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens 83L, Congressman John Lewis, Barbara R. Arnwine, Jason Carter, Anne Lewis and Fred Grey. The 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision voided the requirement that Georgia and other states and localities must have federal preclearance before making changes to voting laws, practices or precincts, holding that the application of the requirement against only some states was unconstitutional, and based on an outdated formula.

In the year since a Missouri police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, a new generation has taken up the fight of the civil rights movement that changed the face of America decades before they were even born, Kendall Trammell writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Professor Dorothy Brown is co-teaching a fall course on the effects of Ferguson. "I want them to walk away with more critical thinking skills," she said of her students. "Don't just believe it because a talking head said it. Don't believe me just because I said it. Really think about what I'm saying. What evidence do I bring?"

Congress is on the verge of passing patent reform legislation which contains myriad provisions: standards for pleading a case far beyond other forms of litigation, making the loser pay in patent litigation and limiting discovery until the court has interpreted what the patent covers. There seems to be much enthusiasm, with bills making it out of committee in both the House and Senate in a surprising show of bipartisanship. Except, we don"t need it, at least not yet.

Diversity jurisdiction protects out-of-state residents from potentially biased state courts, Shepherd writes for the National Law Review. "It is meant to ensure that commercial cases would be heard in an impartial forum to protect foreign litigants from local bias." Adhering the to "minimal diversity" standard called for by Article III of the Constitution would increase federal district courts' caseloads by an estimated 7.7 percent. "An additional 43 cases per year is a small price to pay for equal justice," she writes.

A study by the National Employment Labor Project estimates nearly one in three workers in the U.S. is misclassified. That can mean a loss of pay and benefits for employees. That's what a number of truckers in Georgia contend is happening to them. While the U.S. Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division recently released a "letter of guidance" in an effort to clarify who is an employee and who is an independent contractor, the federal guidance is still indefinite, Professor Charles Shanor tells WABE.

For decades, student loan debt has been notoriously difficult to discharge, largely due to the "Brunner test" used to interpret whether repaying a loan represents an undue hardship. Federal Judge Frank Easterbrook's opinion in Susan Krieger's 2013 debt case seemed to signal that requiring debtors to prove their futures are "hopeless," is taking that standard too far. That's a big deal, Emory Law Professor Rafael Pardo tells the New York Times.

Mary L. Dudziak, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law and Director of the Project on War and Security in Law, Culture and Society will hold the Kluge Chair in American Law and Governance at the Library of Congress this fall.

During July, students from Beijing Normal University are attending a series of lectures at Emory Law as part of a partnership with the Chinese law school.

Turner Environmental Law Clinic is advocating on behalf of multiple organizations to support sustainable agriculture initiatives.

On June 29, 2015, the Supreme Court held in Michigan v. EPA that EPA unlawfully delayed consideration of the costs of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. According to the five-justice, conservative majority, the phrase "appropriate and necessary" required EPA to consider costs at the initial phase of the regulatory process, when it was deciding whether to regulate hazardous power plant emissions, and not later on, once it had already decided such regulation was warranted.

South Carolina state Rep. Jenny Horne is an overnight national hero because of her speech on the State House floor, arguing for the "immediate and swift removal" of the Confederate flag, writes Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown. "She became as angry as most of the blacks in South Carolina have been about this issue for years. Black anger, however, wasn't sufficient," Brown writes. "In order for the flag to come down we needed white anger. And several hours after Horne 's speech, the final vote was taken by the South Carolina legislature to remove the Confederate flag."

A United Nations Human Rights Council report on the 2014 Gaza conflict provides 183 pages of facts, legal analysis and conclusions about the conduct of Israeli forces, Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. Unfortunately, the report is replete with faulty legal analysis, unjustified presumptions and an astounding willingness to take Hamas' claims at face value coupled with an unrelenting skepticism about Israeli efforts to comply with the law of war, writes Laurie Blank, director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic.

Emory Law Dean Robert Schapiro says the practices of America's houses of worship are already well protected by the First Amendment. "There is nothing under our law that compels a rabbi, minister or pastor of any kind to perform a marriage that that person doesn't want to perform," Schapiro said. "That was the law before the Supreme Court decision. And that remains the law afterwards."

In King v. Burwell, the court turned to the statute's purpose to resolve ambiguity. There was a time--the middle of the last century--when resort to a statute's purpose was the courts' primary interpretive tool. This changed with the ascendance of textualism. King casts some doubt on the scope of the time-honored Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council doctrine, and also on the vitality of textualism. Time will tell the extent to which King is an exceptional case on an exceptional topic, or a harbinger of things to come.

Today's landmark Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage settles the question of marriage as a fundamental right, and also shows the importance of judicial confirmation hearings, Emory Law professors say. Read comments by Dean Robert Schapiro and Professors Tim Holbrook and Michael Perry.

As we await the U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, Professor Tim Holbrook talked with Creative Loafing about the effects of Georgia's present 2004 law, which bans such unions. Georgia LGBT couples would still have to travel to states where same-sex marriage is legal to marry, and when they return their marriages wouldn't be recognized. That affects issues including ease of adoption and medical visitation rights, for example.

Ideas, frustrations, inspiration, and understanding were exchanged when four Supreme Court justices from the Republic of Mozambique visited Emory Law on June 11.

Emory Law's Turner Environmental Law Clinic is challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's regulation (the "Continued Storage Rule") that addresses nuclear waste storage.

In May, a federal judge ruled in favor of two warehouse employees who sued after being called into their supervisor's office and asked for saliva samples. The Fulton County case could set a legal precedent and tests a United States genetics law, WABE reports. Now, a trial is underway to determine a monetary award. Professor Ani Satz says that could be difficult because this type of case is new under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. "There's very little precedent for Judge Totenberg about how to assess damages, in fact I can't find any in our region," she says.

"President Obama last week opined that the Supreme Court 'probably shouldn't even have ... taken up' King v. Burwell, the case that brings before the high court the question of whether the ObamaCare tax credit applies in states that have opted not to create their own healthcare exchanges," writes Professor Jonathan Nash. But the case meets the criteria for the court to have granted certiorari, and the administration's own arguments to the court belie the president's description of the case as "easy," he adds.

As in the movie "Rashomon," multiple perspectives tell varied and conflicting stories about the McKinney, Texas pool party incident between a police officer and a 14-year-old girl. According to Emory Law professor Dorothy Brown, race had everything to do with the way the confrontation.

The Emory Law Journal's latest issue assesses the future of marriage law in the specific context of whether polygamy is constitutionally protected.

Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Abdullahi An-Na'im is trying to prompt a global discussion between Muslims and others about Islamic law--also known as Shariah law--and why Shariah is viewed as such a threat in western cultures. He recently launched his Future of Shari'a blog, https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/aannaim/. "By its nature Shariah, which is the term I prefer over Islamic law, because as soon as you say Islamic law, which is the English translation, you are implying that it is a law to be imposed by the state, which is contradictory to its nature."

"In a case handed down last week--Wellness International Network, Ltd. v. Sharif--the Supreme Court upheld the power of bankruptcy judges to hear, with the consent of the parties, matters that fall within the ambit of Article III of the U.S. Constitution. Article III," Professor Jonathan Nash writes for The Hill. Bankruptcy judges are not Article III judges; they are appointed by federal circuit judges for 14-year terms, and their salaries are set by Congress, Nash says. "More disturbing than the court's lack of emphasis on Congress's other options is the failure of the court to come clean over exactly why Congress has not conferred Article III status on bankruptcy judges."

As the only state to host a Supreme Court race coming up--an unprecedented contest for three of the seven seats--Pennsylvania now gets the spotlight. Once the summer lull ends, experts say, tens of millions of dollars are likely to flow into the state and onto its airwaves to promote, or attack, the candidates. Court advocates say that money damages the public trust in justice, but studies suggest that it goes beyond perception, said Professor Joanna Shepherd. In a look at contributions and voting records nationwide from 2010 to 2012, she found that the more money business interests spent on a judge's campaign, the more likely the judge's vote would favor a business litigant.

Religion and politics aren't generally considered topics of friendly conversation, but they're exactly what an Emory University law professor wants to start a global discussion around. Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Abdullahi An-Na'im's blog is titled "Future of Sharia."

Three hundred ninety-one students received diplomas in Emory Law's diploma ceremony today.

Although Williams-Yulee upholds a judicial campaign speech restriction, the restriction it upholds is a narrow one and, moreover, it adopts a most exacting standard against which it holds judicial speech restrictions are generally to be measured, Professor Jonathan Nash writes in an opinion article for The Hill. "Going forward, states will have to offer a compelling state interest in regulating judicial campaign speech, and more importantly will have to demonstrate that their regulation is narrowly tailored to the problem at issue."

A delegation of law professors from URAL State University in Yekaterinburg, Russia, will attend Emory Law's spring session of the Kessler-Eidson Trial Techniques program, a learn-by-doing program required of all second-year law students.

In a decision viewed as a limited victory for campaign finance reform, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited Emory Law Professors Joanna Shepherd and Michael Kang's 2014 study "Skewed Justice," in joining a 5-4 majority decision that found in states where judges are elected, their role in soliciting financial contributions should be limited. (See page 31.)

What is the greatest threat to society and religion? Writer Nicholas Chen cites Professor Abdullahi An'Nai'm's book, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari¿a, in asserting that separation of state and religion "not only preserves the wellbeing of the society, but also the integrity of the religion."

In an op-ed for CNN, Emory University Law professor Timothy Holbrook counters the view that the opponents of same-sex marriage feel they are being "bullied" into silence.

Emory Law received a $1.5 million donation to help establish a John Lewis Chair in Civil Rights and Social Justice.

When prosecutors in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating case used RICO laws to pursue convictions for educators, some observers cried overkill. The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act debuted in the 1970s as a means to prosecute gangsters and mob bosses. But as Emory Law Professor Morgan Cloud told the Los Angeles Times, it wasn't a stretch. "I was not surprised in the least," Cloud said. "It's sufficiently egregious, and this clearly fit within the way the RICO statute has been applied since 1970."

Emory University School of Law authors played a significant role in the second edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, which was officially published by Elsevier on April 2.

Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, recently launched a new scholarly website/blog

Emory University School of Law won an international law and religion moot court competition in Venice, Italy, prevailing over 14 teams from four continents.

"Routine stops for walking in the middle of the street or driving with a broken taillight--these should not result in anyone's death. But time and again it ends with a black man dead in the street and the community has no recourse," Emory Law Professor and Vice Provost Dorothy Brown writes. "This time the stage was set in North Charleston, South Carolina, a city of about 100,000 people. Walter Scott was stopped by Officer Michael Slager for a broken taillight, and within minutes Scott was dead."

A federal jury found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a failing college student and the youngest child in a dispersed Russian immigrant family, guilty of the 2013 bombings at the Boston Marathon, the worst act of terrorism on American soil since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the New York Times reports. Aloke Chakravarty 97L was a member of the prosecution team that led the jury to convict following 11 hours of deliberations over two days.

As the attorney for the only defendant acquitted of all charges by the jury deciding the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial, Atlanta solo practitioner Sanford "Sandy" Wallack is happy for his client and eager to get back to the rest of his law practice, which he essentially placed on hold during the seven-month-long trial, writes Greg Land of the Daily Report.

The SEC's bad actor provisions automatically disqualify firms and individuals that break certain securities laws from using a streamlined process to offer securities to investors, Thaya Brook Knight writes in American Banker. But the SEC may waive the disqualification for defendants who can show good cause as to why the disqualification shouldn't apply to them. "A recent study by Urska Velikonja of Emory University School of Law, cited enthusiastically by the bill's supporters, reported that large firms received 82 percent of 201 waivers granted between July 2003 and December 2014," Knight writes, while ultimately arguing such waivers are appropriate and necessary.

Daniel Marti 99L was unanimously confirmed as U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator by the Senate on March 9.

Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im was a guest panelist for a recent talk sponsored by the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust, on past and current human rights abuses. Other panelists included British Consul General Jeremy Pilmore-Bedford, publisher M. Alexis Scott, and Holocaust survivor Norbert Friedman. The event was held at the Center for Civil and Human Rights.

The Emory Law Journal will host a one-day symposium on labor law on Friday, April 10 at the law school.

When Indiana Gov. Michael Pence signed his state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), he apparently did not anticipate the resulting uproar. Many of Indiana's businesses fear that the law could be used to allow store owners to deny service to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons.

Indiana became the 20th state to pass its version of a religious freedom restoration act last week, amid a national debate over the legal limits of religious conservatives' and LGBT citizens' visions for the nation's common life together. "At some point we come to the idea that we decide as a society that there's a compelling government interest that we don't discriminate anymore," says Mark Goldfeder, senior fellow at Emory Law's Center for the Study of Law and Religion.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz "watched the tragic events in Ferguson and elsewhere and wanted to be part of the solution," Vice Provost and Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown writes for Forbes. "He is to be commended for that, not pilloried." But asking baristas to lead the #RaceTogether campaign failed because "talking about race with a stranger, much less a stranger of a different race, is fraught with anxiety, and to do it well requires preparation and skill." Brown offers a few suggestions for what Starbucks can do next.

Now that Canadian-born Republican Ted Cruz has declared that he will run for president, expect the "birthers" to resurface, says the Tampa Bay Times' Alex Leary. Those questions will probably apply to Marco Rubio, too. The article repeats Emory Law Professor Polly Price's 2011 comments on the natural born citizen clause. "It's a little confusing, but most scholars think it's a pretty unusual position for anyone to think the natural born citizen clause would exclude someone born in the U.S.," Price said.

"The China-Tibet Dialogue and Its Implications for International Conflict Resolution: A Conversation with Lodi Gyari Rinpoche and Emory Law Professor Paul Zwier" takes place Monday, March 23, at 7:30 p.m. Gyari is a Tibetan diplomat and former special envoy to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Zwier is director of Emory Law's Center for Advocacy & Dispute Resolution.

Five enterprising students and their implantable device for pets won first place at the 2015 Georgia Tech Startup Competition. The first-year TI:GER® team beat out 11 other finalists with their pitch for a device that will monitor and, ultimately, regulate blood glucose levels in cats and dogs.

Emory University's new class on what happened in Ferguson before and after Michael Brown's death will examine the "Black Lives Matter" movement through more than one lens, said Emory Law Professor and Vice Provost Dorothy Brown. "Students don't like injustice, and this certainly seems like an injustice," she said. "It is a case study in what not to do if you want to de-escalate the situation."

"We've spent years believing the war on terror will end and civil liberties will be safe again. It's time to accept that the war will go on forever--and take steps to protect life and liberty in the new normal," Georgetown Law Professor Rosa Brooks writes in Foreign Policy. She cites Emory Law Professor Mary Dudziak's recent book, War Time, to illustrate how ceaseless war affects individual liberties in the context of national security imperatives.

Emory University says it will offer a course this coming fall on the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. "Ferguson touches a lot of different areas," says Emory Law Professor and Vice Provost Dorothy Brown, who helped create the class. "So people tend to think of it as policing and criminal law, but there"s so much more to it." It will be open to undergraduates and graduate students, with enrollment open through March 18.

On Jan. 20 of this year, I joined the Emory University School of Law as the first assistant dean for public service and knew I had found my calling. In this role, I work every day to connect with law students and colleagues to nurture the desire to help people. I hope to show our students the many different ways a lawyer can do that, regardless of practice and at different times in one's career.

"'March madness' holds a different meaning in the legal world. While most of the country looks forward to fast breaks and Cinderella upsets, law schools are bracing themselves for another type of madness: the annual carnage left by the U.S. News & World Report rankings," writes Emory Law Professor and Vice Provost Dorothy Brown.

Leia Clement 15L has been named the 2015 Distinguished Bankruptcy Law Student for the 11th Circuit by the American College of Bankruptcy. The award includes a trip to Washington, D.C., to attend the college's annual meeting and induction ceremony on March 13-14.

When the Supreme Court hears arguments next week on the validity of insurance premium subsidies connected to the Affordable Care Act, the Justices will be parsing words closely, in a decision that could affect millions of Americans' access to healthcare. Before 1980 or so, says Emory Law Dean Robert Schapiro, the courts would have considered the overarching purpose of the law--affordable healthcare for everyone. The focus now is on four crucial words within the act: "established by the state."

Associate Dean and Professor Timothy Holbrook will be honored March 3 at Emory University's 23rd Annual Pride Awards, as the Chestnut LGBT Person of the Year.

A new initiative to connect low-income inventors with pro bono patent lawyers kicked off last week. For those who cannot afford to hire a lawyer, the Georgia PATENTS program screens and refers Georgia inventors to patent lawyers in the appropriate discipline. "The biggest cost is the attorney fees, not the patent application,""said W. Grant Corboy of the Patent Office. Low-income inventors can apply for a 75 percent application fee discount, he added.

In a Feb. 13 speech at the 37th Annual Conference on Securities Regulation and Business Law, SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher cited Emory Law Associate Professor Urska Velikonja's research on disqualification waivers. He said Velikonja's paper, "Waiving Disqualification: When Do Securities Law Violators Receive a Reprieve?" will be "very important for this debate."

Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, visited Emory Law Thursday, February 5.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for gay couples in Alabama to wed, making it the 37th state where same-sex marriages are legal and offering the latest signal the court appears headed toward overturning bans nationwide. "I think there are at least five, possibly six, justices" who will rule in favor of gay marriage, said Emory Law Professor Timothy Holbrook. "The order today doesn't do anything to convince me otherwise."

The public outcry of two U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission members over a decision to give Oppenheimer & Co. a pass on being deemed a "bad actor" after it admitted to breaking securities laws has again stirred the debate over whether the agency needs to get tougher on recidivist firms. In its letter seeking relief, Oppenheimer laid out a detailed analysis of why there exists good cause for the firm to not be barred from Rule 506 offerings. "That is a direct consequence of [the SEC's two Democratic commissioners, Luis Aguilar and Kara Stein] being a little bit difficult when it come to waivers," said Emory Law Assistant Professor Urska Velikonja.

Emory Law Professor Joanna Shepherd said West Virginia's move fits a gradual pattern as states shift away from partisan elections, even as campaign spending rises and races become more politicized each year. She believes the West Virginia measure would have limited effects on influence. "It would minimize the influence of political parties in these elections, but it will not do anything to remedy the special interest money," she said.

Professor Kathleen Cleaver, who was the Black Panther Party's communications secretary and wife of party leader Eldridge Cleaver, discusses the new film "The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution," with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman. The film's director, Stanley Nelson, was also interviewed on the occasion of the film's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

In a lecture on international criminal justice, Ben Ferencz recounted his part in what he called the biggest murder trial in history.

From the outside, the Fairwood subdivision near Bowie, Maryland, appears to be an African-American success story. The subdivision is 73 percent black, with a median income of $170,000. But many homeowners are underwater on their mortgages. Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown is a guest when Namdi talks with a Washington Post reporter who wrote on black wealth and the lingering impact of the housing crisis in the Washington suburbs.

Atlanta's fire chief was dismissed by the mayor after writing a book in which he said homosexuality is "vile." He has filed a federal discrimination complaint against the city in a case that is testing the issue of religious expression in the workplace and mobilizing Christian conservatives to his defense. Professor Mark Goldfeder told the Los Angeles Times it was too early to decide whether the chief had a strong legal case. Americans have the right to express their personal beliefs and Title VII requires reasonable accommodation to do so in the workplace. "But what it doesn't protect is imposing your beliefs on somebody else or making people feel uncomfortable," Goldfeder said.

The City of Atlanta is working to tackle abandoned homes and properties throughout the city, something the city has had a hard time accomplishing because of its current laws, officials said. Frank Alexander, Emory University Law Professor, says Atlanta's current codes are dated and ineffective. "The City of Atlanta, historically, relative to other cities of comparable size, geographically and in population, has underfunded code enforcement activities," he said.

Emory Law's legal clinics and externship programs engage students in all aspects of the legal process.

Tim Holbrook, a professor at Emory Law, said he thinks it's possible, though unlikely, that Chief Justice Roberts would vote with liberal members of the Supreme Court bench.

The magazine polled 53 historians, including Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary L. Dudziak on how Obama's presidency will be viewed two decades from now. "How much will Obama's being black matter in the end?" the magazine asked. "Race will still matter. Twenty years from now, children will learn in school that Barack Obama was the first nonwhite U.S. president," Dudziak says.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today named Walter E. Jospin as regional director of its Atlanta office, where he will oversee enforcement and examinations in a region covering five states.

As the number of jury and bench trials shrink, negotiation and mediation skills are even more relevant. Emory's overall attitude toward ADR is that the skills learned are just as relevant in more traditional adversarial settings as in the conciliatory rooms of mediation, says Professor Paul Zwier.

In the Cold War, images of blacks' treatment in the U.S.--including armed soldiers blocking nine African American students from entering a schoolhouse in Little Rock, Ark.--made headlines across the world. "The issue caused people from other countries to wonder whether the U.S. had a commitment to human rights," Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary Dudziak tells Time. One Soviet newspaper wrote of American police "who abuse human dignity and stoop to the level of animals." The recent decisions to not prosecute police in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner have led to similar criticism from North Korea, Iran and the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

Results were based primarily on a survey of more than 300 legal industry professionals, and rankings also factor in data on acceptance rates and post-graduate employment rates. "Emory University Law School has a strong relationship with the Carter Center, where students can work in clinics promoting world peace. One of the four legal journals at Emory Law is the student-run Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal--the only journal of its kind in the country," the report reads.

A push by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission member Kara Stein to demand more from companies seeking waivers after enforcement actions likely adds to the uncertainty of negotiating a settlement with the agency. On Nov. 25, the SEC granted Bank of America Corp. and its Merrill Lynch broker-dealer business a temporary, conditional waiver from an automatic ban that keeps "bad actors" from participating in private securities transactions.

Emory Law School has named Vice Dean Robert B. Ahdieh the K.H. Gyr Professor of Private International Law for outstanding achievement in scholarship and teaching in international law.

For many Americans, Ferguson is the latest reminder that our criminal justice system doesn't treat blacks and whites the same, and that young black men in particular are often killed with impunity, CNN's Ray Sanchez writes. It started when police officials left Michael Brown's body in the street for four hours. "The nicest thing you can say is that it's the most insensitive thing we've seen in a long time," said Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown. "The other extreme is, this was done deliberately. It's sending a signal. We don't want anybody challenging the status quo. Here is a body as a reminder."

John Witte Jr. has been named Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law.

President Obama's executive action on immigration will likely benefit state government by helping the economy and easing a costly burden on child services programs, including state care of U.S. citizen children whose parents might otherwise be deported, says Emory Law Professor Polly Price.

Professor Polly Price's extensive interview on WABE examined the legal doctrine behind President Obama's executive order on immigration. The use of executive action isn't anything new, but the scope, or number of people it affects breaks new ground, Price said. However, until Congress passes legislation, the president's action is defensible, and states will likely be unsuccessful in challenging it.

President Obama's announcement of a "historic agreement" between the U.S. and China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on its face touches upon international law and domestic regulation. In point of fact, the agreement is not itself historic on either of these fronts. Still, what it might lead to down the line--a multilateral climate change treaty--makes the bilateral agreement a first step along a potentially historic path.

Every federal district court, save one in Louisiana, had found a constitutional right to same-sex marriage (as have four federal courts of appeal). This string of victories, however, came to a halt on Nov. 7, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, on a 2-1 vote, became the first federal appellate court to uphold same-sex marriage bans.

On this Veterans Day, I join the entire Emory Law community in honoring our members of the military. We are deeply grateful for their sacrifice that secures for all of us the protections of the rule of law.

The judge in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating trial apologized today after stopping a television news report from being broadcast. Judge Jerry Baxter signed an emergency motion Friday on behalf of the prosecution. He lifted that order this morning. Lifting the order was appropriate says Emory Law Professor Julie Seaman, who teaches first amendment law. "If the press has lawfully obtained truthful information, it's very difficult constitutionally for a court to prevent its publication in advance."

The Supreme Court of Georgia held a special session of oral arguments at Emory University School of Law on November 7.

On Tuesday, voters across the country appeared to offer a rebuke to the administration of President Barack Obama by voting into office many Republicans, who now will control the Senate and the House of Representatives. Does voters' midterm reaction to Obama indicate some flagging in support for him among people of color? Could the GOP be making inroads with black voters?

A report by Emory Law Professors Joanna Shepherd and Michael Kang, "Skewed Justice," was released on Oct. 21. It found that as the number of TV ads about state supreme court races goes up--ads that often target justices as "soft on crime"--justices are less likely to vote in favor of criminal defendants.

Pete Rose could have saved his place in major league baseball had he been counseled to admit he gambled on his team, said John Dowd 65L, the lawyer who led the 1989 investigation into the game's all-time hit leader. The Emory event marked the 25th anniversary of Rose's banishment.

From the Washington Post: A new study by Emory Law Professors Joanna Shepherd and Michael Kang finds that the more ads aired during state supreme court campaigns, the more likely justices are to rule against criminal defendants--potentially from fear of appearing "soft on crime."

The New York Times featured Professors Joanna Shepherd and Michael Kang's just-released study, "Skewed Justice." The study had two major findings: (1) The more TV ads aired during state supreme court judicial elections in a state, the less likely justices are to vote in favor of criminal defendants, and (2), justices in states whose bans on corporate and union spending on elections were struck down by Citizens United were less likely to vote in favor of criminal defendants than they were before the decision.

Professor Polly Price was quoted in Time magazine in an article about the legalities of quarantine for those who may have been exposed to Ebola. "If healthcare workers resist signing the voluntary quarantine or defy its recommendations after agreeing to it, Emory University law professor Polly Price says that it's likely an official quarantine would be ordered. 'They could go and get a court order to formalize it, possibly even after the fact,' Price says. 'But they would likely seek a formal quarantine.'"

Emory experts provided insights into the legal ramifications of potential medical emergencies

It's probably not a book that a young man could write, and that is to its credit. The volume is boldly titled What Is an American Muslim? Embracing Faith and Citizenship, and the "old soul" behind it is Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, associate professor in Emory College, and senior fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday asked a judge for more time to decide whether money from a $602 million settlement with SAC Capital Advisors should go to investors claiming they are victims of SAC's insider trading scheme. Some say insider trading victims are nearly impossible to identify, and argue it is a victimless crime. But over the past decade the SEC has distributed $100 million in settlement money to people identified as victims in 15 insider trading cases, according to a study by Emory Law Assistant Professor Urska Velikonja.

On Monday, the Supreme Court did something no one expected: It refused to hear any of the cases striking down same-sex marriage bans. Most observers thought the court would either grant review or delay any action to see whether any lower appellate courts would find such bans constitutional. But it didn't wait and, by declining to hear the cases, allowed same-sex marriages to begin in Utah, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Indiana and Virginia. In fact, wedding bells have already started to ring in Virginia.

The aggressive response that health officials have mounted to the Ebola virus in Dallas is likely to prevent a wide-scale outbreak. But multiple snafus reveal some unexpected issues the U.S. would have to prepare for in the event of a larger-scale infectious disease threat, the Wall Street Journal reports. Quarantine is an important element of preventing its spread. "We don't have a lot of experience with quarantining well people," says Emory Law Professor Polly Price.

"For American purposes, war as a political tool has more and more demonstrated its inability to deliver," writes West Point Professor Gregory Daddis. "In truth, decisiveness in war has historically been elusive, especially in the decades following the end of World War II. If war provides meaning, why, as Emory Law Professor Mary Dudziak asks, does military engagement no longer require 'the support of the American people but instead their inattention?'"

Laws that authorities may use to prevent an Ebola outbreak in the United States are designed to work best for a disease with a much shorter incubation period, says Emory Law Professor Polly Price. In the U.S., an attorney is provided to someone who wishes to challenge their quarantine or isolation. But, Price said, "Whenever the judges have a public health person in their courtroom telling them there's a threat, they're not going to second guess." Price's public lecture, "Ebola in the U.S." will be held at Emory Law, Oct. 14 More info

Emory Law Vice Dean Robert Ahdieh was interviewed by CNN on how China will react to the ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and how the current situation differs from the 1989 student protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

A few simple, common-sense amendments to the current Consumer Fraud Act would punish deceptive business practices while curbing nuisance litigation against honest businesses. A new white paper from Emory University Law School professor Joanna Shepherd, "The Expansion of New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act: Causes and Consequences," details just how we got to the point where we are suing over sandwiches. It begins by explaining that the Garden State's law was initially modeled after the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914.

The rebuilt Beall's Hill neighborhood has been held up as a success story in fighting blight and revitalizing a part of town that many had written off as unsalvageable. Frank Alexander, an Emory University law professor and co-founder of a nonprofit focused on blight solutions, was involved in the creation of the Macon-Bibb Land Bank. Land banks are a good way to address blight, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach, he says.

Emory Law Professor Michael Perry predicted discord would result from the U. S. Supreme Court's opinion on a 2013 same-sex marriage case.

Professor John Witte, Jr. contends that polygamy laws will likely become the next hot legal topic.

The Supreme Court is set to decide whether to take the same-sex marriage cases on September 29, a mere 15 months since they overturned the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. That decision created a deluge of cases which have found that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional. The issues in marriage equality differ significantly from those in the abortion debate. With marriage, the answer is binary -- either same-sex couples can marry or they can't.

It's open season on software patents. That's the message federal courts have sent in recent weeks after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that tackled the question of whether--and when--computer programs can qualify for intellectual-property protection. The trend represents a worst-case scenario for patent-licensing firms, which their detractors call "patent trolls."

"For generations, based upon International Shoe (1945), no one doubted that general jurisdiction is appropriate when a corporation engages in 'continuous and systematic' activities in a given state," Richard Howell Hall Professor of Law Richard D. Freer writes in a Sept. 15 op-ed article for the San Francisco Daily Journal. "Things are different now. In Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown (2011) and Daimler AG v. Bauman (2014), the U.S. Supreme Court recast general jurisdiction. Now general jurisdiction is proper only where the defendant is 'at home.'" (Subscription required)

Emory Law alumnus Linus Chen 08L, an attorney with the U.S. Department of the Interior, and David M. Moore, an adjunct professor at Emory Law, both wrote articles for the August 2014 ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources Endangered Species Committee newsletter.

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary Dudziak discusses how wartime laws and policy often live beyond the present conflict, to have lasting effects upon civil liberties. Starting with World War I, she examines how overseas wars can deeply affect individual rights at home, in a Q & A with Carnegie Council Associate Editor for Ethics & International Affairs Zach Dorfman.

Professor Urska Velikonja's work is cited by The Economist, in an article that questions how the proceeds of large fines levied against corporations are administered. "The disarray stemmed from the lack of a coherent plan to compensate defrauded investors," the article reads. "In a forthcoming article in the Stanford Law Review Urska Velikonja, a professor at Emory University, argues that this reflects the failure to identify specific misconduct when setting up the deal."

The White House announced Thursday that it is nominating a new Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, known colloquially as the "IP czar." He is Washington lawyer Daniel H. Marti. The position coordinates U.S. law-enforcement strategy around copyright, patents and trademarks. The coordinator's duties, somewhat controversial from the start, include harmonizing the enforcement activities of several federal agencies under the White House's Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement.

As the turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri, unfolds, questions about the United States' commitment to human rights are once more headlining news coverage around the world. The uncomfortable international spotlight on such domestic problems should not be surprising. American racial inequality regularly dominated foreign news coverage during the 1950s and 1960s. Strong presidential leadership was needed to address earlier civil rights crises. It helped repair the damage to the American image, and undercut the argument that the United States was hypocritical in promoting human rights. Then, as now, protecting rights serves U.S. international relations.

Emory Law Professors Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im and William Buzbee will discuss their recently published books at this year's AJC Decatur Book Festival, held Aug. 29-31.

What leeway do police have when using deadly force to end dangerous high-speed chases? Left with little to reconcile the seemingly conflicting analyses in Scott v. Harris and Plumhoff v. Rickard, law enforcement officials may find themselves at the mercy of lower courts that may be influenced more by what they see in after-the-fact on video recordings than by what they read in clear Supreme Court precedents.

Where wrongful conduct actually results in increased revenue that rewards corporate officers and employees, is it plausible that an internal compliance mechanism can freely and fully investigate and right wrongful behavior? Do corporations really have an incentive to fully address wrongful conduct that generates significant revenue? These are important questions particularly at a time when civil and criminal penalties are merely part of the cost of doing business.

Anyone in the black community who says voting is a waste of time because "they don't care about us" should take a good, hard look at Ferguson, Missouri. Almost 68% of its citizens are black and just under 30% are white. Five of six city council members are white, the mayor is white, the chief of police is white, and its police force has 50 whites and three blacks.

Randy Davis 79L was one of three captains who piloted a private plane from Liberia to return American aid worker Nancy Writebol to the U.S. to receive treatment for Ebola. Davis said that he was not nervous about his proximity to the contagious patient, and that he viewed it as an honor. "I think everybody everywhere would agree that you'd like to try to help people who are so selfless," Davis said to ABC News.

Last week, two federal courts of appeals issued opinions on ObamaCare. Common wisdom sees the opinion of the DC Circuit--which was issued first--as a potential death knell for ObamaCare. The Fourth Circuit opinion issued a few hours later was received as having reached a conclusion favorable to ObamaCare, thus dividing the courts of appeals. The Fourth Circuit's conclusion that the statute is ambiguous means that the Obama administration's regulations stand. But it also means that another administration--perhaps one with a Republican president--could issue new regulations that restricted the tax credit to states with state-created exchanges.

The tendency to make judgments about the rights and wrongs of the current Israel-Hamas conflict on the basis of which side has had more civilians killed is hard to resist. There's a lot of talk about "disproportionate" killing or attacks. So I welcome a new measured, careful discussion by Emory Law School professor Laurie Blank, describing what proportionality means in the law of targeting (which is a major part of the law of armed conflict).

The conflict in Gaza is replete with asymmetries: the number of civilian casualties on either side, the amount of destruction, the types of weapons used and technological capabilities. But for both legal and practical reasons, conflating asymmetry and proportionality is both inaccurate and harmful to the law of war's core purposes.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in a big campaign finance case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. The justices voted 5-4 to overturn certain limits on how much money Americans can give to candidates and committees. There was concern that the decision would open the floodgates, allowing more Americans to give more money. But so far, it seems the decision has only affected a small group.

Executive, judicial and legislative branches are trying to untangle the web of technological innovation.

Emory Lawyer is published twice annually by Emory University School of Law.

When it comes to judicial decision-making, says Emory Law Professor Joanna Shepherd, money matters. The Daily Report covered Shepherd's recent talk at the local chapter of the American Constitution Society. Her research indicates that a justice who receives more than half of his or her contributions from business groups sides with business interests about two-thirds of the time in deciding cases. (registration/subscription required)

Professor Polly Price argues that we need rethink the way we leave detection and treatment of tuberculosis to thousands of small local health authorities across the country. The problem cannot be handled by local government authorities when it is brought in by foreign travelers and spread across the country.

LGBT legal rights should not be contingent on biology or immutability. And, contrary to Texas Gov. Rick Perry's insinuation, sexual orientation is not like a disease.

On ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who happens to be black, suggested that opposition to him and President Barack Obama in part is due to racial animus. For that, he has been vilified.

Emory Law Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im argues that Islam is protected by the establishment clause like all other religions.

Presently, U.S. healthcare is politically and legally fragmented, underfunded and disproportionately strained in many poor communities, making tuberculosis hard to treat.

Land banks are public entities created to revive vacant or tax-foreclosed properties. The small city of Newburgh on the Hudson River has been trying to revitalize itself using a land bank.

Since 1993, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires that federal laws accommodate individuals' religious beliefs. Hobby Lobby is first to pass the test.

The Atlanta City Council's vote last month to encourage and support more urban agriculture is set to make the city a national leader in local food systems. "Atlanta should be proud of itself," says Mindy Goldstein, director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic.

in Hobby Lobby, the justices consider whether a for-profit corporation can refuse to provide certain contraceptive services in health plans offered to employees

The U.S. Supreme Court will likely issue a ruling next year requiring all states to allow same-sex couples to marry, an Emory constitutional law expert predicts.

A Journal of Diversity Management study published this month shows that for the academic year 2012-13, 71 percent of presidents were white and male.

The scare tactic raised by the food industry that labeling would increase prices has been debunked in an study by Joanna Shepherd Bailey, a professor at Emory University School of Law.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office cancelled six federal trademarks registered to the Washington Redskins.

In its proposed new regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that many of the benefits of its mandate will arise not from the direct benefits of lower levels of carbon emissions, but from so-called health "co-benefits."

For the first time, a computer program passed the Turing Test for artificial intelligence.

Earlier this week, the Atlanta City Council passed the urban agriculture zoning ordinance.

Professor Buzbee discusses the EPA's new policy on greenhouse gas emissions.

Cooperative federalism regimes offer two substantial benefits: They improve federal-state relations by empowering states to act under federal law, and they allow society to reap the benefit of state innovation instead of having one federal law preempt the field.

Professor Laurie Blank discusses transparency in drone strikes, and what the law of war demands.

Emory Law awarded diplomas to 319 graduates in May 2014.

A team of students from Georgia Tech and Emory University hope to parlay their class project into a startup that could put its innovative medical device in hospitals and medical clinics across the country.

Recently, Lambda Legal challenged Georgia's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in federal court, arguing that the ban violates the U.S. Constitution.

Dorothy Brown says homes in majority black neighborhoods do not appreciate as much as homes in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods.

Volokh files amicus cert in DOT v. Ass'n of American Railroads

Emory Law will begin offering a JM degree concentration specifically for global health professionals.

Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, will speak at Emory Law on April 9, 2014.

There are five bills relating to child welfare, as well as the budget, that have yet to make it to the Governor's desk and only three more days for lawmakers to vote and get them there.

The celebrity chef whose food empire tumbled over her use of a racial epithet, has found $75 million in backing from a private-equity company

Anyone with an iPhone loves how easy it is to use one. At present, these tools are protected by patents. But things could change dramatically.

Emory Law notes with sadness the passing of Randolph W. Thrower 34C 36L 84H on March 8, 2014.

Emory Law ranks No. 19 in U. S. News & World Reports 2015 rankings.

With "Stokely: A Life," the historian Peniel E. Joseph says he set out to "recover" Stokely Carmichael.

Timothy Holbrook discusses Arizona Gov. Brewer's veto of a controversial service-refusal bill and the impact on other states as well as marriage-equality laws.

The White House called on Congress to pass legislation to combat patent trolls, known less pejoratively as "patent assertion entities."

The National Jurist includes Emory Law on its first honor roll of law schools that deliver practical training.

Laurie Blank, director of the INternational Humanitarian Law Clinic, testified on armed drones before the Dutch Parliament.

The National Jurist has announced 25 law schools that stand above and beyond the rest in public interest law.

Emory Law students win the 7th Annual National Baseball Arbitration Competition.

This is the fourth post in a series on the ¿California rule¿ and constitutional protection of public-sector employee pensions.

Most of Georgia's child welfare system would be dismantled and turned over to private companies under a new bill introduced this week by Senate lawmakers.

There are more than 750,000 veterans in Georgia and more than 200,000 of this total live in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area.

It's been almost eight months since the Supreme Court effectively stuck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

The first in a new series of conversations about diversity in the legal profession was held at Emory Law on Jan. 27.

Advocates urging the Legislature to allow new cities in DeKalb County point to the success of those recently created in bringing government closer to the people and lowering taxes.

Ledbetter will present the keynote address at the annual Legal Association for Women Students conference titled, ¿Will Leaning In Shatter the Glass Ceiling?¿

The sex trafficking of minors placed Georgia in the national spotlight after a FBI lists of cities with a high incidence of the crime included Atlanta. WABE¿s Rose Scott profiles Georgia¿s current attorney general Sam Olens.

The Feminism and Legal Theory Project, founded by Professor Martha Fineman, celebrates its 30th year.

Duffy Realty of Atlanta, one of a growing number of real estate agencies tries new pricing strategies, an upfront listing fee of $500 and one third of 1 percent when a house sells. Duffy said the agency¿s 2013 revenue was $5.3 million.

A sleepy court is about to get its turn in the limelight. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appels in Denver, one of the nation's 13th federal appeals courts, doesn't have firebrand judges and isn't routinely reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A plan to put private organizations in charge of Georgia¿s approximately 7,000 foster children is moving too fast for some child advocates who want more study before overhauling the system.

With six appointees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, President Barack Obama has reshaped what some patent lawyers consider the most important court in the world.

A medical malpractice battle erupts in Georgia again.

Few areas in the law have garnered more attention in recent years than that relating to patents. What will 2014 bring? Lots more news, in all likelihood.

Loan Monitor Is Accused of Ruthless Tactics on Student Debt

The Philadelphia Housing Authority confronts blight and abandoned properties

How should businesses adjust their employment policies to be sure they are in compliance with the law?

Legislation that would scrap the current litigation-based system for resolving medical malpractice claims in Georgia would replace it with a government bureaucracy that would drive up costs, the bill's opponents said Wednesday.

Georgia inmates who faced the death penalty before age 18 will be resentenced.

Van der Vyver shares his memories of Nelson Mandela's presidency and leadership through reconciliation.

Over the past few decades there has been a rapid increase in the number of lawsuits over intellectual-property infringements.

Is it a violation of federal policy to bar the students from top public colleges?

The quick pace of technology and the complexities of the digital world are forcing changes in all areas of intellectual property.

A Harvard professor compared choosing a car to having kids. It's a poor reason to deny maternity coverage to struggling parents

Nordic women's university features Fineman's work on vulnerability.

There are approximately 150 land banks across the country, and Frank Alexander has been involved in creating many of them during the past 20 years.

Tuberculosis is back, and nastier than ever, Professor Polly Price writes in Newsweek.

In American Express Corp v. Italian Colors last term, the Court ruled that class action waivers are enforceable even when they render it functionally impossible for plaintiffs to vindicate their rights under federal law.

Henry Louis Gates "African Americans" Many Rivers to Cross" features lively debates with some of America's top historians and interviews living eyewitnesses -- including former Black Panther Kathleen Neal Cleaver.

ARMs have few virtues (if any) to extol.

Decades ago, the boards of corporate America were occupied by the C.E.O. and the C.E.O.'s handpicked friends and colleagues. Today the independent director, an outside director who is not beholden to the chief, dominates the corporate board.

Georgia incarcerates nearly 2,650 veterans in state prisons. Over 1,800 are good candidates for rehabilitation and supervision rather than prison.

As we usher in the first health care enrollments under the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- popularly known as "Obamacare" -- the concern over spiking insurance rates is reaching new heights and generating new fights.

Emory University led the pack in the percent of law school graduates passing the State Bar of Georgia's July exam, just barely nudging out the University of Georgia.

A former state attorney general says a bill to replace Georgia's medical malpractice tort system with a workers' compensation-like board is constitutional.

Todd M. Hughes became the first openly gay person confirmed as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The Princeton Review included Emory Law in its Best 169 Law Schools 2014 edition, released this week.

To many, the words "Gay Christian" are, at best, in tension with each other. For others, particularly those on the political right, those two words are mutually exclusive: being gay or supporting LGBT rights is utterly inconsistent with being Christian.

Double down is the advice that I would give President Obama. Do not act unilaterally. Do not ignore the debt ceiling. Do not order the Treasury to issue more debt. A debt shutdown would be a political problem that would require a political solution.

Just what are some of the essential writing skills that highly effective litigators and contract drafters share?

Emory Law honored five alumni for distinguished work in public service and volunteer efforts on the law school's behalf.

Why is the US seen as the law-enforcer-in-chief while China as the law-breaker?

A Washington Post investigation found some investors demanded thousands in fees from homeowners far exceeding the original tax debts and then took the homes when they couldn¿t pay. About 500 properties have been lost since 2005, most in the city¿s poorest neighborhoods.

About 2,000 plaintiffs hope to get picked Sept. 30 when the Supreme Court meets privately for its first conference of the 2013 term. Less than 1% of them are likely to be rewarded.

When your financial adviser becomes either inattentive or nonresponsive to your requests, particularly those relating to information and explanation, an alarm bell should immediately go off in your mind.

An important but little-known episode in the story of the March on Washington unfolded on Aug. 17, 1963, in a Paris nightclub called the Living Room. James Baldwin and others living abroad met to support the upcoming March on Washington.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, the favorability rating of the US Supreme Court has fallen below 50 percent.

How did lawlessness become an axiom about Chineseness rather than a fact needing to be verified empirically, and how did the United States assume the mantle of law's universal appeal?

ag-gag' laws make it illegal to gather undercover documentation and videos of cruelty to animals at factory farms , but it is precisely this kind of reporting that exposes and can help stop abuse of animals.

In its two decisions that benefit same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court neither remains silent nor makes a definitive ruling.

Edward Snowden, whose disclosures have triggered broad debate over the balance between privacy and national security, has left Hong Kong and is in Moscow, apparently headed to Ecuador.

When the Supreme Court on Monday sent Fisher v. University of Texas, an affirmative action case, back to the lower court for a second look, supporters of race-conscious policies breathed a sigh of relief.

Immigration among Latinos and population growth among African-Americans constitute a voting majority that votes together cohesively. That obviously changes the politics and makes section 5 just unimportant in the larger context.

The U.S. Supreme Court has surprised just about everyone with its decision on affirmative action By a 7-to-1 vote, the court largely sidestepped making what could have been a sweeping ruling in a test case from Texas.

Mary L. Dudziak thinks that to get to the heart of a matter -- in law and in scholarship -- it can be helpful to start at the edges. To understand domestic law, she looks to its global impact; to understand contemporary war, she looks to its past.

Life will be much less stressful if you think of your home primarily as a consumption cost rather than as an investment.

Well over a decade after the 2001 terrorist attacks, are we still in a "long war" without an end in sight? Or does the category of "wartime" no longer fit our experience?

The revelations this week that the federal government has been scooping up records of telephone calls inside the United States for seven years, and secretly collecting information from Internet companies on foreigners overseas for nearly six years, have elicited predictable outrage from liberals and civil libertarians.

Don't blame Russia for lack of intelligence sharing in Boston bombing suspect.

See photos from Emory Law's 2013 hooding ceremony.

If you plan to go it alone as an investor, without the guidance of a professional, it is crucial to educate yourself.

Emory University School of Law has announced the integration of its Office of Career Services with its recently established Center for Professional Development and Career Strategy (the Center), furthering its commitment to provide the best professional development resources for students.

Individuals, for the most part, fall into one of two categories regarding their attitudes toward work: Either they live to work, or they work to live. If your heir falls squarely in the former category, a dramatic change in wealth is not likely to affect his or her motivation to work.

As multinationals move around the globe, legal systems are cross-pollinated. China is a case in point, says Reuben Guttman 85L.

The debate over whether the Iraq War was really all about oil may never be fully resolved in some minds, but one thing is clear -- either way, Iraq has yet to really cash in.

A U.S. Supreme Court clash over the patenting of human genes left several justices searching for a middle ground in a case with the potential to redefine rights in the biotechnology and agricultural industries.

As the debate on U.S. immigration reform continues in Congress, Polly Price, professor at Emory University School of Law, will study a lesser-known, public health component of the issue -- the rise of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis along the southern U.S. border.

I suspect that if we looked at the tax returns of every member of Congress we would see something close to a 100% itemization rate. Compare that to only a third of the American public, and the numbers would suggest that repeal is the best way forward.

Nixon's secret bombing campaign in Cambodia is used to justify Obama's targeted killing of Americans suspected of terrorism.

A new student-founded clinic at Emory University School of Law will focus on justice for Atlanta-area veterans by providing free legal representation for disability benefit claims and appeal hearings.

Emory Law School ranked 23rd in the nation in the annual U.S. News best graduate schools edition, up from 23 last year.

Laurie Blank on how to define the battlefield in the age of armed drones

The leak of a White Paper on targeting killings is getting the expected attention from law bloggers and others, with much commentary focused on whether the legal analysis is correct, for example the definition of "imminence."

A Georgia House-Senate study commission has released a new report on human trafficking in Georgia. It updates and expands a report from three years ago, which resulted in a 2011 law imposing much tougher penalties on those who engage in the sex trafficking of children.

The Supreme Court ruled today that the 9th Circuit committed a legal error in holding the Los Angeles County Flood Control District liable for violations of its Clean Water Act (CWA) municipal separate storm sewer system (or MS4) pollution discharge permit.

Will there be ¿but one heart to the globe?¿ asks Walt Whitman in a poem that provides an epigraph in Mark Mazower¿s new book, Governing the World: The History of an Idea. At the center of this expansive work is the question of how Americans and Europeans have imagined the world, its peoples, and its nations. Is there but one global identity, as Whitman surmises?

Dozens have sued the New England Compounding Center linked to the deadly fungal meningitis outbreak. Meningistis victims consider suing pharmacy over tainted shots. Professor Richard Freer says the compounder may not have many assets, so patients may consider other defendants.

As a part of the series, "Why Not," Tell Me More is looking at policies that were once untouchable but now may be on the table. Today, NPR Correspondent Tamara Keith and Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown dig into the pros-and-cons of raising taxes on capital gains and dividends.

A special state council today will recommend repairs for a juvenile justice system that spends $91,000 a year for each bed in its state detention centers. Council members point to the enormous expense of incarcerating young offenders in a state ¿youth development campus,¿ or YDC, while producing poor results, as evidence that the system isn¿t working.

The racial wealth gap has hit an all-time high while Barack Obama has been president. The median net worth of white households is now 20 times that of black households. Why? I can highlight one area where blacks may be inadvertently contributing to the racial wealth gap: When most black people buy homes, we hurt ourselves economically.

Tight budgets make it hard to attract and train employees qualified to deal with young offenders who often have violent tendencies. The budget did rise to just over $300 million for the 2013 fiscal year, but that¿s stretched thin covering a staff of more than 4,000 employees statewide, a network of short- and longer-term juvenile detention centers, as well as community-based programs and supervision for low-risk offenders.

Crippled by student debt, Lori Kitchen quit her government job just months after graduating from American University in 2007, figuring she would lose her security clearance once she fell behind on her loan payments. Ms. Kitchen eventually found relief where no on told her to look: bankruptcy court.

We are not tipping from war to peace, if peace is understood as the absence of warfare. Instead, we are sharpening the weapon. This enables warfare to be more precise, more targeted, more secret, more isolated from public awareness and accountability. In this way tipping the war on terror may not bring about an ending, but instead facilitate an ongoing war.

In any conflict, all parties ¿ states, rebel groups and terrorist organizations ¿ must protect civilians from the ravages of war and take steps to minimize harm to civilians. For each party, these obligations take two primary forms: protecting civilians in the areas where it is attacking, and protecting its own civilians from the consequences of attacks by the enemy party.

U.S. Supreme Court justices meet Friday to decide if they will hear any of several cases involving the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which bans federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Michael Perry, an Emory University Woodruff Professor of law, explains what the court¿s action on this federal law could mean for Georgia.

Five Emory University law students have achieved something most lawyers never do: They persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case. Emory Law students (from left) Rachel Erdman, Scott Forbes, Michael Wiseman, Ed Philpot and Louis Laverone worked on the successful certiorari petition for an Alabama man.