WUSTL Business & Law News

Washington People: Clifford Holekamp

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-26 00:00:00

Mary Butkus/WUSTL Photos

Clifford Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Olin Business School, is shown at Lab 1500 in downtown St. Louis.

Clifford Holekamp is senior lecturer in entrepreneurship and director of the entrepreneurship platform at Olin Business School. He manages an angel investment portfolio, serves as a board member for several ventures, and is a judge and adviser for the Olin Cup business plan competition and for the Arch Grants international business plan competition.

We sat down with Holekamp to discuss entrepreneurship at Washington University and St. Louis' rise as a startup hub.

First question: Can entrepreneurship be taught?

You bet! It strikes me as a little egotistical when entrepreneurs claim that they have a natural born gift for entrepreneurship that can't be taught to others.

I think the debate is further confused when we don’t differentiate between the studies of ideation/innovation and of venture management. We are seeing innovation being effectively taught in the curriculums of just about every school in the university.

Olin, of course, has been teaching applicable principles of business management and leadership for generations. Entrepreneurship as a career path may not be for everyone, but my students graduate armed with the management knowledge needed to successfully lead entrepreneurial firms.

Tell us a little about your background. You started a business before coming to Olin, correct?

Actually, I first came to Washington University as an MBA student in 1999. While studying at Olin, I developed a concept for a chain of health-care centers that combine a podiatrist’s clinic with a foot-care products store. Customers preferred the accessible retail format and the emphasis on customer service. The business grew very quickly, and I was bought out by an investment syndicate in 2007.

In addition to teaching entrepreneurship on the Danforth Campus, you're credited with being a key leader in St. Louis' burgeoning startup scene. Tell us about your work outside the classroom.

I am part of the founding group of general partners at Cultivation Capital. We started with an early-stage tech fund in 2012, and in the last year and a half, we added an early-stage life sciences fund, a small growth fund, and partnered with the St. Louis Regional Chamber to launch an accelerator called SixThirty.

It is very exciting to be part of this dream team of entrepreneurs, including WUSTL alums Jim McKelvey and Rick Holton, who are now coordinating our energies to attracting and growing the next generation of great companies. Additionally, I am actively engaged as a board member of several local ventures, including LockerDome, TrakBill and Rothman Furniture.

Mary Butkus/WUSTL Photos

(From left to right) Holekamp chats with Andrew Brimer, a recent alumnus of the School of Engineering & Applied Science, and Kyle Tabor, a current MBA candiate. Holekamp mentored both during Olin's Hatchery business plan course. Brimer is co-founder of Sparo Labs, which is developing a low-cost sprirometer to measure lung function. The three were at Lab 1500 to film an upcoming segment on entrepreneurship for Techli.com.

St. Louis is becoming increasingly recognized for its vital and connected startup scene. What is it about St. Louis that makes such growth possible?

It’s all about the community. A wonderfully energized community has developed around the startup scene, and the momentum attracts momentum.

One of my personal charges is to keep Wash. U engaged in this scene. I have had the opportunity to help get hundreds of students involved in entrepreneurship community events; have had my students doing academic project work with dozens of startups; and have made countless introductions that have led to jobs and internships for our students.

Our students have a front-row seat to the startup revolution in St. Louis, but, even better, they can actually play in the game if they want to.

You're on the board at Arch Grants. What is that organization, and how is it contributing to the community?

I believe Arch Grants is the keystone organization in the St. Louis startup community.

We are a nonprofit, international startup business competition. We receive applications from startup ventures from all over the world, which are competing for one of 20 $50,000 grants that we give away annually. We are looking for innovative and dynamic growth companies who we believe will contribute to the startup culture and economy of St. Louis.

The grant is a free prize, with the only consideration being that the company move its headquarters to downtown St. Louis. Several Wash. U students have been awardees, and I see Arch Grants as a significant opportunity for seed-stage funding for our student entrepreneurs.

The teaching of entrepreneurship at the university has increased quite a bit in the last five years, and not just at Olin Business School. What are some things that you notice about the students who take your courses?

My students are incredibly focused and engaged. They want to be here and want to get every bit of value they can out of their educational opportunities. I wouldn’t be teaching if I didn’t think that the students cared as much as I do.

In the last five years, the student motivation hasn’t changed, but the degree of action has. When I first started, most students were looking at business ideas from a theoretical perspective. Now, more of these students are actually starting companies, and most don’t even wait for graduation.

How would you like to see entrepreneurship education at WUSTL develop in the future?

My interest is in continuing to break down academic barriers to make the study and pursuit of entrepreneurship more collaborative and more multidisciplinary. I've helped build strong partnerships with the Brown School in social entrepreneurship, with the engineering school in innovation, and with the law school in early-stage company strategy and consulting.

Nationally, the teaching of entrepreneurship is getting more and more experiential. Likewise at Olin, I've launched three new experiential courses and have consulted with other faculty to add experiential components to their existing courses. Amidst the growth, however, it is important not to lose the role of teaching and instruction in the use of experiential learning techniques.

It is exciting to spin companies out of our courses — I am very proud of the over 70 companies that have launched out of my classes in the past five years. But I am even more proud of the education I provided those students that will help them become more successful.

'Christmas Creep': Happiness or humbug?

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-25 00:00:00

"Christmas Creep,” the "technical" term for the pre-holiday appearance of retail decorations and promotions, crept into stores and marketing in October this year.

Major department stores are even pre-empting Black Friday by opening on Thanksgiving Day.

Is starting the holiday shopping season earlier and earlier a good marketing move or could it backfire?

Four marketing professors at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School discuss this phenomenon.

Chakravarthi Narasimhan PhD, the  Philip L. Siteman Professor of Marketing:

Narasimhan

“It is very difficult for any retailer to scale down the size of the operations in the near term. So, given their cost positions, they compete aggressively for market share of the customers. During tough economic times, the total available retail money shrinks, as is evidenced by the recent earnings reports from Wal-Mart, Target etc., which exacerbates the aggressiveness among these retailers.

What we are seeing is the result of that. If no one does anything, then one retailer may correctly think that he will gain competitive advantage by engaging in this ‘Christmas Creep.’ But, if everyone thinks that way, everyone follows suit and the industry as a whole may or may not be better off. If consumers open their wallets more and spend more because of all this, then collectively perhaps the retailers may become better.

But, if the total retail dollars do not increase sufficiently, then most retailers may be worse off because of cost increases in going early as well as deeper discounts that may follow. There could be a slight first-mover advantage to the retailer who moved first since consumers may recall that retailer more and search that retailer first.”

Carol Johanek, adjunct professor of marketing:

Johanek

“'Christmas Creep’ has been happening for years and reflects the fact that these retailers are responding to the needs of their market segments. The holiday season, of course, is a key selling time for retailers, and with the time frame being especially short this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it is not surprising to see these brands setting up their promotions earlier on the calendar.

With our slow recovery, there is less hiring, more stagnated wages and individuals — specifically lower-income, price-sensitive shoppers — love the special promotions, lay-away options and early deals. Although there are studies that show consumers are not happy over the earlier holiday promotions, their behavior says something very different.

Crowds continue to patronize Black Friday; this year resulting in not only more days for these events but longer store hours. Shoppers of retailers such as Kmart, Wal-Mart or Target love the idea of coming home after getting those special deals from their brands and engaging in the excitement at these events. Many brands are using sites such as Pinterest to communicate their great holiday promotions this year. This could be a great opportunity for such brands to build connections with their customer base for the rest of the year ahead.”

Joseph Goodman, PhD, associate professor of marketing:

Goodman

“Black Friday deals are a classic loss-leader strategy. Retailers are trying to get these products out in front so they get people into the store. They may lose a few dollars on those particular items, but they will make up the money when people buy two or three other things.

There is some research evidence that indicates consumers are focusing less on material values and more on acquiring experiences. It might be that they are actually shopping for an experience. Research says that when consumers spend money on experiences, they actually end up being happier and more satisfied with their life than when they are purchasing material goods. So there might be a silver lining in all of this.

I just wonder how long will it take until Thanksgiving is completely a shopping day and it turns into Black Thursday.”

Martin Sneider, adjunct professor of marketing:

Sneider

“Retailers have been pushing Christmas décor, merchandising, and promotions earlier and earlier for many years. It seems almost quaint now, but there was a time not so long ago when retailers waited to take markdowns until AFTER Christmas. Now price busting begins in early November and reaches its twin peaks during Thanksgiving week and the week BEFORE Christmas.

With the media spotlight on retailing during Thanksgiving weekend, price cutting and door busters are forms of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) where retailers try to outdo one another by slashing gross profit to unsustainable levels. All want sales momentum going into the holiday season, which accounts for a huge percentage of retailer sales and profits. Reporters in helicopters circle over crowded parking lots; lines of bundled-up shoppers snake around store entrances, and smiling customers with shopping carts festooned with holiday purchases fill the airwaves and newspaper.

With a much shortened holiday shopping season (a very late Thanksgiving means four or five fewer shopping days this year), retailers are starting even earlier, with some opening Thanksgiving Day and others Thanksgiving evening. Two notable exceptions are Nordstrom and Costco, which won’t open their doors until after Thanksgiving.

Two possibilities for earlier openings: 1. Those opening earlier will capture more market share…after all, lots of folks are stuffed full of turkey and have seen enough of football and family and ready to spend; and 2. Holiday business will merely be spread over more hours with no discernible increase in the total. Many retailers are betting on the first possibility, which means the second possibility is the likely outcome: more store hours with no real increase in business."

Washington University School of Law brings innovative privacy education to middle school

Dylan Kickham — 2013-11-21 00:00:00

Washington University in St. Louis law students have begun offering privacy and Internet safety education to local middle school students.

Law students Matthew Cin and Ujjayini Bose, under the supervision of Neil Richards, JD, professor of law, are adapting an original middle school curriculum for privacy education developed by Fordham University School of Law's Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP).

“Raising digitally aware and responsible children is one the greatest challenges facing parents and teachers today,” Richards said.

“As parents of young children, my wife and I struggle with how to teach our children how to take advantage of the benefits of digital technologies while avoiding their perils. Our Privacy Education Program is an attempt to help local schools address these problems in the middle school years, when children start to fully embrace these technologies as essential parts of their lives.”

WUSTL is one of about a dozen law schools set to teach the program in schools across the country starting this semester. The law students have launched the program with The St. Michael School of Clayton, a small independent school near the law school that uses technology extensively as part of its curriculum.

“Working with the students has been fascinating. It is astonishing to see how integral technology has become to their development, and how insightful their views are on topics such as privacy, technology and social media,” said Bose, a second-year law student. Bose added, “Not only is Professor Richards one of the leading voices in privacy law, but he is also a wonderful mentor to both Matt and me. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with him.”

The program features a set of hour-long sessions covering topics such as:

privacy basics;
how to deal with passwords and behavioral ads;
navigating social media and tricky situations;
understanding mobile, WiFi and facial recognition; and
managing a digital reputation.

“As technologies become more and more embedded into all aspects of our lives, it’s increasingly important to equip teens, in particular, with the knowledge to protect themselves from the potential risks associated with these new tools,” explained Cin, a third-year law student.

Recent reports from the Pew Research Center illustrate the need for this type of education. The reports found that: 93 percent of youth ages 12-17 go online; 53 percent of teens post their email address online; 20 percent post their cellphone number; and 33 percent are connected online to people they have never met personally.

“As online technologies become a key feature in young teens’ lives, parents and educators must teach teens about the privacy and safety implications of these technologies,” said Joel Reidenberg, JD, Fordham law professor and founding director of CLIP.

The law school’s program at St. Michael’s has been highly successful.

“Using cutting-edge technology is part of our school culture. It is our job to teach responsibility, respect and safety in this global community, and we’re delighted to be working with Washington University to tackle this critically important educational issue,” said Elizabeth T. Mosher, head of The St. Michael School.

Richards and his students will bring the program to John Burroughs School in the spring and continue to look for additional partners.

Olin student team wins prestigious case competition

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-18 00:00:00

A team of Olin Business School graduate students recently won the $5,000 first prize in the 18th annual International Case Competition organized by Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.

Olin came in second last year, but this is its first win in the prestigious competition.

In addition, the team of four MBA students and one master's in supply chain management student tied with Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the “Best Presentation” Award.

“Winning second place would have been fantastic; winning first place plus an additional award that could have gone to anyone, whether they placed in the finals or not, was unbelievable,” said MBA student Chase Huey.

“Olin Business School is on its way to being a Top 10 MBA program, and our team hopes that victories like these continue to validate that assertion, reminding those of us within the school as well as the business community as a whole of our potential.”

Others on the team were MBA students Prasanna Shrivastava, Saurabh Singh and Austin Murray and master's in supply chain management student Qu (Jane) Jiang.

Top-tier business schools from all over the United States and abroad are invited every fall to compete in the prestigious two-day operations case competition. The next generation of operations management leaders work in small groups under strict timelines to solve a business case that highlights multinational corporations’ real-world operational issues.

The teams then present their strategies to a panel of industry and academic experts in the field of operations management.

The event has become an important educational and networking tool for the schools involved as well as an exceptional recruiting opportunity.

Other schools participating included Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University; MIT Sloan School of Management; Yale School of Management; and New York University Stern School of Business. 

“The Olin Supply Chain Club put together an amazing team, each member brought unique skills, and highly effective leadership allowed each member to achieve their potential,” Murray said. “The collaborative teamwork, along with amble preparation before the competition, gave the team a noticeable advantage over other competitors.”

School of Law's trial team wins prestigious National Institute of Trial Advocacy 2013 Tournament of Champions

2013-11-15 00:00:00

The Washington University in St. Louis School of Law's trial competition team placed first at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy 2013 Tournament of Champions, held in Birmingham, Ala.

Members of the team were Katherine Coleman, Pallavi Garg, Stanley Thompson and Cort VanOstran; coaches were WUSTL law alumni St. Louis Circuit Judge David C. Mason and attorney Mark Rudder.

The tournament is between the top 16 law school trial advocacy programs, based on their three-year record in the two major national open trial competitions, and was held over six trials Oct. 30-Nov. 3.

Birmingham was also the setting for the case tried by the students. The competition case was based on the 1962 bombings of African-American churches in Birmingham by the Ku Klux Klan. The case involved the prosecution of one of the bombers of the "15th Street" Baptist Church. Some of the actual evidence, including photos and audiotape, was used in the trials. The students alternated between prosecution and defense, ultimately winning on the defense in the championship round.

John C. Robbins, lead defense counsel in the actual case, who served as one of the competition judges, said Thompson "gave a better closing for the defendant" than he did in the actual trial.

The WUSTL trial competition team then advanced to the National Civil Trial Competition in Los Angeles, where third-year law students Elad Gross, James Miao, Emily Ottenson and Erika Wurst competed. This competition was between the top 16 law school trial teams based on a five-year history. The team finished in the top half of the competition. Judge Mason also coached this team.

Students can sign up for firsthand look at Israeli startup scene

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-13 00:00:00

It’s a good time to be an entrepreneur in Israel.

Israel has more startup businesses per capita than any country in the world. Sixty-five percent of the startups last more than five years, and it has the third-most companies listed on Nasdaq, behind the United States and China.

A unique partnership between Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School and the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel, will give undergraduates from any American college or university a firsthand look at this burgeoning startup scene this summer.

The deadline to sign up is Feb. 15. The program is June 15-July 24.

The Israel Summer Business Academy, which is open to all undergraduates no matter their academic or religious background, will provide students a rare chance for an in-depth, six-week look at Israel’s startup culture while also earning credit at their home institutions.

WUSTL will grant course credit; transcripts will be sent to home institutions at the end of the program.

“This is a unique and powerful partnership with IDC,” said Steve Malter, director of the undergraduate program at Olin and founder of ISBA. “It will allow students from all over this country to immerse themselves in a uniquely entrepreneurial environment and to learn from some of the top innovators in Israel.”

While in Israel, students will take two courses — “Business, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Israel” and “Venture Advising/Venture Creation.” Learning will occur both inside and outside the classroom, with students being able to apply what they learn to advising Israeli startups and creating their own startup.

The program will feature extensive immersive visits with companies, startups and thought leaders, including Google Israel, Intel, Teva Pharmaceuticals, various venture capital firms, incubators, the U.S. Embassy, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and top U.S. and Israeli government officials.

The program costs $4,000 and includes tuition, housing, insurance, excursions, bus pass and some meals.

For complete information and to sign up, visit olin.wustl.edu/isba.

Washington University partners with Techli to support entrepreneurship in St. Louis

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-12 00:00:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUcalDD8aQs

Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School and School of Engineering & Applied Science have announced a partnership with the startup-focused news organization Techli to promote the growing entrepreneurship community in and around St. Louis.

“We are so excited to be partnering with a great research institution like Washington University. Their involvement in the St. Louis startup community is one of the big drivers behind the success our city is currently experiencing,” said Edward Domain, founder and chief operating officer of Techli.

The partnership will feature a series of videos and stories on the Techli website showcasing the entrepreneurial spirit of the entire St. Louis ecosystem, which is becoming widely recognized as a startup mecca and a great place for recent college graduates to create their own ventures.

The first show features WUSTL Provost Holden Thorp, PhD. A successful entrepreneur himself, Thorp, author of the 2010 book Engines of Innovation, discusses the role universities can play in helping to further entrepreneurial innovation.

Future show topics will include how the St. Louis startup support system, from access to funding to mentorship, has grown over the past year; the increase in teen entrepreneurship; and the importance of getting the established business community involved with the startup community.

“The robust culture of entrepreneurship at Olin Business School is helping to launch our undergraduate and graduate students into career paths we could not have imagined a decade ago,” said Mahendra R. Gupta, PhD, dean of Olin Business School and the Geraldine J. and Robert L. Virgil Professor of Accounting and Management.

“I look forward to highlighting our student’s successes, as well as the many other innovative ventures being developed here in St. Louis, through this partnership with Techli,” Gupta said.

“While the School of Engineering continues to emphasize advances in theoretical knowledge, we are more actively promoting the application of new discoveries by enhancing the climate of entrepreneurship,” said Ralph S. Quatrano, PhD, dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science and the Spencer T. Olin Professor.

“Through our annual Discovery Competition, our entrepreneurship course for undergraduates and faculty mentorship, we are taking an active role in advancing entrepreneurship in the St. Louis region,” he said.

About Techli

Techli delivers news and in-depth editorial on the technologies, businesses and ideas that are changing the way people live, work, and play. Techli knows that cutting-edge technologies and vanguard businesses are emerging around the world, not just in Silicon Valley. Techli covers innovation wherever it happens, whenever it happens.

Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis

Entrepreneur magazine has ranked Washington University No. 8 in undergraduate programs and No. 12 in graduate programs. Degrees in entrepreneurship are offered at the undergraduate and graduate level at Olin Business School. A minor degree in entrepreneurship is an option for all WUSTL undergraduates. The Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies hosts two annual business plan competitions that together award nearly $250,000: the Olin Cup for commercial ventures and the YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition for social ventures. The School of Engineering & Applied Science hosts its Discovery Competition with the goal of promoting new and innovative solutions for real-world problems and allowing students to compete for financial resources that could help turn their ideas into businesses. The winning team is awarded $25,000. Students and alumni regularly participate in the Arch Grants competition in St. Louis.

Olin Cup finalists offer quality, diverse ideas

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-12 00:00:00

A mobile solution to the severity of epileptic seizures. Helmets designed to reduce concussions in high-impact sports. A locally sourced grain-to-glass spirits distillery.

These are just a few of the ideas of the seven final teams, announced Nov. 7, vying this year for $70,000 in seed money to start a new company. The Olin Cup is sponsored by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

Five of the seven final teams are student-owned or supported ventures and in the running for an additional $5,000 prize given to the best business proposal submitted by a Washington University in St. Louis student team.

"The quality and diversity of the ideas was exceptional this year, and once again our judges asked, 'How is it that the entrepreneurs and ventures keep improving every year?' We think that the answer is that the culture of entrepreneurship continues to expand and improve," said Ken Harrington, managing director of the Skandalaris Center.

Audience members were invited to rank each of the presentations. The person who came closest to the judges' rankings will receive $250.

Contestants submitted an executive summary of their proposed business to enter the competition. From that initial field of 40 entrants, 17 semifinalists were chosen to compete in the “elevator pitch” challenge that required a two-minute presentation of the business idea to a diverse team of judges representing several regional alumni, service providers and other members of the support community for entrepreneurs.

This year’s finalists are (* indicates student-owned or student-supported venture):

Epi Squared*, developing an implantable mobile solution to reduce severity of epileptic seizures;
Farmplicity*, an online marketplace making it easy for chefs to acquire local food;
Genetix Fusion*, developing the next generation of transfection kits for biomedical researchers;
Nanopore Diagnostics*, developing products that provide immediate molecular diagnostic testing;
Stumpy's Spirits*, locally sourced grain-to-glass premium spirits distiller;
SynerZ Medical, developing an outpatient device for treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes; and
Zymplr, developing a helmet designed to reduce concussions in high-impact sports.

The final hurdle for the entrepreneurs will be writing and presenting a full business plan in January. The finalists each will submit a business plan and give a 25-minute oral presentation to the judges, with a question-and-answer period as the final phase of the competition.

The Olin Cup winners will be announced Jan. 30 at an awards ceremony. The Olin Cup was created as a cross-campus activity in 1988 by Olin Business School and has awarded funding to winning commercial ventures since 2003. The competition is sponsored by Olin Business School and the Skandalaris Center; accounting firm RubinBrown; law firm Polsinelli; and the St. Louis Regional Chamber.

‘Privacy and Surveillance’ roundtable discussion to address history, meaning of privacy

2013-11-11 00:00:00

When former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden exposed classified information about widespread government surveillance programs, he launched a public debate about privacy in the digital age. Is privacy a “right”? What are we willing to sacrifice for privacy? How consistent are our beliefs about privacy and how consistently do we “practice” it.

In response to these types of questions, Washington University in St. Louis experts on privacy issues, ranging from the history of privacy to privacy law, will participate in a roundtable discussion, titled “Privacy and Surveillance,” from noon to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20, in Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

The Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities (IPH) in Arts & Sciences and Arts & Sciences are co-sponsoring the discussion, which is free and open to the public.

Joe Loewenstein, PhD, director of IPH and professor of English, believes the humanities are especially suited to address the complex issues surrounding privacy and surveillance.

“The humanities have a real grip on what’s vivid and, well, dangerous in life around us; privacy is very much our topic,” Loewenstein said. “This discussion is a good opportunity to remind the St. Louis community, our university colleagues, and, especially, our students that there’s a long history of meditation on privacy, that the tradition of thinking on this topic is long, volatile and complicated.”

The discussion will begin with the political and theoretical beginnings of thinking about privacy and move to contemporary questions surrounding Internet surveillance. In addition to discussing the negative aspects of privacy violation, experts will offer perspectives on the potential benefits of surveillance.

For example, faculty will describe literary studies suggesting that repressive situations often spur rather than inhibit creativity. Other topics to be discussed include feminist critiques of certain types of privacy and the ethics of scholarship.

“I think it’s important that serious intellectual communities like ours should not treat a complex concept like privacy as simple or stable. We can’t assume that when I speak of privacy, what you hear is what I mean. Above all, we need to recognize that privacy is not an unmitigated and simple good,” Lowenstein said. “One of the pleasures of being at a university is that we don’t have to deal in sound bites.”

The roundtable will feature Jean Allman, PhD, the J.H. Hexter Professor in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Department of History; Frank Lovett, PhD, associate professor of political science and director of the Legal Studies program, both in Arts & Sciences; Linda Nicholson, PhD, the Susan E. and William P. Stiritz Distinguished Professor of Women’s Studies in Arts & Sciences and ombuds for the Danforth Campus faculty; William J. Maxwell, PhD, associate professor of English; and Neil Richards, JD, professor of law.

Elizabeth W. Sepper, JD, associate professor of law, will serve as the respondent.

For more information, contact IPH at (314) 935-4200 or iph@artsci.wustl.edu.

Law school's partnership with Northwest Academy of Law spans mentoring, coaching and support for peace summit

Timothy Fox — 2013-11-07 00:00:00

JOE ANGELES/WUSTL Photos

(From left) Northwest Academy of Law senior Imoni Cooper talks with John Inazu, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, after the Urban Peace Summit held at Northwest Academy Nov. 8. To learn more about the summit, visit this page. WUSTL law school faculty and students work closely with Northwest high school students throughout the year.

Washington University in St. Louis law students are taking their commitment to public service to the next level through a growing partnership with Northwest Academy of Law. With the assistance of law faculty and through their own initiatives, law students are reaching out to the inner-city St. Louis high school's students to provide mentoring and law-related educational experiences.

Every week this fall, 15 law students have made the 20-minute trek to Northwest as part of John Inazu’s seminar, "The First Amendment in Schools." Since 2008, law Prof. Katherine Goldwasser, JD, has supervised law practicum students through a combined teaching and mentoring program she created at the school. It’s a logical partnership as Northwest is a law-themed “choice” school, with a law-related curriculum, moot courtroom and law library.

Meanwhile, other students are part of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project at the school. Since fall 2011, through a practicum supervised by Jane Moul, JD, professor of practice, two law students each semester have taught students at Northwest through a class that meets at least two, and sometimes three, times a week. The project takes civics education for public school students beyond its basic requirements by teaching students about their constitutional rights. (An expansion to the program was proposed as part of the Clinton Global Initiative University held at WUSTL last spring.)

Next term, second-year law student Aissatou Barry, a member of Inazu’s class, will start preparing Northwest students to travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in a national mock-trial competition.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Barry attended junior high at the Crown School for Law and Journalism, a largely African-American public school in New York. While there, she met with attorneys in a mentoring program who gave her confidence and encouraged her to become a lawyer. She sees her work at Northwest as her way of returning the favor.

“The students are so smart,” she said. “They know how to apply cases to real-life situations, and they have good analytical skills. It helps their self-esteem to know that they are successfully doing work that would challenge any law student.”

Unfortunately, the students — juniors and seniors — also face significant challenges outside of school, Barry said. Some have children of their own; some are caring for siblings or parents. Many work outside of school. And, a few weeks ago, some lost a friend to a shooting near the school.

“They have a lot going on in the community,” Barry said. As a result, attendance in her mock trial training varies from week to week.

“Mock trial is sometimes put on the back burner,” she said. “But they know this is a huge opportunity. It’s a chance to go to Washington, D.C., for kids who may not have even been south of Delmar Boulevard.

“This is an example of Washington University taking care of St. Louis,” Barry added. “People say that it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a village to create a village, too.”

On Nov. 8, members of the WUSTL “village” reached out to Northwest again by participating in an “Urban Peace Summit” at the school. A number of School of Law and Brown School students and faculty worked behind the scenes with the school to prepare for the summit.

“The students and staff of Northwest want to highlight positive responses to the challenge of urban crime,” Inazu, associate professor of law, said before the event. “The summit will allow high school voices to be heard in a way they haven’t been heard before. We want to forge even more connections between Washington University and Northwest by getting more law students and faculty to see the high school and facilitating more opportunities for mentoring and partnership.”

The Urban Peace Summit came on the heels of a recent “Urban Crime Summit.”

The Northwest students wrote an open letter about the crime summit that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published on its website. “The students came out of the Urban Crime Summit wanting to offer a constructive response,” Inazu said.

The students received feedback from C.J. Larkin, JD, senior lecturer in law, and Karen Tokarz, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service; as well as WUSTL Civil Rights, Community Justice and Mediation Clinic law students Noble Freeman, Carol Jansen and Katy Swiss; and alumnus Ilunga Kalala (JD ’13).

In that spirit, Northwest crafted an agenda for the Urban Peace Summit that combined short messages from representatives of the city and the community with a more extended panel discussion. After a welcome from Northwest Academy Principal Valerie Carter-Thomas, presenters included representatives from the attorney general’s office, mayor’s office, St. Louis police department, and state Legislature, as well as local aldermen, judges and community leaders.

The summit ended with reflections by Northwest students.

“The best thing about working with the high school students is that it bridges the gap between just hearing about the school and actually seeing the students and the teachers who embody it,” said third-year law student Rebecca Morton, the student leader of Marshall-Brennan who taught last fall at Northwest. “I’ve really enjoyed being able to teach and utilize practical legal skills to break down complex concepts for a high school audience. It’s also just been great to be actively involved in the community outside law school.”

In the meantime, Barry is focused on fundraising for the mock trial competition. Money is needed not only for transportation, but also to help pay for dress clothes for students.

“We’re looking for funding from a variety of sources,” she said. “We’re applying for grants from the university and outside of the university, seeking funding from the United Way and reaching out to local law firms.”

Turning to her own professional goals, Barry said she wants to do “work that is mentally challenging, like international litigation or regulatory work. But I love this experience of working with the kids, because I also want to dedicate a lot of time to public service and maybe government work.”

“I love St. Louis,” Barry added. “I would love to stay here and help it realize its potential — there is so much to be done, but it just takes a few people to care.”

McKelvey encourages students to pursue goals, learn from failures

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-06 00:00:00

Sid Hastings/wustl photos

Jim McKelvey, School of Engineering & Applied Science alumnus and co-founder of Square, spoke with MBA students in Simon Hall Nov. 1 as part of the Entrepreneurship Platform Summit, organized by Cliff Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Olin Business School. McKelvey is a stalwart in the startup community, having founded or co-founded Third Degree Glass Factory, the SixThirty financial technology accelerator, Cultivation Capital and Launch Code, among others. McKelvey shared his experiences with students and encouraged them to pursue their entrepreneurial goals, saying that failure is expected and is part of the learning process.

Effects of tighter federal regulations on banks

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-04 00:00:00

How much would tighter federal regulations cost banks? When it comes to higher capital requirements, not much, according to new research from Washington University.

By looking at what banks do rather than what they say, finance professors at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School estimate that the effect on bank profitability of new regulations would be hardly noticeable.

“We calculate the shadow cost of capital requirements for bank proﬁtability using data on their participation in a costly loophole that helped them bypass the requirements,” write co-authors Roni Kisin, PhD, and Asaf Manela, PhD, both assistant professors of finance at Olin.

“Since banks balanced the increase in proﬁts due to the relaxation of capital constraints with the cost of using the loophole, their use of the loophole reveals their perceived costs of capital requirements.”

Kisin and Manela estimate that a 10 percentage points increase in the tier 1 risk-based capital requirement for banks would cost about $2 billion a year for all banks that exploited the loophole, and around $4 billion for all U.S. banks combined.

The cost to an average bank would be about $143 million, or 4 percent of its annual proﬁts.

In other words, even with new regulations on bank capital ratios taking effect Jan. 1, 2015, effects on bank profitability will be small.

Creator of landmark sex equality laws and crusader against sex trafficking to close out Assembly Series' fall program

Barbara Rea — 2013-11-05 00:00:00

MacKinnon

A principal architect of landmark sex equality laws in the United States will wrap up the fall 2013 programs of Washington University in St. Louis' Assembly Series and the School of Law's Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series.

Catharine MacKinnon, JD, PhD, who holds distinguished professorships at both the University of Michigan and Harvard University, currently is focusing on her work as an internationally successful litigator against sex crimes and human trafficking. Her talk, “Trafficking, Prostitution and Inequality” will be at noon Thursday, Nov. 14, in Anheuser-Busch Hall's Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

The event is free and open to the public, and is co-sponsored by the Law, Identity and Culture Initiative of the School of Law; the Brown School; the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies program in Arts & Sciences; and the Association of Women Faculty, with support funding from the Office of the Provost.

One only has to summon visions of the television show Mad Men to understand that sexual harassment in the mid-20th century workplace was a fact of life for many women. Without legal recourse, women were vulnerable to sexual assault by their bosses and co-workers.

Recognizing the need for such laws, MacKinnon helped form a groundbreaking legal theory that sexual harassment and sexual abuse violate equality rights, a theory the U.S. Supreme Court accepted in 1986, thus pioneering the legal claim that harassment in the workplace constitutes actionable discrimination.

She is also known, with Andrea Dworkin, for developing the legal argument that pornography can be construed as a violation of one’s civil rights under the law.

The Nov. 14 lecture will address her more current focus on the litigation, legislation and policy development on women’s human rights in the international arena. In addition, she has served as special gender adviser to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and she successfully represented Bosnian survivors of sexual atrocities, winning legal recognition of rape as an act of genocide and securing a $745 million settlement on their behalf.

Information on spring 2014 Assembly Series programs will be available in late January by visiting here.

Access to Equal Justice Conference Nov. 1

Jessica Martin — 2013-10-28 00:00:00

The Washington University School of Law in St. Louis will celebrate 40 years of clinical education and community collaborations at the 13th annual Access to Equal Justice Conference from noon–4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1, in Anheuser-Busch Hall's Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom. The conference is free and open to students, faculty, staff and the public.

Alexander

The keynote speaker will be Michelle Alexander, JD, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, associate professor of the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University and former director of the Civil Rights Clinic at Stanford University School of Law. She will present at noon that day as part of the Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series. Winner of the NAACP’s award for best nonfiction book in 2011, The New Jim Crow argues that by incarcerating African Americans at rates much higher than whites, the U.S. criminal justice system is perpetuating a system of rules, laws and customs that keep African Americans locked in second-class status.

Other confirmed speakers include Jane Aiken, JD, Georgetown University Law Center; Sarah Jane Forman, JD, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law; Josh Gupta-Kagan, JD, University of South Carolina School of Law; Emily Hughes, JD, University of Iowa College of Law; Cortney Lollar, JD, University of Kentucky College of Law; Michael Pinard, JD, University of Maryland School of Law; Sue McGraugh, JD ’88, Saint Louis University School of Law; and Brendan Roediger, JD ’05, Saint Louis University School of Law. All are former WUSTL law faculty or students.

Two plenary sessions will focus on “Increasing Access to Criminal Justice: Innovative Criminal Law Reform Initiatives and Collaborations,” moderated by Peter Joy, JD, the Henry Hitchcock Professor of Law and director of the Criminal Justice Clinic, and “Increasing Access to Civil Justice: Innovative Civil Law Reform Initiatives and Collaborations,” moderated by Karen Tokarz, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service, director of the Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Program and of the Civil Right, Community Justice and Mediation Clinic. An award presentation to Peter Ruger, JD, former director of the school’s Intellectual Property and Nonprofit Organizations Clinic and former WUSTL general counsel, will follow the second plenary session. All are invited to finish the day with a reception in Crowder Courtyard.

The law school’s nationally recognized Clinical Education Program, consistently ranked in the top 10 clinical law programs in the country for more than 15 years, offers 16 distinct clinics and externships, including the long-standing D.C. semester externship, the International Justice and Conflict Resolution semester externship, and the Semester-in-Practice externship that debuted last spring. The last gives second- and third-year law students the chance to get hands-on experience at the agency or firm of their choosing, anywhere in the country.

The school also guarantees that all students will have a clinical or externship experience during their second or third year. Visit here for more information about the Clinical Education Program.

The conference is eligible for four Continuing Legal Education credits in Missouri.

International Court of Justice judge to speak at law school Oct. 30

Dylan Kickham — 2013-10-25 00:00:00

Greenwood

Sir Christopher Greenwood, LLB, the British judge on the International Court of Justice, will discuss how that court works to bring about world peace at noon Wednesday, Oct. 30, in Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom, at Washington University in St. Louis.

The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial branch of the United Nations. Greenwood has been serving as a member of the court since February 2009.

Prior to his election, he was a professor of international law at the London School of Economics and a lecturer at the University of Cambridge. As a barrister, he regularly appeared as counsel before the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the English courts and other tribunals.

Greenwood is the recipient of the 2013 World Peace Through Law Award given by the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at WUSTL.

The World Peace Through Law Award is bestowed upon an individual who, by his or her work and writings, has considerably advanced the rule of law and, thereby, contributed to world peace.

Established in 2006, the award recognizes an individual who has achieved great distinction in the field of international law and international relations.

Greenwood’s lecture, "World Peace through Law: the Role of the International Court of Justice," is sponsored by the Harris Institute and the law school’s Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, visit here.

A last resort for solving the debt ceiling crisis: Take it to court

Dylan Kickham — 2013-10-24 00:00:00

Recent political showdowns over the so-called “debt ceiling crisis” have many people questioning whether it would be appropriate for the Supreme Court to intervene in the legislative and executive issue.

Adam H. Rosenzweig, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, examines in Constitution Daily the Supreme Court's potential involvement.

“The Supreme Court could invoke its inherent Article III fiscal powers to solve the problem,” Rosenzweig wrote. “In the face of the current debt crisis the recognition of a robust, but limited and well-demarcated, Article III fiscal power could potentially offer a way out of the policy and political stalemate facing the country.

“In an ideal world the political branches would solve the debt ceiling crisis on their own, recognizing that honoring the federal debt is a core commitment of the country. ... But if the political branches can’t, or won’t, honor these commitments, the federal courts should.”

Olin's Executive MBA program moves up to No. 6 in Financial Times global rankings

Melody Walker — 2013-10-22 00:00:00

Washington University in St. Louis and Fudan University’s joint Executive MBA program in Shanghai moved up three spots to No. 6 in the Financial Times annual ranking of the world’s best executive MBA programs.

When Washington University and Fudan University launched the Executive MBA-Shanghai program in 2002, it was the first foreign-partnered Executive MBA program to be formally recognized by the Chinese Ministry of Education.

“Olin and Fudan’s School of Management were at the forefront of joint ventures in executive business education in China a decade ago,” said Mahendra Gupta, PhD, dean of Olin Business School. “Our faculty continue to provide international learning experiences that prepare executives to compete for top positions in China and globally.”

To read more, visit here.

'The new Jim Crow': Michelle Alexander explains how our prison system condemns many African Americans to second-class status

Barbara Rea — 2013-10-22 00:00:00

“All people make mistakes … All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world.”

— The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (By Michelle Alexander)

And those first-time drug offenders who end up in prison, says civil rights lawyer Alexander, JD, are disproportionately African-American, even though decades of studies show that people of color do not use or sell drugs at higher rates than whites.

Alexander

This is just one of many beliefs commonly held by society that Alexander hopes to dispel in her talk at Washington University in St. Louis. The Assembly Series/Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series program, which is free and open to the public, will be held at noon Friday, Nov. 1, in Anheuser-Busch Hall's Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

Alexander will give the same lecture at 7 p.m. that evening at the Missouri History Museum. Her visit to St. Louis is sponsored by WUSTL's Office of the Provost, the School of Law and the Assembly Series, in cooperation with the museum.

The New Jim Crow, winner of the NAACP Award for best nonfiction in 2011, became a surprise best seller after the paperback version was released last year. According to The New York Times, sales reached 175,000 copies after an initial hardcover printing of a mere 3,000 by publisher New Press.

The book’s title refers to the author's view of a new system of racial and social control imposed upon African Americans, created by the current state of mass incarceration that operates in a similar manner as the “old” Jim Crow system of rules, laws and customs that locked African Americans into permanent second-class status.

Because of the “war on drugs” and “tough on crime” initiatives established years ago, Alexander argues, blacks are being incarcerated at a grossly disproportionate rate to white Americans and with much harsher sentences for first-time drug offenses. Those growing up in middle-class, white neighborhoods who make the same mistakes, she says, as people (mostly males) of color in the inner city are treated differently and don't have to pay for those mistakes for the rest of their lives.

An associate professor, she holds a joint appointment with the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University.

For information regarding future Assembly Series programs, visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call (314) 935-5297; For information on the Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series program, visit here.

Olin introduces new faculty

2013-10-17 00:00:00

Several new faculty members have joined the Olin Business School this academic year. Learn more about their backgrounds, expertise and research interests below.

Jennifer Dlugosz, PhD

Dlugosz is an assistant professor of finance. She earned her doctorate in business economics from Harvard University in 2009, and then went on to become an assistant professor of finance at Virginia Tech. Her research interests include securitization, credit ratings and syndicated lending. Faculty bio

John Horn, PhD

Horn is a senior lecturer in economics. After earning his doctorate in economics from Harvard in 1998, he joined the faculty at the University of Maryland. His research interests include applied game theory and behavioral economics. Faculty bio

Zawadi Lemayian, PhD

Lemayian is an assistant professor of accounting. Previously, she was a teaching assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned her doctorate in accounting this year. Her research interests include financial accounting and taxation. Faculty bio

Yulia Nevskaya, PhD

Nevskaya is an assistant professor of marketing. She received her doctorate in marketing this year from the University of Rochester, where she was a lab instructor for managerial economics. Her research interests include online content and digital marketing, dynamic structural choice models, habit and addiction formation and consumer variety-seeking. Faculty bio

Giorgia Piacentino, PhD

Piacentino is an assistant professor of finance. She earned her doctorate in finance this year at the London School of Economics, where she was a class teacher and course support manager. Her research interests include institutional investors, corporate finance, corporate governance and credit agencies. Faculty bio

Bernardo Silveira, PhD

Silveira is an assistant professor of economics. Previously, he was a research assistant at New York University, where he earned his doctorate in economics in 2013. His research interests include industrial organization, political economy and public economics. Faculty bio

Raphael Thomadsen, PhD

Thomadsen is an associate professor of marketing. He earned his doctorate in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and went on to be an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests include pricing, pricing strategies, geographic competition and applied game theory. Faculty bio

Civil rights lawyer Shaw to headline Oct. 22 event exploring Shelley v. Kraemer, Margaret Bush Wilson

2013-10-15 00:00:00

Sixty-five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that housing covenants restricting home ownership based on race violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The case was Shelley v. Kraemer, and its impact will be explored at an event at Washington University in St. Louis.

In the short term, the landmark decision meant the Shelley family could purchase a home and live in St. Louis’ Lewis Place neighborhood, just north of the Central West End. But in the long term, it meant justice for countless African-American, Jewish and other minority families seeking the American Dream of home ownership — in neighborhoods of their choosing.

Wilson

Leading the charge in that historic 1948 case was Margaret Bush Wilson, JD, an African-American lawyer and civil rights activist, and the law firm she formed with her husband, Robert Wilson, in 1946. The second woman of color to practice law in Missouri, Wilson served as president of both the St. Louis NAACP and the Missouri NAACP.

During her presidency, the NAACP won several civil rights cases, including the Rankin Trade School case and the Jefferson Bank case. In 1975, she became chair of the national NAACP and would go on to serve nine terms as the first woman to chair the organization. Wilson also was a trustee emerita of WUSTL and Webster University, and she has a named chair in her honor in Arts & Sciences at WUSTL.

Wilson’s legacy will be explored in a 1.0 Continuing Legal Education (CLE)-credit event, “Celebrating the 65th Anniversary of Shelley v. Kraemer and the Legacy of Margaret Bush Wilson: Where Are We Now?” The event will take place at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 22, in Anheuser-Busch Hall's Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom. The celebration will feature Theodore M. Shaw, JD, professor of professional practice at Columbia University School of Law.

The event is free and open to students, faculty, staff and the community.

Shaw is well-known as one of the country’s top civil rights lawyers. For 23 years, he was an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, serving as assistant counsel and director of the Education Docket (1982-87); Western regional director (1987-90); associate director-counsel (1993-2004); and director-counsel and president (2004-08).

He began his legal career as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Shaw has argued numerous cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal appeals court involving education, voting rights, housing discrimination, capital punishment and other civil rights issues.

Also speaking will be Kimberly Norwood, JD, professor of law and of African and African-American Studies in Arts & Sciences at WUSTL; John G. Baugh, PhD, the inaugural Margaret Bush Wilson Professor in Arts & Sciences and professor of African and African-American Studies; and L. Jared Boyd, JD, vice president and CLE chair for the Mound City Bar Association. Rufus J. Tate Jr., JD, of the Tate Law Firm, will introduce Shaw, and Nicole Colbert-Botchway, JD, president of the Mound City Bar Association, will provide closing remarks.

A reception will follow in the School of Law’s Crowder Courtyard (A-B Hall, No. 301), beginning at about 5:15 p.m.

The event is part of the School of Law’s 2013-14 Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series, and it is co-sponsored by the St. Louis City chapter of the NAACP, the Mound City Bar Association, law firms Husch Blackwell, Thompson Coburn and Baker Sterchi Cowden & Rice; the African and African-American Studies rogram, the American Constitution Society and the Black Law Students Association.

New Olin buildings are taking shape

2013-10-08 00:00:00

James Byard/WUstl Photos (2)

Construction is moving quickly on the two new Olin Business School buildings — Knight Hall and Bauer Hall, located next to the Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The $90 million project includes two innovative buildings united by a soaring three-story glass atrium (below). Knight Hall and Bauer Hall will be officially dedicated May 2 and 3, in conjunction with a business symposium. For more information on the buildings, including videos of construction progress, visit buildolin.wustl.edu.

Business summit: Is the economy stable or stalled?

2013-10-08 00:00:00

Olin business school

Timothy J. Eberlein, MD, director of the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished University Professor (third from left), makes a point during the "Entrepreneurial Spirit: Changing the Face of St. Louis" panel discussion at the annual Leaders in Business Summit Sept. 25 at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center. The event, "Stable or Stalled? What's Next for the Economy?", featured several panel discussions with prominent local business leaders and Olin Business School faculty members about the evolving global economy and where it might be heading. Joining Eberlein on the panel were (from left) Robert F. O'Loughlin, chairman and CEO of Lodging Hospitality Management, and Mark Trudeau, president and CEO of Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. The moderator was Barton Hamilton, PhD, the Robert Brookings Smith Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Olin. Sponsored by Olin and Deloitte, the half-day event allowed participants to network with business leaders, presenters, students and faculty. For more information and a full list of presenters, visit olin.wustl.edu/summit.

Contraception mandate debate leads to worrisome ‘corporate conscience’ concept, law professor warns

Kelly Wiese Niemeyer — 2013-10-03 00:00:00

The controversy and legal battles surrounding the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act have led to a new – and worrisome – legal concept: the idea of a “corporate conscience,” warns Elizabeth Sepper, JD, who teaches at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

Sepper, an associate professor of law at Washington University, contends the dangerous doctrine of “corporate conscience” has begun to emerge as courts endow secular, inanimate businesses with inherently human religious and moral beliefs to excuse them from complying with the law.

Sepper said courts have failed to grapple with tricky issues raised by these unprecedented decisions: How can a business have beliefs, religious or otherwise? What does it mean for a business to hold a faith or show sincerity? How, as courts now ponder, could a corporation exercise its religion, if it had one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFlxuS39Fy0&feature=youtu.be

With the contraception mandate debate underway, Elizabeth Sepper, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, talks about the idea of a corporate conscience and its impact on everyday life.

Sepper argues the premise goes against longstanding principles of corporate law.

“Wal-Mart is Wal-Mart, even when Sam Walton resigns,” Sepper said. “For-profit corporations are designed to be separate from the individuals who own them and to protect those individuals from corporate obligations and liabilities.”

Sepper said that the courts’ decisions in this area will have a wide effect on health-care benefits, anti-discrimination law and social insurance programs.

“If for-profit employers are unconstitutionally burdened by regulation of health insurance, they’ll be able to dispute other mandated benefits on religious grounds — from sexually transmitted infection counseling and testing to vaccination to depression screening,” Sepper pointed out. “It’s just a short step from deciding for-profit, secular employers can deny employees insurance for contraception to allowing them to get rid of employees for simply using contraception.”

Sepper wrote an article on the issue, “Contraception and the Birth of Corporate Conscience,” which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law.

To review Sepper’s article, visit here.

Check out Sepper’s blog posting about the topic here.

Olin's Executive MBA class kicks off academic year

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-10-03 00:00:00

The 43rd Executive MBA class of Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis gathered at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center in mid-September to kick off its academic year with Go! Week orientation. This was the first time students from the new Denver EMBA program visited St. Louis. Go! Week also included a special celebration of the 30th anniversary of Olin’s EMBA program.

The 43rd Executive MBA class of Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis gathered on campus last month to kick off its academic year with Go! Week. The meeting, at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center, was the first time the cohort of students from the new Denver EMBA program was in St. Louis.

“Go! Week was a real roller-coaster ride for me,” said Julie Thiessen, senior manager of process improvement at Harris Broadcast Communications in Englewood, Colo.

“It launched super-fast out of the gate, had its ups and downs, threw me for a loop and ultimately was the ride of my life,” she said.

Thiessen is one of 14 students in the inaugural Denver cohort, who joined 38 other EMBA students in the St. Louis cohort for Go! Week orientation.

Go! Week also included a special celebration of the 30th anniversary of Olin’s Executive MBA program.

The program, which has expanded beyond St. Louis to Shanghai, Kansas City and now Denver, shared the milestone celebration with all current Executive MBA classes and alumni of the EMBA program during an event Sept. 20.

“I chose the Olin program because of the transformative nature of the curriculum, the focus on leadership, the cutting-edge research and the excitement of being part of the inaugural Denver cohort,” Thiessen said. “Everything I had heard and read about the program has been phenomenal and really left no other viable alternative in my mind.”

Forty-six companies are represented in the 52-member class. Nine members of the class are retired or active military and 25 percent were born outside the United States.

“I'm ready to take my career not only to the next level but beyond it,” said Ron Sparks, vice president of Chan Healthcare in Clayton.

“I was convinced of the program's excellence and its ability to help me get there by having exposure to several of the professors and other faculty prior to making my decision. Go! Week only served to confirm my decision,” he said.

Maureen McDonald LLC has been engaged to assist Olin’s efforts in the local Denver community.

A WUSTL alumna, McDonald (BA '81) is a Denver native and is active in that area's business and civic communities.

“With her work in leadership and corporate business development as executive director of the Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation for over a decade, Maureen is exceedingly well-positioned to continue developing our Executive MBA program in Denver’s vibrant business community,” said Meg Shuff, assistant dean for Olin Executive MBA Admissions.

For more information on executive education at Olin, visit here.

Renowned Internet copyright lawyer, political activist Lawrence Lessig to deliver two lectures Oct. 10

Barbara Rea — 2013-10-02 00:00:00

Lessig

Legal scholar, author and political activist Lawrence Lessig, JD, is such a popular speaker that it’s challenging to get him for one lecture, so Washington University in St. Louis is doubly fortunate to present an Assembly Series talk by Lessig twice in one day – Thursday, Oct. 10 — on two different subjects.

Both presentations are free and open to the public.

At noon, he will appear in Anheuser-Busch Hall's Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom to explain his plan to remove the corrupting influence of money from American politics, a theme he has explored in his most recent book, Republic Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It.

The address is part of the School of Law’s Public Interest Law & Policy Speaker Series. (For a list of PILPSS fall lectures, visit here.)

At 5 p.m. in Simon Hall's May Auditorium, Lessig will deliver the first Jack E. Thomas and Debbie T. Thomas Endowed Library Lecture, which will focus on another passion, advocating for a more sensible approach to copyright law that more aptly reflects the needs of a digitized citizenry.

The Thomases’ gift of an endowed lecture on libraries and technology was made in honor of retired dean of libraries Shirley K. Baker, who led University Libraries into the digital age.

Lessig has a substantial presence on the Web. In addition to numerous YouTube videos (one of which is the subject of a current lawsuit and countersuit involving the song “Lisztomania”), his two presentations for TED Talks (“Laws that Choke Creativity” and “We the People and the Laws We Must Reclaim”) have generated more than 1 million hits each.

He is the author of several books on copyright law. Prior to rejoining Harvard University as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Lessig taught at Stanford Law School, where he established the Center for Internet and Society.

Furthermore, he has served on the boards of the AXA Research Fund, Creative Commons and the Sunlight Foundation. For his many contributions, Lessig has received such honors as the Free Software Foundation’s Freedom Award and was named one of Scientific American’s "Top 50 Visionaries."

Before entering academia, Lessig was a clerk for Judge Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court.

He holds bachelor's degrees in economics and management from the University of Pennsylvania; a master’s degree in philosophy from Cambridge University; and a law degree from Yale University.

For more information on these and future Assembly Series programs, visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu.

Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series begins today

2013-09-23 00:00:00

James Cavallaro, JD, professor of law at Stanford University, kicks off the 16th annual School of Law Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series at noon today, Sept. 23, with a talk on “The Toxic Effects of Drone Strikes on Targeted Communities, the Global Role of the U.S., and our Constitutional and Democratic Principles.” Cavallaro, a well-regarded international human rights expert, is director of the Stanford International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, director of the Stanford Human Rights Center and a recently elected member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Cavallaro

The yearlong Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series brings to Washington University in St. Louis nationally and internationally prominent experts in such areas as civil rights, racial justice, capital punishment, immigration, government public service and pro bono private practice.

The 2013-14 series features judges, lawyers, authors and academics with expertise in public interest law and policy.

The fall series continues with seven additional speakers. All talks, with the exception of the Oct. 4 lecture, will be held at noon in Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom. Lectures are free and open to the public.

For a full list of the 2013-14 speakers, visit http://law.wustl.edu/pilss/.

For more information, contact Karen L. Tokarz, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service and director of the Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Program, at (314) 935-6414 or tokarz@wulaw.wustl.edu.

School of Law dean search committee announced

Jessica Martin — 2013-09-20 00:00:00

Holden Thorp, PhD, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at Washington University in St. Louis, has appointed an eight-member committee to identify candidates for the position of dean of the School of Law.

Kent D. Syverud, JD, dean and the Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor, recently was named Syracuse University’s next chancellor. He will begin transitioning to that role Nov. 24.

“We are happy for Kent and proud that he has been selected to lead Syracuse University to greater heights,” Thorp said.

Keating

Daniel Keating, JD, the Tyrrell Williams Professor of Law, will serve as interim dean. At the law school, Keating has served twice as interim dean, as well as vice dean and associate dean.

"Dan Keating has stepped up time and time again to serve his school,” Thorp said. “He enjoys the respect of his colleagues and the confidence of the administration in steering the law school through this interim period."

Thorp and the search committee will work to have a new law dean in place by July 1.

“This is an important search at a challenging but exciting time in legal education,” Thorp said. “The Washington University School of Law has grown and improved considerably in recent years and is poised for another exciting chapter.”

The committee

Edward F. Lawlor, PhD, dean of the Brown School and the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor, will chair the law dean search committee.

Lawlor

"We are grateful to Eddie Lawlor and the distinguished committee for committing their time and judgment to this most important search,” Thorp said.

“Eddie's vast experience as a dean makes him uniquely qualified to help us find the best leader for our magnificent law school."

In addition to Lawlor, committee members are:

• Howard Cayne, JD, partner at Arnold & Porter, law school alumnus and member of the university’s Board of Trustees;
• Cort VanOstran, third-year law student;
• Peggie Smith, JD, the Charles F. Nagel Professor of Employment and Labor Law;
• Hillary Sale, JD, the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law;
• Pauline Kim, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Law;
• John Drobak, JD, the George Alexander Madill Professor of Real Property & Equity Jurisprudence; and
• Matthew Gabel, PhD, professor of political science in Arts & Sciences.

SCOTUS preview: First Amendment expert supports rights to speech, assembly in Supreme Court brief

Dylan Kickham — 2013-09-17 00:00:00

Anti-abortion groups are well-known for demonstrating and sidewalk counseling at women’s reproductive health facilities, but a Massachusetts statute criminalizes even peaceful expression on public sidewalks near these clinics.

An upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case will determine the constitutionality of Massachusetts’ selective exclusion law, which applies only to streets and sidewalks near reproductive health-care facilities. The Massachusetts statute provides that “[n]o person shall knowingly enter or remain on a public way or sidewalk adjacent to a reproductive health-care facility within [specified distances around those facilities].”

Inazu

“If Massachusetts can close off the sidewalks surrounding reproductive health centers to peaceful expressive activity, then the government can prohibit expression in a wide range of circumstances,” said John Inazu, JD, First Amendment expert and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Inazu advances his argument in an amicus brief filed on behalf of a broad coalition of religious groups, including the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Christian Legal Society, National Association of Evangelicals, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Christian Medical Association, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Inazu co-authored the brief with Michael W. McConnell, the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.

In their brief, Inazu and McConnell emphasize the “sheer magnitude of these restrictions,” noting that this statute criminalizes almost any use of the sidewalk near a reproductive health-care facility, including conversations between two willing participants or even a person singing or praying quietly to herself.

The brief argues that the Massachusetts law and a 2000 Supreme Court opinion upholding a similar Colorado law represent a breach of the public forum doctrine rooted in the First Amendment right to assembly.

“A state might seek to undermine union strikes by closing off public sidewalks surrounding factories to peaceful expressive activity. Or the state might seek to stifle criticism of a controversial legislative policy by excluding peaceful expressive activity from the public sidewalks near the state capitol … [T]hese regulations fundamentally undermine the public forum,” the brief states.

Inazu and McConnell emphasize that the state has the right to regulate the public forum if expression becomes violent because the Assembly Clause protects only peaceable assembly, but they argue the state does not have the right to ban public expression in order to avoid unpopular speech or expression.

Quoting from an earlier Supreme Court opinion, they conclude by noting “we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse, or even contrary, will disintegrate the social organization.”

The case involving the Massachusetts statute is McCullen v. Coakley. The court has not yet set a date for oral argument. The amicus brief is available here: 12-1168 tsac NHCLC.pdf.

World's most innovative companies ranked by new metric developed at Olin Business School

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-09-17 00:00:00

Chinese search engine conglomerate Baidu Inc. leads the pack in a new ranking of the 50 most innovative companies in the world.

Knott

The RQ50 ranking is based on the research quotient (RQ), developed by Anne Marie Knott, PhD, professor of strategy at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School.

RQ, which was featured in the May 2012 Harvard Business Review article, “The Trillion Dollar R&D Fix," is a measure of research-and-development (R&D) productivity linking R&D spending to firm growth and market value.

“RQ is the missing link explaining Goldman Sachs’ correlation between R&D spending and stock returns in their report 'The Search for Creative Destruction.' It’s not that spending more on R&D generates higher returns, it's that firms with high RQ have higher optimal R&D, as well as higher returns per R&D dollar," Knott said.

One concern with the report, Knott said, is that readers may walk away with the impression that increasing R&D increases returns.

"This simply isn’t true," she said. "For many of the pharmaceutical firms, R&D is above optimum levels. In those cases, profits and market value would be higher if they cut R&D. RQ tells you when that’s likely.”

“Firms are beginning to use RQ to gauge their R&D capability, and to establish their R&D budgets, which I’m really excited about," Knott said. "This should restore R&D’s role as the engine of economic growth. One thing impeding that has been that R&D spending is an easy target under investor pressure for quarterly earnings. Cutting R&D increases profits immediately, but its benefits are uncertain as well in the future, so they get too heavily discounted."

Knott is excited by the fact that historically, RQ50 portfolios substantially outperform the indexes.

"This should get investor attention," she said. "This opportunity for abnormal returns arises because firms in the RQ50 often fly below investor radar. If you look at the list, you’ll notice these aren’t the firms that typically come to mind when folks draw up innovator lists. The only RQ50 firm to consistently appear in other rankings is Amazon, which ranks sixth.”

For a full list of the RQ50, visit amkanalytics.com/Pages/rq50.

Entrepreneurship ingrained in students as soon as they arrive on campus

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-09-12 00:00:00

Freshman Andrew Camel has been involved with computers and computer programming since he was 12 years old, when he designed his first app.

When looking at college options, he focused on places that offered both strong academics and an institutional culture that encouraged innovation and entrepreneurship.

He found that place in Washington University in St. Louis.

“It was very important to me that the school I attended have a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Camel, who plans to major in computer science in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

“The strength of Washington University's programs and the rise of St. Louis as a startup-friendly city were major drivers of my choice to apply early decision,” said Camel, who took a gap year last year to work on technology investments with General Atlantic, a private equity firm.

Camel was one of 20 freshmen who participated in an entrepreneurship pre-orientation program sponsored by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

As part of the event, titled Innovation-Discovery-Experience-Action (IDEA), students worked in teams to develop an idea or product and showcase it during an IdeaBounce.

Camel’s team won first place.

They proposed a dorm room security system for college campuses using a camera and motion sensor.

“Entrepreneurship at Washington University is really special because the entrepreneurship scene in St. Louis is starting to take off,” said sophomore Geoffrey Cheng, Camel’s counselor during the program.

“Budding entrepreneurs can find a strong network of like-minded individuals at the university and in the St. Louis region,” said Cheng, who plans to major in biology in Arts & Sciences, with a focus on genomics and computer science.

“From grants that target start-up ventures to networking groups for entrepreneurs, St. Louis does a great job of supporting the entrepreneurship scene,” he said. “In addition, the Skandalaris Center has created many opportunities to explore entrepreneurship. The Hatchery class, IdeaBounce, the Discovery Competition in engineering and summer internships all help Washington University students gain a hands-on understanding of entrepreneurship.”

Cheng participated in the pre-orientation program last year and chose to come back to help mentor incoming students.

“I like the manner in which the Skandalaris Center approaches interdisciplinary cooperation,” he said. “The pre-orientation program features a variety of activities, including panels on entrepreneurship, a city-wide scavenger hunt, and of course, an IdeaBounce. It provides a great introduction to all of the entrepreneurship activities students can take advantage of during their time here.”

For more information on the Skandalaris Center and entrepreneurship opportunities at the university, visit sc.wustl.edu.

Black Sexual Economies conference Sept. 27-28

2013-09-06 00:00:00

The Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work and Social Capital at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis is sponsoring the “Black Sexual Economies: Transforming Black Sexualities Research” conference Sept. 27-28 in Anheuser-Busch Hall's Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

This conference brings race and sexuality into explicit conversation as vectors that continue to shape and control access to economic resources, particularly through the frames of work and social and cultural capital.

Talks will include topics such as the role of African Americans in the pornography industry, how the sexuality of black people is interpreted and manifested internationally, and how same-sex issues intersect with black culture. A full list of the talks is available here.

The weekend will be led by conveners Mireille Miller-Young, an associate professor of feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Adrienne Davis, a WUSTL vice provost, law professor and director of the Black Sexual Economies Project.

For further information contact Shelly Henderson, conference coordinator, at (314) 935-6161 or shenderson@wulaw.wustl.edu.

Law school hosts International Law Weekend - Midwest Regional Conference

2013-09-05 00:00:00

The Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University's School of Law will host the International Law Weekend - Midwest Regional conference Sept. 19-21.

The conference, in conjunction with the American Branch of the International Law Association and the International Association of Penal Law (American National Section), brings together legal practitioners, scholars and students to discuss cutting-edge issues in public and private international law.

The theme for this year’s conference is “The Legal Challenges of Globalization: A View from the Heartland” and the panels presented at the conference will address a broad range of topics, emphasizing the impact of international law and globalization on the Midwest.

Conference panel discussions include:

Careers in International Law
Cross-border Regionalism and the Public-Private Divide
International Contract Farming (UNIDROIT)
International Criminal Justice
International Human Rights
The Kiobel Case
Local Efforts in Climate Change
Private International Law
Space and Cyber Law
South China Sea

This event is free and open to the public, however registration is recommended. To register and view a full list of speakers, visit http://law.wustl.edu/harris/ILW2013/.

Work, Families and Public Policy series begins Sept. 9

2013-09-03 00:00:00

Faculty and graduate students from St. Louis-area universities with an interest in labor, households, health care, law and social welfare are invited to take part in the continuing series of Monday brown-bag luncheon seminars held biweekly on the Danforth Campus at Washington University in St. Louis beginning Monday, Sept. 9, and running through Dec. 2.

In its 18th season, the Work, Families and Public Policy series features one-hour presentations on research interests of faculty from local and national universities. The series is designed to promote interdisciplinary research.

Presentations will be from noon-1 p.m. in Seigle Hall, Room 348.

The series begins Monday, Sept. 9, with a lecture by Derek Neal, PhD, professor in economics at University of Chicago. His lecture is "Designing Accountability Systems and Incentives Schemes for Educators."

The remaining presentations are:

Sept. 23. Carl Sanders, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences at WUSTL, on "Decomposing the Native-Immigrant Wage Gap in the United States."

Oct. 7. Amy Wax, MD, JD, the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, on “The Demography of Marital Decline: Economics, Culture or Something Else?"

Oct. 21. Juan Pantano, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Economics at WUSTL, on "Social Security Benefits, Life Expectancy and Early Retirement."

Nov. 4. Barton Hamilton, PhD, the Robert Brookings Smith Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at WUSTL’s Olin Business School, on "Personality and Entrepreneurship."

Nov. 18. Nava Ashraf, PhD, associate professor at Harvard Business School, on "Contraceptive Access, IntraHousehold Bargaining, and Fertility: A Field Experiment.”

Dec. 2. Kathryn Edin, PhD, professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, on “The EITC and Dignity for the Working Poor.”

Robert A. Pollak, PhD, the Hernreich Distinguished Professor of Economics in Arts & Sciences and in the Olin Business School, has been the lead organizer of the series for the past 17 years.

Co-organizer is Michael Sherraden, PhD, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School at WUSTL.

The series is sponsored by the Wells Fargo Advisory Center for Finance and Accounting Research in the Olin Business School; the Brown School and the Center for Social Development; the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work and Social Capital in the School of Law; the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences; the College of Arts & Sciences; and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The classroom is provided courtesy of the Department of Economics.

For more information, contact Pollak at (314) 935-4918 or pollak@wustl.edu; Sherraden at (314) 935-6691 or at sherrad@wustl.edu; or visit olin.wustl.edu/Events/Pages/default.aspx and search for the seminar by date.

IT monitoring effective in deterring restaurant fraud

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-09-03 00:00:00

For many firms, losing significant revenue and profit to employee theft has been a cost of doing business.

Pierce

But a new study from Washington University in St. Louis finds that information technology monitoring is strikingly effective in reducing theft and fraud, especially in the restaurant industry.

“Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology Monitoring on Employee Theft and Productivity,” by Lamar Pierce, PhD, associate professor of strategy at Olin Business School, finds that mining sales data of employees increased restaurant revenue about 7 percent.

The paper, published in the MIT Sloan Research Paper, is co-written with Daniel Snow, associate professor at the Marriott School at Brigham Young University, and Andrew McAfee, research scientist at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Using monitoring software called Restaurant Guard developed by NCR, the researchers measured the effect of theft and fraud before and after installation of the software at 392 restaurants in 39 states.

Pierce and his team found that after installing the monitoring software, revenue per restaurant increased an average of $2,982 per week, about 7 percent. Restaurants also experienced a 22 percent drop in theft.

“The NCR system works with data directly from the point of sale,” Pierce said. “It reduces the need for managers to use cameras and constantly watch their employees. In that sense it's not more surveillance, it's better and less intrusive monitoring.”

Employee theft and fraud are big problems in the United States, adding up to more than a $200 billion annual impact on the economy.

“Our results suggest a counterintuitive and hopeful pattern in human behavior,” the researchers write. “Employee theft is a remediable problem at the individual employee level. While individual differences in moral preferences may indeed exist, realigning incentives through organizational design can have a powerful effect in reducing corrupt behaviors in a way that benefits both the firm and its workers.”

Solicitor General Verrilli to Deliver Tyrrell Williams Lecture Sept. 9

2013-08-29 00:00:00

Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the 46th solicitor general of the United States, will deliver the 2013–14 Tyrrell Williams Lecture at 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 9, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom, Anheuser-Busch Hall. He will speak on “The Solicitor General and Civil Rights Law: Historical Perspectives.”

Kent Syverud, dean and the Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor, will welcome the audience to the event. William H. Webster, JD ’49 — retired partner at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, retired federal judge, and former director of the FBI and the CIA — will introduce Verrilli.

Appointed by President Barack Obama in June 2011, Verrilli supervises and conducts government litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court. About two-thirds of the cases the Supreme Court decides on the merits each year involve the government.

Verrilli oversees the selection of government issues for Supreme Court review, decides the positions the government will take on them, and then conducts the oral arguments before the court. Most recently, he successfully argued National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, which sustained critical provisions of the Affordable Care Act, and United States v. Windsor, which struck down the Defense of Marriage Act provision that denied federal benefits to same-sex partners.

Read more about Verrilli and RSVP for the event here.

Fall Assembly Series offers intelligent voices on issues of the day

Barbara Rea — 2013-08-27 00:00:00

Notes from No Man's Land author Eula Biss visits campus on Sept. 9 to discuss her book, the First Year Reading Program selection. Biss kicks off the fall Assembly Series program schedule.

Human health, human rights, technology, sustainability, diversity, the future of our region and the legacies of war and slavery are issues that are front and center these days, in the media, in the courts, in Congress and closer to home, in the classrooms at Washington University in St. Louis. Several Assembly Series programs this fall will feature individuals — many WUSTL faculty — chosen for their thought leadership on these and other relevant subjects.

Created 60 years ago, the Assembly Series is Washington University’s premiere lecture series. Its chief mission is to present interesting and important voices, and it is designed to spark meaningful discussion and lead to greater understanding of our world today.

Assembly Series programs are free and open to the public. The fall 2013 schedule, below, opens with First Year Reading Program author Eula Biss on Sept. 9 and ends with feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon on Nov. 14.

Because some information may change or be added at a later date, please check the website frequently for updates. Here, you also can subscribe to receive announcements and reminders.

FALL 2013 SCHEDULE

Monday, Sept. 9

Biss

Eula Biss
“Notes from No Man’s Land”
First Year Reading Program Lecture
7 p.m., Edison Theatre

As the recent racial controversies make clear, Americans and American law still are grappling with slavery’s legacy. And as Biss’ essays in Notes from No Man’s Land, this year’s choice for the First Year Reading Program, make abundantly clear, that legacy is ambiguous, complicated, and tied inextricably with questions of identity that are deeply embedded in our culture.

Rudolph Clay, head of outreach services in University Libraries and co-host of the staff discussion groups held earlier this month, calls the book a provocative investigation of race and identity. He co-hosted the discussions with Alfreda Brown, Human Resources project manager for diversity.

“First and foremost, Notes from No Man’s Land is a great read,” Clay said, adding that “what makes the book so great is her creativity and how she looks at age, geography, all of the different things that divide people. Everyone is going to find something that speaks to them, that they will want to talk about.”

Biss’ first collection, The Balloonists, was published in 2002; Notes from No Man’s Land, published seven years later, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. Her essays have appeared in numerous literary anthologies, including The Best American Nonrequired Reading and The Best Creative Nonfiction, as well as literary journals such as the Seneca Review and The Believer.

Biss, who received a bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College and a master's in fine arts from University of Iowa, teaches writing at Northwestern University.

Throughout the year, the Class of 2017 will participate in a variety of activities designed to mine the themes in Notes from No Man’s Land. To find out more about the selection as well as a list of reading discussion resources, visit http://fyrp.wustl.edu.

Friday, Sept. 20

Bomani

Bilal Mark McDowell Bomani
“NASA’s GreenLab Research Facility: A Potential Global Solution for Water, Food/Feed, Fuel and Energy.”
Chancellor’s Fellowship Lecture
11 a.m., Whitaker Hall Auditorium, Room 100

Bomani is the kind of research scientist whose low profile belies the significance of his work at NASA’s Glenn Research Center,where his team is creating biofuels that are sustainable, renewable and alternative. He uses the term “extreme green” to describe the objective: to develop the next generation of aviation fuels that do not use any of the Earth’s most precious resources – fresh water and arable land — but do use some of the safest and most plentiful products found in nature. (See Bomani's TED talk: http://www.ted.com/speakers/bilal_bomani.html)

Panel Discussion: "STEM Research and Education"

Bomani will join a WUSTL panel composed of: Marcus Foston, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering (School of Engineering); Jeff Catalano, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and director of graduate studies; Brittni Jones, doctoral candidate in the Department of Education; and Kathryn Miller, PhD, chair and professor of biology; all in Arts & Sciences.

Wednesday, Sept. 25

Palacio
Alfredo Palacio

"Government and Health Care: Perspectives from a President and a Physician"
Global Health Week Lecture
5 p.m., Graham Chapel

During his years as minister of health, vice president and president of the Republic of Ecuador, Palacio’s reputation as a reformer was well-founded. He led many efforts to initiate economic and social advancements, especially in health care. The cardiologist (who trained at Washington University’s School of Medicine) is a strong advocate for universal medical coverage and is credited with beginning the modernization of health care in his country.

Palacio’s appearance is part of WUSTL’s Global Health Week, which runs Sept. 23-27 and includes an international fair as well as a host of activities, demonstrations and talks designed to educate and entertain the public on a broad range of health-care issues, including nutrition and cooking. (Visit the website for details.)

Monday, Sept. 30

Simmons

Ruth Simmons
“The State of Conscience in University Life Today”
James E. McLeod Memorial Lecture on Higher Education
5 p.m., Graham Chapel

There have been many “firsts” in Ruth Simmons’ life, chief among them being the first African-American president of an Ivy League university. Hers was an extraordinary transformation, which began as the 12th child of sharecroppers, and it was one fueled solely by education. The scholar and academic leader has been dedicated to expanding access to higher education and extolling the value of a liberal arts education, two overarching goals that reflect the philosophy of the late, beloved WUSTL teacher and administrator, Jim McLeod. Co-sponsors: The Center for the Humanities and the College of Arts & Sciences (More on Jim McLeod: http://pages.wustl.edu/figure/archives/october-2011)

Friday, Oct. 4

Gruber

Jonathan Gruber
“Health-care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works”
GlobeMed Lecture
6 p.m., Brown Hall, Room 100

Just a few days after the Affordable Care Act’s mandatory insurance component becomes law, the principal architect of the Massachusetts system and chief adviser to President Obama’s plan will be on campus to explain the costs and benefits of health-care reform. The title of his talk is the same as his comic book that explains in 140 delightful pages the 1,000-page legal document. Co-sponsors: Gephardt Institute for Public Service and the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy, both in Arts & Sciences; the Brown School and the School of Law. (See more on the comic book here.)

Monday, Oct. 7

Hall

Brian Hall

“Embryos in Evolution and Evolving Embryos: An Historical Overview”
Thomas Hall Lecture
4 p.m., Umrath Lounge

For most of the 20th century, scientists attempting to understand how body structures change focused on either developmental biology or evolutionary biology. Then, during the 1970s, scientific trailblazers such as Hall, Stephen Jay Gould and Gunther Wagner began to merge the two concepts. It was in this new field called evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) where breakthroughs occurred in understanding how body structures change — and advance — through evolution. Hall’s research, predominantly in the area of the early vertebrate embryo known as the neural crest and its derived craniofacial skeleton, has led to a greater understanding of how cellular differentiation works.

Thursday, Oct. 10

Lessig

Lawrence Lessig (2 lectures)
“Republic Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It”
School of Law Public Interest Law & Policy Speaker Series
Noon, Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom

“Libraries and Technology”
Jack E. and Debbie T. Thomas Inaugural Library Lecture
5 p.m., Simon Hall May Auditorium

Legal scholar, author and political activist Lessig approaches societal problems with a pragmatism firmly rooted in a philosophical idealism. Whether it’s advocating for sensible intellectual property law that more aptly reflects the needs of a digitized citizenry, or taking up a cause he now carries close to his heart — removing the corrupting influence of money from American politics — Lessig finds a pathway to progress. His first address will focus on how our political system is broken and his proposal to fix it. In the second program, he will discuss aspects of technology that are changing the ways libraries are run and used. Co-sponsors: School of Law and University Libraries. (Visit Lessig's blog here.)

Wednesday, Oct. 16

Nawa

Fariba Nawa
“Afghanistan, Heroin and Women”
6 p.m., Umrath Lounge

Afghanistan’s $65 billion a year opiate industry destroys thousands of lives each year by creating addicts, by killing the addicted, by violence associated with the drug trade, and in many other, less obvious ways. When Afghan-American journalist Nawa traveled back to her native land between 2000 and 2007, she was shocked by stories such as Darya’s, the 12-year-old daughter of a dealer sold into marriage with a middle-aged drug lord to pay off her father’s debt. On the other hand, she found that some women farmers were benefiting from the drug trade. These stories compelled her to write Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords and One Woman’s Journey through Afghanistan.

Panel Discussion: Date to be announced
“Aftershocks of the Afghanistan War: What's Next for Those Who Left and for Those Left Behind”

As America’s longest-running war winds down, Afghanistan is coming back into focus. What lies ahead for this country and its people? What have the traumatic effects of war wrought on those who have left and who are left behind? The October 2013 edition of Washington Magazine will feature Nawa’s interviews with several WUSTL faculty and alumni, and the professors featured in the story will participate in a panel discussion.

Friday, Oct. 25

Basij-Rasikh

Shabana Basij-Rasikh
Olin Fellowship Lecture
4 p.m., location to be announced

“If we have to spill our blood to pay your school fees, then we will,” Basij-Rasikh’s father told her many years ago when she was illegally attending a secret school during the Taliban’s reign in Afghanistan. To receive an education, great risks were taken, but she grew up in a family where education was prized and daughters were treasured. Now the graduate of Middlebury College provides educational opportunities for the next generation of girls through the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA) a boarding school she co-founded and runs, and through other global initiatives for women’s education.

Friday, Nov. 1

Alexander

Michelle Alexander
“The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”
School of Law Public Interest Law Speaker Series
Noon, Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom

Although Jim Crow laws institutionalizing segregation were overturned decades ago, Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow observes that it’s perfectly legal to discriminate against convicted criminals, a group predominantly made up of African-American men. Today’s U.S. criminal justice system has relegated millions to permanent second-class status, effectively creating the same racial caste system as Jim Crow, as felons are denied basic civil and human rights long after they are released. Co-sponsored by the Missouri History Museum and the School of Law. (On the book: http://newjimcrow.com)

Tuesday, Nov. 5

Sarah Wagner
“Srebrenica’s Legacies of Loss and Remembrance”
Holocaust Memorial Lecture
6 p.m., Umrath Lounge

Wagner

In her book, To Know Where He Lies: DNA Technology and the Search for Srebrenica’s Missing, anthropologist Wagner tells the story of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, when 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed and their bodies dumped into mass graves. Loved ones had little hope of identifying physical remains until the advent of DNA technology that resulted in more than 6,000 victims identified. Their remains are now interred in a memorial site that marks the worst atrocity in European history since World War II. (See a news update.)

Wednesday, Nov. 6
Panel Discussion: “The Future of the St. Louis Region”
Clayton Centennial Celebration
7 p.m., Simon Hall May Auditorium

The St. Louis region has much to offer, but what about its future — a future tied closely to Washington University’s? To celebrate the centennial anniversary of Clayton’s founding, experts will offer their thoughts on how our region will fare in the future. They include WUSTL provost Holden Thorp, PhD, who will address education, and plant conservationist Peter Raven, PhD, who will explore environmental sustainability. A third panelist to discuss medicine and health care will be announced on the Assembly Series website.

Thursday, Nov. 14

MacKinnon

Catharine MacKinnon
“Trafficking, Prostitution, and Inequality”
School of Law Public Interest Speaker Series
Noon, Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom

Perhaps no one person has changed the legal landscape of sex equality in the United States more than MacKinnon. She pioneered the concept that sexual abuse violates equality rights, as well as the legal claim that sexual harassment is sex discrimination. In the international arena, she represented Bosnian survivors of sexual atrocities, winning legal recognition of rape as an act of genocide and a $745 million settlement. Co-sponsors: Law, Identity & Culture Initiative in the School of Law; the Brown School; Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies, in Arts & Sciences; Association of Women Faculty; and the Office of the Provost (Here is MacKinnon on the film Lovelace.)

For additional information on the Assembly Series, visit the website or call (314) 935-4620.

Email privacy a hallmark of a free society

2013-08-23 00:00:00

As encrypted email services like Lavabit shut their doors, the importance of email privacy becomes even more clear, writes Neil Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, in a recent CNN opinion piece.

Richards

“E-mail privacy matters because our intellectual privacy matters,” he said.

“The ability to confidentially share ideas and information between friends, confidantes and loved ones is the hallmark of a free society.

“Our communications are the foundation of our political freedoms. They must be inaccessible to the government unless it can prove to a neutral judge that surveillance is warranted, which means more than ‘relevance’ to an investigation and more than mere curiosity.”

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court needs devil’s advocates, law professor says

2013-10-01 00:00:00

Many deplore the vast scope of the National Security Agency (NSA) sweep of private phone and electronic communications and question the balance and fairness of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decisions about such activities. Others contend that protection against terrorism requires such activities and that they must remain secret.

Reacting to the public debate, President Obama seeks balance by establishing a spokesperson with the court to advocate for constitutional protection. A recent Huffington Post piece by Merton Bernstein, JD, professor of law emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis, said the move is desirable but not sufficient.

He warned that proposals that require legislation are “a bridge to nowhere.” Improvements, he counseled, can be accomplished by Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court rules changes. Further, he suggested, the court should establish a corps of advocates specializing in assessing and advocating measures to protect constitutional values. He suggested as a useful precedent the Roman Catholic Church’s centuries-long use of "the devil’s advocates" to test the adequacy of candidates for sainthood.

Current procedures, he observed, “strike many as unfair. Just as important, such a lopsided procedure cannot be counted on to test vital issues, such as the adequacy of protection against unreasonable search and seizure — the core of the Fourth Amendment. The people who seek to maximize collecting everyone's phone records and emails are not the right people to also argue to the FISA Court that such activities are constitutional.

Without the prospect of challenge, government intelligence officials, just like anyone else, can become lazy and lax. The combination of possible bias and sloppiness can lead to less than solid intelligence. Supervision by agency personnel, often with similar orientation, relationships and stakes, provides inadequate safeguards. For just such reasons, the federal government has created departmental Inspectors General with the authority to investigate and question agency policies and practices for legality, fairness and efficacy.”

To encourage public trust and improve intelligence results, Bernstein argued, the FISA Court should establish an office with full-time personnel to assess existing and proposed protocols and applications for individual searches to assure maximum observance of constitutional guarantees and for their need and practicability.

Visit here to read more.

WUSTL bucks global trend in female entrepreneurship

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-08-21 00:00:00

A recent report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor indicates that there are significantly fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs around the world.

Haselkorn

This is not the case, however, among recent graduates of Washington University in St. Louis. Women have founded more than 40 percent of successful companies started through the university's business entrepreneurship courses.

“I think a lot the university’s success with female entrepreneurs begins with admissions,” said Clifford Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Olin Business School. “When you admit ambitious, confident young people, they tend to do great things, whether they are male or female.”

Recent female entrepreneurship successes include:

Migrant and Immigrant Community Action Project (MICA) – Founded by Nicole Cortés, who earned a master’s degree in social work from the Brown School and a juris doctoris from the School of Law in May 2012; and Jessica Mayo, who earned a JD in May 2012, the organization works with low-income immigrants to overcome barriers to justice.
Green Bean restaurant – Founded by Sarah Haselkorn, who earned a bachelor's degree in systems science and engineering from the School of Engineering & Applied Science in May, the Central West End restaurant features locally sourced food and sustainable materials.
Liberal Diagnostics Center – Founded by Amber Ansari, who earned a master's in business administration from Olin Business School in May. Ansari founded and managed the initial operations of the facility in Liberal, Kan., while attending the full-time MBA program in St. Louis.
Farmplicity – Co-founded by Lauren Ortwein, who earned a bachelor's in business administration from Olin in May, and junior Jolijt Tamanaha, majoring in political science in Arts & Sciences, Farmplicity makes it easier for restaurants to order locally grown food.
myEDmatch – founded by Alicia Herald, who earned an EMBA degree in 2011, the company matches educators with jobs to find the best fit for both the school and the employee.
Sparo Labs – Co-founded by Abigail Cohen, who earned a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering in May 2013, Sparo Labs is developing a low-cost spirometer, a device that measures lung function, aimed a helping people in developing countries. (See a video about the device here).

"Popular press suggests women don't become entrepreneurs because it's too risky,” said Kasey Joyce, a second-year MBA student and president of the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club.

“Washington University turns that assumption on its head,” she said. “The university has created an environment that allows women to build their businesses with the tools and skills needed to make calculated decisions to eliminate that risk. The result is that most of my entrepreneurship classes, clubs and events have a strong female presence. We're a passionate and driven community and we don't want to work in a cubicle all our lives. Entrepreneurship gives us that freedom and the university gives us the tools to get there."

Washington University helps nurture and fuel student entrepreneurship through a variety of programming and support, including the Olin Cup, the YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition, the Discovery Competition in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, The Hatchery course, the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and a partnership with St. Louis startup hub T-REx.

“There has been a general culture shift in the Washington University community over the last 10 to 15 years that founding a business after graduation is a viable and advisable option,” said Holekamp, who co-teaches The Hatchery, one of the university’s capstone entrepreneurship courses.

The recent national attention focused on St. Louis as an entrepreneurship hub has certainly helped.

“There is no doubt that the student community is inspired by the St. Louis startup community,” Holekamp said. “We are engaging our students in the St. Louis scene, and that becomes infectious. Students want to stay here and grow their businesses. Getting them exposed to the field takes away some of the veil of mystery of being an entrepreneur, making it less intimidating.”

Opportunities abound for both men and women.

“There are amazing resources here if you take advantage of them, and you should, because you’re only here for four years,” said Haselkorn, founder of Green Bean. “It’s important to find the right people to reach out to who can help you.”

Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis

Entrepreneur magazine has ranked Washington University No. 5 in undergraduate programs and No. 6 in graduate programs. Degrees in entrepreneurship are offered at the undergraduate and graduate level in the business school; WUSTL’s Brown School offers a master’s degree in social entrepreneurship in conjunction with Olin Business School. A minor degree in entrepreneurship is an option for all undergraduates at WUSTL .The Skandalaris Center hosts two annual business plan competitions that together award nearly $250,000: the Olin Cup for commercial ventures and the YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition for social ventures. The School of Engineering & Applied Science launched its Discovery Competition last fall with the goal of promoting new and innovative solutions for real-world problems and allowing students to compete for financial resources that could help turn their ideas into businesses. The winning team was awarded $25,000.

Washington University School of Law collaborates with Husch Blackwell for professional development

2013-08-19 00:00:00

Washington University School of Law and Husch Blackwell announce the launch of an intensive professional development program designed to enhance Husch Blackwell attorneys’ client relations and financial and legal business skills.

Husch Blackwell University at Wash U will begin in fall 2013, when 25 to 30 of the firm’s attorneys will converge upon the Washington University in St. Louis campus for a series of three, three-day sessions. The sessions, to be held in both fall and spring, will focus on law firm economics and strategy, client relationships and leadership development — content especially important to those who recently were made partners at the firm.

“This program is an innovative way to offer high-level professional development to attorneys at a crucial time in their practice,” said Kent D. Syverud, JD, law dean and the Ethan A. H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor. “Extending the law school’s partnership with the legal community is particularly important given the evolving legal practice environment.”

Taught by law and business faculty and developed in a partnership between Washington University and Husch Blackwell, the courses will be tailored to Husch Blackwell’s strategy and culture.

Gregory R. Smith, CEO and managing partner at Husch Blackwell, said the program is part of the firm’s commitment to excellent client service.

“In this challenging economic environment, it is imperative that our attorneys receive quality continuing education that will immediately benefit clients,” he said. “We are proud to partner with Washington University School of Law to offer these customized courses and are pleased that such an excellent school is extending its commitment to the St. Louis legal community through innovative professional training for Husch Blackwell.”

Maurice A. Watson, chairman of Husch Blackwell, said the focused, on-campus programming supports the firm’s commitment to ongoing professional attorney development.

“This demonstration of our commitment to grow and equip our attorneys will make Husch Blackwell an even more attractive home for talented, ambitious attorneys,” he said.

Corporate governance expert Hillary A. Sale, JD, the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law and professor of management, has been named director of the new professional education program. Sale, who brings extensive experience in corporate leadership programming, is a member of the board of DirectWomen and co-chair of the DirectWomen Board Institute, an organization dedicated to developing women attorneys for public company board positions.

“Through our new and innovative model, Husch Blackwell University at Wash U will allow participants to acquire advanced leadership and legal practice skills with the goal of enhanced client relations,” Sale said.

Husch Blackwell is an industry-focused, full-service litigation and business law firm with locations in 16 U.S. cities and in London. National and global leaders are represented in major industries that include energy and natural resources; financial services; food and agribusiness; health care, life sciences and pharmaceuticals; industrial production, technology and transportation; and real estate, development and construction. Husch Blackwell attorneys provide deep expertise and insights to overcome obstacles, identify opportunities and create meaningful results for its clients. Visit www.HuschBlackwell.com for more information.

Washington University School of Law is widely recognized for its outstanding students, faculty and alumni and its excellence in providing legal education and innovative programming. Among its recent innovations are the national Semester in Practice, the Corporate Judicial Field Placement in Delaware, and the New York Regulatory and Business Externship. Visit law.wustl.edu for more information.

Media contacts:

Husch Blackwell
Susan Seilnacht
(816) 983-8783
susan.seilnacht@huschblackwell.com

Washington University in St. Louis
Jessica Martin
(314) 935-5251
jessica_martin@wustl.edu

WUSTL welcomes military veterans

2013-08-09 00:00:00

Sid Hastings

Military veteran Charlie Felker, MBA ’13, addresses fellow veterans who are members of the incoming MBA class during a summer reception at the home of Mahendra Gupta, PhD, dean of the Olin Business School and the Geraldine J. and Robert L. Virgil Professor of Accounting and Management. Part of MBA GO! Week, the program helped acquaint 14 incoming veterans with each other and with the MBA program at Olin. For years, Olin has provided exceptional scholarship opportunities for many former junior military officers and non-commissioned officers through Olin Veterans Association (OVA) Scholarships. Washington University is a full partner in the Yellow Ribbon Program. For candidates who are admitted to and who are eligible for the program, all tuition costs are covered jointly by the school and the Department of Veterans Affairs. For more information on educational opportunities available to veterans at Olin, visit olin.wustl.edu/EN-US/military/Pages/default.aspx.

The government must develop collaborative enterprise leaders to solve its 'wicked' problems, new book suggests

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-08-06 00:00:00

Global climate change. Counterterrorism. Food safety. Oil spills.

The American public looks to the federal government to successfully respond to and solve our “wicked” problems. Complex, cross-cutting national challenges like these are no longer the exception to the rule, but are the new normal.

Nickerson

How can federal managers and executives build and use the collaborative networks necessary to solve these issues?

The government must work to develop enterprise leaders, those able to solve problems by tapping the resources of multiple organizations with an overlapping or common goal to solve the issue at hand, argues a new book on the subject.

Tackling Wicked Government Problems: A Practical Guide for Developing Enterprise Leaders draws on the experience of some of the federal government’s most successful executives and leadership development experts, who offer proven strategies for successfully taking on the great challenges that confront our nation.

Published by Brookings Institution Press, the book is co-edited by Jackson Nickerson, PhD, the Frahm Family Professor of Organization and Strategy at Washington University’s Olin Business School and associate dean and director of Brookings Executive Education, with Ronald Sanders, vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, who gave 37 years of distinguished government service to the U.S. intelligence community, the Office of Personnel Management, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Defense.

“These challenges, both fleeting and enduring, require a new kind of leader and a new kind of leadership development approach,” the pair write in the book’s opening chapter. “These challenges require a type of leader who understands that tackling wicked government problems requires building and drawing upon a network of critical organizational and individual actors, no matter where they may reside.

“They require a type of leader who can encourage and facilitate collaboration by leveraging shared values and interests to achieve a resolution that is greater than the sum of individual actions. We call individuals who are imbued with or have developed such abilities ‘enterprise leaders,’ and they are increasingly in demand.”

The authors note there is no single “silver bullet” strategy that guarantees the development of enterprise leaders. Rather, they suggest a variety of approaches and methods are available, some of which are easy and relatively low-cost to implement, while others require breaking existing paradigms of leadership development.

Administrative law expert Levin testifies before congressional committee

Kelly Wiese Niemeyer — 2013-07-31 00:00:00

Administrative law expert Ronald M. Levin, JD, recently was invited to testify before Congress on concerns about the proposed Regulatory Accountability Act.

Levin, the William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, has taught and written about administrative law for more than 30 years.

Levin

He testified in July before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law. The Judiciary Committee endorsed the legislation, H.R. 2122, on July 24, sending it to the full House for consideration.

But Levin warned legislators to be cautious about this package of proposals to amend the Administrative Procedure Act, which he said has been generally successful.

“Many students of administrative law believe that the rulemaking process is already too cumbersome, and the bill would aggravate that situation enormously,” he said.

Levin’s testimony addressed what he believes are several problem areas in the bill that warrant re-examination:

• The bill would require federal agencies to address a variety of “considerations” in every rulemaking proceeding, including an elaborate analysis of a proposed rule’s costs and benefits, and these analytical requirements would greatly complicate the rulemaking process;

• The bill contains “supermandates” that would override existing law, and these provisions are too inflexible and would encourage needless litigation;

• The bill requires extensive use of formal rulemaking, a process that largely has been abandoned as obsolete; and

• The bill’s judicial review provisions would greatly expand the courts’ role in ways that are at odds with case law and traditional concepts of the role of the judiciary.

To watch Levin’s testimony or review his written comments in detail, visit here.

We don't like unfamiliar music, even though we claim we do, study finds

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-07-22 00:00:00

Spotify. Pandora. iTunes. YouTube.

We are constantly bombarded with a seemingly limitless amount of new music in our daily lives. But why do we keep coming back to that one song or album we couldn’t get enough of in college?

Goodman

New research from Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School shows that although consumers say they prefer to listen to unfamiliar music, their choices actually belie that preference.

The study, “The Same Old Song: The Power of Familiarity in Music Choice,” could have implications for marketers and the playlists, events, venues and products that they choose to advertise. The findings are to be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Marketing Letters.

“In three studies, we examined the power of familiarity on music choice and showed that familiarity is a more important driver of music choice than more obvious, and commonly tested, constructs such as liking and satiation, i.e., being ‘sick of’ certain music,” said Joseph K. Goodman, PhD, associate professor of marketing at Olin and study co-author, along with Morgan Ward of Southern Methodist University and Julie Irwin of the University of Texas at Austin.

“Our results suggest that the emphasis on novelty in the music domain, by consumers and people often protesting the current state of the music business, is probably misplaced,” Goodman said. “In the marketplace and in our pilot study, consumers say that they want more novelty when, in fact, their choices suggest they do not.”

The study shows that consumers pick music they are familiar with even when they believe they would prefer less familiar music.

Goodman suggests that based on the findings, marketers should continue to promote what is familiar to consumers, even though it might not be the most liked. In addition, managers and artists shouldn’t underestimate the power of familiarity when promoting their music.

He said that although the study shows the importance of familiarity in music, it also shows there is a place for new music as well. Consumers have a need for both novel and familiar music, and they especially prefer familiar music when they are busy working or doing cognitively demanding tasks.

Goodman said the success of services such as Pandora and Spotify will continue because they not only play personalized familiar favorites, but they also introduce people to new music with familiar musical elements.

Sequester has minimal impact on federal regulatory spending, new report finds

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-07-22 00:00:00

Automatic federal budget cuts, known as the sequester, which began March 1, have had minimal impact on federal regulatory agencies, finds a new report on the U.S. budget for fiscal years 2013 and 2014.

“Regulatory agencies’ budgets are growing faster than inflation in 2013, despite concerns about the sequester,” observed report authors Melinda Warren of Washington University in St. Louis and Susan Dudley of George Washington University. “Their budgets are projected to continue growing in 2014, due to a combination of new legislative authorities and presidential priorities.”

The estimated cost of running regulatory agencies in fiscal year 2013 is $56.4 billion, an inflation-adjusted increase of 0.9 percent over 2012 spending. President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for regulatory agencies increases to $59.4 billion in 2014.

The on-budget cost of regulation is detailed in a new report, Sequester’s Impact on Regulatory Agencies Modest: An Analysis of the U.S. Budget for Fiscal Years 2013 and 2014.

The annual report is published by the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis and the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.

This report presents more than 50 years of data on the expenditures and staff employed to run federal regulatory agencies. These data are extracted from the Budget of the United States Government, prepared annually by the Office of Management and Budget and submitted by the president to the Congress.

This is the 35th edition of the report tracking the spending and staffing for the regulatory agencies as documented in the president’s budget. It includes data from 1960-2014.

The largest regulatory budget increases in 2013 and 2014 are going to:

The Food and Drug Administration (with more than $600 million additional outlays each year to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011).
The Patent and Trademark Office, which the America Invents Act of 2011 authorized to set its own fees (with increases of $399 million in FY 2013 and $293 million in 2014).
Customs and Border Protection (with increases of $115 million in FY 2013 and $542 million in FY 2014).
Financial agencies to which the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act granted new authority, particularly the Securities and Exchange Commission (more than $250 million each year), the Comptroller of the Currency ($18 million in 2013 and $368 million in 2014), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ($116 million in 2013 and $158 million in 2014).

Staffing at regulatory agencies is projected to increase in both the current and next fiscal years.

Federal regulatory agencies employ an estimated 282,070 people in FY 2013, a 1.6 percent increase over FY2012. The Budget requests an additional 0.7 percent increase in FY2014, bringing personnel to 284,085.
Financial regulators (particularly the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission) are set to increase personnel significantly (more than 2,000 new staff for those three agencies over two fiscal years). The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation faces significant staff reductions in both 2013 and 2014 that would bring its staffing levels back to what they were in 2008 and 2009.
The Patent and Trademark Office continues to grow, with more than 2,000 new employees projected over the 2 years.
The Food and Drug Administration is projected to add more than 1,000 people each year (reflecting a growth rate of 7.5 percent in 2013 and 6.9 percent in 2014).
Within the Department of Homeland Security, only Customs and Border Protection is budgeted for more staff in 2014. Its employment increased by 790 people in 2013 and another 990 in 2014. The 2014 Budget requests more than a 900-person reduction at Immigration & Customs Enforcement after an increase of 100 employees in 2013.

The full report is available online at

wc.wustl.edu/regulatory_reports and regulatorystudies.gwu.edu.

This report tracks the “regulators’ budget,” that portion of the fiscal budget devoted to developing and enforcing federal regulations that alter private sector behavior, from 1960 to 2014. Though these on-budget costs of regulation represent a small fraction of the full cost of regulations to society and do not provide information on regulations’ benefits, the time-series data presented here offer useful insights into the growth and composition of regulation over the last 54 years, as well as current priorities.

These data cover agencies whose regulations primarily affect private sector activities, and expressly excludes budget and staffing associated with regulations that govern taxation, entitlement, procurement, subsidy, and credit functions. For example, the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Defense are not included, although they issue regulations.

The Department of Health and Human Services Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), while issuing about one-third of all the final regulations published in a typical year, has traditionally been excluded because its regulations have primarily addressed the allocation of entitlements.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 granted CMS new responsibilities, many of which (such as the regulation of private insurance markets) are clearly within the scope of this report. However, the President’s budget does not allow us to distinguish spending and staffing for those activities from CMS’s traditional responsibilities, and we were unable to include them here.

The Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis supports scholarly research, public affairs programs and other activities in the fields of economics, government and public policy, serving as a bridge between scholars and policy makers.

The George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration raises awareness of regulations’ effects to improve regulatory policy through research, education and outreach. It is a leading source for applied scholarship on regulatory issues, and a training ground for current and future policy officials who want to understand the effects of regulation and ensure that regulatory policies serve the public interest.

Crimes against humanity must be prosecuted for International Criminal Court to succeed

Kelly Wiese Niemeyer — 2013-07-15 00:00:00

Successful prosecutions of crimes against humanity must occur at the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it is to succeed in its mandate to punish the perpetrators of atrocities and deter others from committing such crimes, argues Leila Sadat, JD, international law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Sadat’s research, arguments and analysis were laid out in detail in “Crimes Against Humanity in the Modern Age,” published in the most recent issue of the American Journal of International Law. The research also is part of a blog debate on the subject convened by the American Society of International Law (http://opiniojuris.org/2013/07/22/ajil-symposium-crimes-against-humanity-in-the-modern-age/).

Sadat

Sadat recently was appointed a special adviser on crimes against humanity (CAH) for the International Criminal Court. She is the leading force behind the elaboration and adoption of a new international treaty for the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity.

Sadat is also director of WUSTL's Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute and the Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law.

Sadat’s research establishes that crimes against humanity prosecutions are critically important tools for atrocity prevention, at both the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and the ICC. It establishes that they have evolved from the paradigm of state totalitarianism typified by the Nazi regime, many of whose leading members were tried at Nuremberg, to internecine struggles for power between political factions that attack civilians with impunity. Sadat argues the ICC statute should be interpreted with this new paradigm in mind.

Sadat’s article said the early case law of the court may weaken the effectiveness of CAH charges at the ICC.

“Vexing concerns about prosecutorial overreaching, interstate politics and judicial efficiency may well need to be addressed at the ICC, but the Court’s CAH jurisprudence is not the place to do this,” she wrote.

To review the full article, visit here.

Watch a video of Sadat discussing the International Criminal Court:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggkErU-kRl0

Leila Sadat, international law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, discusses current issues before the International Criminal Court and her work as ICC special adviser.

Nudging entrepreneurship

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-07-09 00:00:00

What can behavioral economics teach us about how to launch a successful startup?

Barton Hamilton

Barton Hamilton, PhD, professor of entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School, will present “Nudging Entrepreneurship” at 8 a.m. Tuesday, July 16 at Rubin Brown on 16th Street in Denver.

The talk is free and open to the public. Registration and breakfast begin at 7:30 a.m.

The session will examine the implications of behavioral economics research for the success of new ventures and products. Behavioral economics provides new insights into customer behavior and provides tools for entrepreneurs to generate high-potential business ideas and evaluate startup investment opportunities.

The event is sponsored in partnership with Entrepreneurs’ Organization and Rubin Brown.

Hamilton, the Robert Brookings Smith Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Olin Business School, is a leading scholar in entrepreneurship. His expertise includes economic returns to entrepreneurship, the importance of human capital for successful new ventures, the role of personality in entrepreneurial success, and alternative R&D strategies for high-tech startups.

Hamilton advises entrepreneurs and is both an active angel investor and a partner in a venture capital firm.

This September, Washington University will begin offering its top tier 20-month Executive MBA program in Denver. For more information on the Denver EMBA program, visit http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/24966.aspx.

For more information on Hamilton’s talk, call (303) 820-EMBA.

Obituary: Kathleen F. Brickey, JD, professor of law, 68

2013-07-02 00:00:00

Brickey

Kathleen F. Brickey, JD, a giant in the field of white-collar crime and the long-serving James Carr Professor of Criminal Jurisprudence at Washington University School of Law, died Wednesday, June 19, 2013. She was 68.

Brickey, who joined the law faculty in 1976, was widely recognized as a renowned and prolific scholar in the field of criminal jurisprudence and as an outstanding professor. She was often ahead of her time in her scholarship and research.

To read more of the tribute to her, visit here.

The university and Brickey’s family and friends are organizing a celebration of her many achievements. It will be held at the law school in late summer or early fall.

Immediate effect of DOMA decision profound

2013-06-26 00:00:00

The Supreme Court today struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), ruling that the law violated fundamental constitutional rights by denying same-sex couples equal liberty under the law. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion held that DOMA rested on an irrational, constitutionally impermissible animus against same-sex couples.

Magarian

The Court in a separate case rejected a challenge to a lower court ruling that invalidated California’s ban on same-sex marriage, known as Proposition 8. In that case, where California’s government refused to defend the ban, the Court ruled that citizen advocates for the ban lacked the necessary legal interest to defend it.

In neither case did the Court address the question whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.

Gregory Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that the immediate effects of these decisions for same-sex couples will be profound.

“The demise of DOMA means that the federal government must treat same-sex couples, legally married under state laws, just like opposite-sex married couples for purposes of federal benefits, tax status, etc,” he says.

“The nullification of Proposition 8 appears to make marriage available to same-sex couples in the nation’s largest state, under a prior marriage law that Proposition 8 had purported to invalidate.”

Magarian notes that legally, these decisions are unremarkable. “Many of us have been predicting precisely these results for months,” he says.

Magarian’s comments on today’s decisions follow:

The DOMA decision, United States v. Windsor, almost exactly echoed two prior decisions (Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas) that struck down anti-gay laws as impermissibly grounded in animus.

Lawrence, the more recent of those two decisions, came down ten years ago today.

As in those decisions, both also written by Justice Kennedy, the Court today refused to announce whether it would review future gay rights cases uniformly under a tough standard of review. As in those cases, Justice Scalia dissented with barely submerged rage against gays, liberals, and his fellow Justices. None of this is remotely new.

The Proposition 8 decision, Hollingsworth v. Perry, has nothing to do with gay rights as a legal matter. It’s all about the legal doctrine of standing – who has a right to bring a suit or an appeal in federal court. Standing is very important; it’s an underpinning of our legal system.

This case raised a difficult standing issue that divided the Court 5-4 (although, notably, the decision did not break down along predictable “liberal”-“conservative” lines). But even by the standards of standing, the issue in this case was narrow, and no one outside law schools and courthouses would be talking about it if not for its factual setting.

In the wake of yesterday’s voting rights decision, Shelby County v. Holder, some “centrist” commentators will criticize liberals who love Windsor but hate Shelby County, and conservatives who hold the opposite views, for hypocrisy.

Both decisions, those commentators will note, struck down federal laws; you can’t accuse the Court of “judicial activism” in one while defending the other. This is exactly why I resist the narrative of “judicial activism” and “judicial restraint.”

Shelby County killed a longstanding, effective protection of a core constitutional right to political participation, which Congress had carefully considered and repeatedly reauthorized.

Windsor struck down a novel, contentious law, based on nothing more than bias and fear, which denied people a core constitutional right to equal liberty. The two decisions could hardly be more different, and they warrant opposite responses.

The same-sex marriage war will rage on for a while, but demographics already assure its outcome. In fifty years, the idea that same-sex couples were once forbidden to marry will seem bizarre.

The Supreme Court today, as it has at its best moments in the past, moved the law along a trail of progress marked that brave advocates have blazed and the common sense of the people has broadened. Today is an exceedingly rare thing in the age of Chief Justice John Roberts and his right-wing majority: a great day for justice.

SCOTUS decision kills "most successful weapon" against racial discrimination in voting

2013-06-25 00:00:00

The Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder effectively kills the most successful weapon our nation has ever produced against racial discrimination in voting, says constitutional and election law expert Gregory Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Magarian

"Until today, the Voting Rights Act required certain states and counties with a history of voting discrimination, mostly in the South, to obtain 'preclearance' from the federal government before they could make any changes in their voting procedures," he says.

"The Court today struck down only the formula for determining which states must seek preclearance (Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act), not the preclearance requirement itself (Section 5). But as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in dissent, the government can’t enforce Section 5 without a coverage formula. The idea that Congress, in the foreseeable future, would act to replace Section 4 is laughable."

Magarian says the Court’s decision reflects a victory for two big ideas: state power, at the expense of racial justice; and judicial power, at the expense of democracy. His comments follow:

State power

The Court’s decision is actually very simple in its reasoning. Justice Antonin Scalia, at oral argument, summarized Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion before it was written: protection for voting rights is a “racial entitlement” that must give way to states’ sovereignty. Most of the opinion’s analysis depends on the idea that the Section 4 coverage formula violated the principle of “equal state sovereignty.”

Nowhere in the Constitution does that phrase, or any synonymous phrase, appear. It is a constitutional mandate of the Court’s own pure fabrication. The idea of “equal state sovereignty,” however, has impressive historical roots: it was a favorite rhetorical device of slave states before the Civil War.

Judicial power

The Court has the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional. Ordinarily, I have little use for abstract complaints about “judicial activism.” But in this case, Congress legislated pursuant to a specific grant of power in the 15th Amendment, acting to remedy perhaps the most profound and persistent social problem in our nation’s history, after careful consideration and based on a dark, massive history of voting discrimination.

The Court should not lightly overrule that sort of congressional judgment. In today’s decision, however, the Court essentially substitutes for Congress’s well-considered judgment the opinion of five Justices that racial discrimination in voting just doesn’t matter much anymore.

The idea that measures designed to achieve racial equality are nothing more than “racial entitlements” has been a favored shibboleth of the far right from the Confederacy through the John Birch Society and right up to the Tea Party. Today’s decision does nothing more or less than write that far right dogma into law.

WUSTL Business & Law News

Washington People: Clifford Holekamp

'Christmas Creep': Happiness or humbug?

Washington University School of Law brings innovative privacy education to middle school​

Olin student team wins prestigious case competition

School of Law's trial team wins prestigious National Institute of Trial Advocacy 2013 Tournament of Champions

Students can sign up for firsthand look at Israeli startup scene

Washington University partners with Techli to support entrepreneurship in St. Louis

About Techli

Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis

Olin Cup finalists offer quality, diverse ideas

‘Privacy and Surveillance’ roundtable discussion to address history, meaning of privacy

Law school's partnership with Northwest Academy of Law spans mentoring, coaching and support for peace summit

McKelvey encourages students to pursue goals, learn from failures

Effects of tighter federal regulations on banks

Creator of landmark sex equality laws and crusader against sex trafficking to close out Assembly Series' fall program

Access to Equal Justice Conference Nov. 1

International Court of Justice judge to speak at law school Oct. 30

A last resort for solving the debt ceiling crisis: Take it to court​

Olin's Executive MBA program moves up to No. 6 in Financial Times global rankings

'The new Jim Crow': Michelle Alexander explains how our prison system condemns many African Americans to second-class status

Olin introduces new faculty

Civil rights lawyer Shaw​ to headline Oct. 22 event exploring Shelley v. Kraemer, Margaret Bush Wilson

New Olin buildings are taking shape

Business summit: Is the economy stable or stalled?

Contraception mandate debate leads to worrisome ‘corporate conscience’ concept, law professor warns​

Olin's Executive MBA class kicks off academic year

Renowned Internet copyright lawyer, political activist Lawrence Lessig to deliver two lectures Oct. 10

Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series begins today​

School of Law dean search committee announced

SCOTUS preview: First Amendment expert supports rights to speech, assembly in Supreme Court​ brief

World's most innovative companies ranked by new metric developed at Olin Business School

Entrepreneurship ingrained in students as soon as they arrive on campus

Black Sexual Economies conference Sept. 27-28

Law school hosts International Law Weekend - Midwest Regional Conference

Work, Families and Public Policy series begins Sept. 9

IT monitoring effective in deterring restaurant fraud

Solicitor General Verrilli to Deliver Tyrrell Williams Lecture Sept. 9

Fall Assembly Series offers intelligent voices on issues of the day​

Email privacy a hallmark of a free society

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court needs devil’s advocates, law professor says

WUSTL bucks global trend in female entrepreneurship

Washington University School of Law collaborates with Husch Blackwell for professional development​

WUSTL welcomes military veterans​

The government must develop collaborative enterprise leaders to solve its 'wicked' problems, new book suggests

Administrative law expert Levin testifies before congressional committee

We don't like unfamiliar music, even though we claim we do, study finds

Sequester has minimal impact on federal regulatory spending, new report finds

Crimes against humanity must be prosecuted for International Criminal Court to succeed

Nudging entrepreneurship

Obituary: Kathleen F. Brickey, JD, professor of law, 68

Immediate effect of DOMA decision profound

SCOTUS decision kills "most successful weapon" against racial discrimination in voting

Washington University School of Law brings innovative privacy education to middle school

A last resort for solving the debt ceiling crisis: Take it to court

Civil rights lawyer Shaw to headline Oct. 22 event exploring Shelley v. Kraemer, Margaret Bush Wilson

Contraception mandate debate leads to worrisome ‘corporate conscience’ concept, law professor warns

Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series begins today

SCOTUS preview: First Amendment expert supports rights to speech, assembly in Supreme Court brief

Fall Assembly Series offers intelligent voices on issues of the day

Washington University School of Law collaborates with Husch Blackwell for professional development

WUSTL welcomes military veterans