Faculty News
for February, 2010
February 28, 2010
“Each trial is about the government’s power to punish,” Professor Stephen Cribari said in an article in the Grand Forks Herald, regarding U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson's recent overturning of a jury verdict. The judge noted that the jury “could have only convicted [the defendant], not on the evidence against him, but because he was a black man with a prior drug trafficking conviction associating with a known drug trafficker” from the Minneapolis area. Cribari commented: “That’s a very important thing the judge did. That safeguards the quality of liberty in North Dakota.”
Read Stephen J. Cribari's Faculty Profile
February 28, 2010
Prof. Jane Kirtley was quoted in the New York Times in a "Week in Review" article about the conviction of Google executives for violation of Italian privacy law after allowing a video depicting a child being bullied to be posted on one of its services. Prof. Kirtley said, "Americans to this day don't fully appreciate how Europeans regard privacy. The reality is that they consider privacy a fundamental human right."
Read Jane Kirtley's Faculty Profile
February 26, 2010
Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin delivered the legal keynote address at the University of California Hastings College of Law for the Hastings Women’s Law Journal annual symposium, “Choice in the 21st Century? Regulating Reproductive Technologies.” There was standing room only for Professor Goodwin’s keynote address, which was blogged and tweeted around the world. Symposium panelists included Dov Fox (Yale Law School), Martha Ertman (University of Maryland School of Law), and other distinguished legal, medical, and bioethics scholars.
Read Michele Goodwin's Faculty Profile
February 26, 2010
More than 400 law professors, among them Law School Professors Carol Chomsky, Jennifer Green, Heidi Kitrosser, and Gregory Shaffer, signed a letter dated February 1st to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid protesting the delays in voting on Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel nominee Dawn Johnsen.
Read Carol Chomsky's Faculty Profile
Read Jennifer Green's Faculty Profile
Read Heidi Kitrosser's Faculty Profile
Read Gregory Shaffer's Faculty Profile
February 25, 2010
Professor Tom Cotter was quoted in a story in the Minnesota Daily about a pending class action antitrust suit filed by a former UCLA basketball star against the NCAA. Cotter states that the NCAA matter involves, "at its roots . . . a right of publicity issue.”
Read Tom Cotter's Faculty Profile
February 23, 2010
Professor Daniel Schwarcz contributed to a Minnesota Public Radio story on President Obama's recent proposal to establish a Health Insurance Rate Authority that would provide Federal oversight of health insurers' rate increases.
Read Daniel Schwarcz's Faculty Profile
February 21, 2010
Professor Tom Cotter was quoted in the Minnesota Daily in an article about the Google Book Search settlement hearing. Cotter discusses some of the underlying copyright and antitrust issues relating to the Google Book Search project.
Read Tom Cotter's Faculty Profile
February 18, 2010
Prof. Jane Kirtley was quoted in the Charlotte (NC) Observer concerning a proposal in Mecklenburg County to disable a feature permitting individuals to search for property records online using the owner's name. The county has also been asked to remove the names of law enforcement employees and crime victims from this database, citing safety concerns, which would require amending North Carolina's open records law. Prof. Kirtley said, "There really is no government information that could not be misused. So if that's your basis for cutting off information, then you're basically gutting public records laws."
Read Jane Kirtley's Faculty Profile
February 17, 2010
Prof. Bernard Levinson has been named a CLA Scholar of the College. The Scholar of the College award was established to acknowledge outstanding achievement by faculty in the College of Liberal Arts. Scholars of the College are chosen on the basis of past accomplishments and contributions in the ares of scholarship/creative activity, teaching, and service, and the promise of further achievement. The award includes financial support for 2010-2013.
The college will honor the 2010 Scholar of the College Awardees and 2010 Dean's Medalist on Monday, February 22, beginning at 3:30 p.m. in the Mississippi Room (3rd floor, Coffman Memorial Union).
Read Bernard M. Levinson's Faculty Profile
February 15, 2010
Professor Richard Painter was quoted in The National Law Journal, about the inconsistency of two recent rulings by the U. S. Supreme Court on campaign spending. Painter who writes about judicial campaign spending, points out in the article that one ruling states that campaign contributions to judges can require recusal, and the ruling in another case, that corporations have virtually unlimited "free speech" rights to spend money on elections. "I think a lot of states may just throw their hands up and say, 'It's impossible to come up with a [recusal] rule that really works.' "
Read Richard W. Painter's Faculty Profile
February 8, 2010
Professor Daniel Schwarcz contributed to a story on Minnesota Public Radio concerning a bill in the US House of Representatives that would repeal the long-standing antitrust exemption for health insurance companies.
Read Daniel Schwarcz's Faculty Profile
February 4, 2010
Professor Richard Painter is quoted in an Associated Press article on the New York Attorney General's charges against Bank of America and its former CEO for allegedly misleading shareholders about the acquisition of Merril Lynch.
In the article, Painter raises the concern that the U.S. government may have known about the disclosure problems and, if so, could have been complicit in misleading the shareholders.
Read Richard W. Painter's Faculty Profile
February 4, 2010
Professor Prentiss Cox appeared in House of Cards, a documentary aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Company program the fifth estate on January 22, 2010. Cox described the workings of First Alliance Mortgage Company, an early adopter of subprime mortgage lending.
Cox was also quoted in an MSNBC news article about preacquired account marketing on February 4, 2010.
Read Prentiss Cox's Faculty Profile
February 4, 2010
Professor Gregory C. Shaffer's op-ed titled "A method to its madness," on the US-European dispute over genetically modified foods appeared in The European Voice. The piece grows out of his recent book, "When Cooperation Fails: The International Law and Politics of Genetically Modified Foods" (Oxford), which he co-authored with Mark A. Pollack. It's available at http://www.amazon.com/When-Cooperation-Fails-International-Genetically/dp/0199567050
Read Gregory Shaffer's Faculty Profile
February 2, 2010
Professor Bernard Levinson recently participated in the symposium,The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, at the University of Zurich. The paper he presented was titled, "The Revelation of Redaction: Exodus 34:10–26 as a Challenge to the Standard Documentary Hypothesis."
Read Bernard M. Levinson's Faculty Profile
