Faculty News
for March, 2013
March 29, 2013
Professor Susan Wolf was quoted in a Science article on a new set of recommendations from the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics. The article, entitled "Return of Unexpected DNA Results Urged," notes that "Geneticists, ethicists, and physicians reacted with shock to [the] recommendations." The recommendations "say that labs and clinicians have a duty to inflict this information on patients and should warn patients before sequencing is undertaken that that's the deal," says Wolf. Wolf is an outspoken advocate of returning incidental findings. "The fact that I support offering them does not mean I support inflicting them," she says. Wolf has led multiple projects on return of results and incidental findings, funded by NIH and now the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Read Susan M. Wolf's Faculty Profile
March 28, 2013
Professor Dale Carpenter was a guest on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation program for a segment entitled "The Road to the Supreme Court Arguments on Gay Marriage." Carpenter and Nina Totenberg, NPR legal affairs correspondent, spoke about the Supreme Court arguments on California's Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act and what the Court's decisions could mean for the future of United States law.
Read Dale Carpenter's Faculty Profile
March 25, 2013
Professor Richard Painter was quoted in a Star Tribune article on the appointment of Best Buy founder Richard Schulze as chairman emeritus of the company. Painter pointed out that it could be difficult for Best Buy if Schulze uses that role to interfere with current management. "When the chairman emeritus starts looking over the shoulder of the chairman, things get really sticky," said Painter. "You've got to have one captain of the ship, particularly when you're going through turbulent waters."
Read Richard W. Painter's Faculty Profile
March 22, 2013
Professor Susan Wolf was quoted in two Boston Globe articles on issues raised by new recommendations from a working group of the American College of Human Genetics and Genomics. These long-awaited recommendations urge labs and clinicians to inform patients when clinical genome or exome sequencing identifies any of two dozen pathogenic incidental findings, even when the patient does not wish to receive these findings or is a child. Wolf points out serious concerns, noting that the guidelines "go very far in privileging the concerns of the lab and the concerns of the clinician over the rights of individual patients, and the rights of kids to be protected from certain information" before they achieve the age of majority and can decide themselves whether to be tested. "I'm troubled by [the guidelines] going that far in demoting these core concerns of [patient] autonomy..." Wolf has led multiple projects on return of results and incidental findings, funded by NIH and now the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
To read the March 21 article, click here.
To read the March 22 article, click here.
Read Susan M. Wolf's Faculty Profile
March 14, 2013
Professor Stephen Cribari wrote an op-ed piece entitled "A Retreat from the Adversarial Spirit of 'Gideon'" for the Pioneer Press. In the article, Cribari wrote, "...the Supreme Court's manipulation of the meaning of constitutional rights has chipped away at the ability of counsel to be what Gideon intended."
Read Stephen J. Cribari's Faculty Profile
March 12, 2013
Professors Dale Carpenter and Richard Painter testified at hearings at the State Capitol on a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage. Carpenter said that recognizing same-sex marriages wouldn't affect business owners who object to same-sex marriage because current state law already prohibits businesses from discriminating against customers based on sexual orientation. Painter, who served in the George W. Bush White House, urged the Legislature to extend the right to marry to all Minnesotans. "Republicans understand that some things are none of the government's business, and one of them is who you marry," Painter said. The hearings were covered by Associated Press, and stories appeared in the national press.
Read Dale Carpenter's Faculty Profile
Read Richard Painter's Faculty Profile
March 8, 2013
Professor Michele Goodwin will host a roundtable entitled "Families, Privacy, Secrets & the Law" at the University of Maryland Law School. The roundtable engages the intersections of health law, criminal law, family law, and constitutional law. Speakers will discuss issues that range from genetic privacy and DNA to domestic violence. For more information and to register for the roundtable, visit http://www.law.umaryland.edu/faculty/conferences/detail.html?conf=132.
Read Michele Goodwin's Faculty Profile
March 6, 2013
Professor Dale Carpenter's book Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas was chosen as a finalist in the non-fiction category from among 687 submissions to the 25th annual Lambda Literary Awards. Winners will be announced June 3, 2013. Earlier this year, the book was named one of the "100 Notable Books of 2012" by the editors of the New York Times Book Review and also selected for Exemplary Legal Writing in 2012 and inclusion in its 2013 Almanac & Reader by the board of advisers of The Green Bag.
Read Dale Carpenter's Faculty Profile
March 6, 2013
Prof. Osofsky Named 2013-14 Fesler-Lampert Chair
March 6, 2013
Professor Hari Osofsky was selected for the 2013-14 Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs to pursue her project, "Fostering Suburban Climate Change Efforts in the Twin Cities." The appointment is administered by the Humphrey School of Public Affair's Center for Urban and Regional Affairs and provides a year of financial support
to University faculty members doing Minnesota-related research on these topics.
Read Hari Osofsky's Faculty Profile
March 2, 2013
Professor Jane Kirtley participated in an invitation-only multinational conference, "Is Serious Journalism Still Possible?" at the Ditchley Foundation in Oxfordshire, England, where she also chaired the working group on the role of governments and regulators in promoting freedom of the press. Some of Kirtley's writings, including her Media Law handbook, were made available in advance to attendees through the conference web site.
Read Jane Kirtley's Faculty Profile
