Law

A military judge Monday threw out a war crimes case against Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr. He is accused of the 2002 grenade killing of a U.S. Army soldier in Afghanistan. Khadr was 15 at the time of the alleged attack. Judge Peter Brownback found that the charge sheet did not meet a two-step process defined in the Military Commissions Act. Read More

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor will face 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity on June 4, accused of arming and supporting a rebel group responsible for horrendous atrocities including the murder, rape, mutilation and forced child labor of tens of thousands of people during the Sierra Leone civil war. Read More

An op-ed by Carol M. Swain, Vanderbilt professor of political science and law, on the impact of illegal immigration on African Americans. Read More

The Supreme Court followed the advice of a Vanderbilt University professor and 25 other top antitrust economists and overturned the decision made by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on the telecom antitrust lawsuit Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly. Read More

An employee is fired for having a political bumper sticker on his car. Another is let go for complaining about co-workers on a MySpace page. A third person didn't receive a call-back on a prospective job because of the sermon he gave on his church's podcast. Are these violations of free speech? Are private companies breaking the law by firing or not hiring these people? Read More

In this op-ed, Michael Newton, special adviser to the Iraqi Tribunal and acting associate professor of law at Vanderbilt University, argues for Congressional action to provide funding for the U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. The op-ed orignially ran in the Washington Post on May 3, 2007. Read More

"The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace," a new book by Bruce Barry, professor of management and sociology, examines the growing decline of freedom of speech for many employees, and the lack of due-process rights and just-cause protections for these workers. Read More

A man with no prior history of sexual misconduct was caught trying to molest a child. A brain scan found that he had a large tumor pressing on his right frontal cortex. When the tumor was removed, he no longer wanted to molest children. A suicidal man tried to kill himself with a crossbow. When the arrow went into his skull, the damage done to his prefrontal cortex reversed his anti-social tendencies. Read More

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to uphold a ban on a type of late-term abortion. The court found that the national Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, passed in 2003, does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Read More

Copyrights play an integral role for writers and artists. And in this day of Web sites and Internet downloading, copyright rules are evolving. The United States Register of Copyrights, Marybeth Peters, will lead a day-long discussion on the state of copyright law on Friday, April 20 at the Vanderbilt University First Amendment Center. Read More

Atheism is a religion and it is dominating public schools, says a British philosopher who will speak at Vanderbilt University. Roger Scruton will be the fourth and last speaker in the "Democracy and Moral Conviction" lecture series. Read More

Will people learn to be more tolerant in the 21st century than we are now? That's the question the current chief justice of Canada's Supreme Court, Beverley McLachlin, will discuss when she speaks at Vanderbilt Law School April 5 at 3:30 p.m. in Flynn Auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public. Read More

Fifty years ago, two men took a bold step for themselves and for the future of Vanderbilt University Law School. Shortly after the landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, and after strong encouragement from the law faculty, Vanderbilt Law School broke the color barrier and became the first privately funded law school in the South to admit African American students. Read More

Violent crime, racial oppression, ethnic tensions, mass atrocities and transitioning societies are all volatile situations that could be helped with effective conflict resolution techniques, including apology and forgiveness. But the complex emotional transition necessary for effective conflict resolution becomes even more complicated in the context of group conflicts. A conference being held at Vanderbilt Law School on March 30-31 will provide a unique opportunity to explore trends in conflict resolution. Read More

Vanderbilt professor says Wal-Mart case calls attention to employer‘s right to eavesdrop on employee calls: Bruce Barry, professor of management and sociology, is available to comment on recent case. Read More

David Williams II of Vanderbilt University has been elected a fellow by the Tennessee Bar Foundation. Read More

A new study by a Vanderbilt University professor of law and economics found legal immigrants in the United States with a lighter skin tone made more money than those with darker skin. Read More

Vanderbilt University Law Professor Mike Newton is an expert on the Saddam Hussein trial and has just returned from his fourth trip to Iraq. Read More

Two Vanderbilt University professors are taking on some country music celebrities in a debate over media ownership. Both sides will testify at a Federal Communications Commission public hearing Dec. 11 at Belmont University. Read More

With reports that the International Criminal Court prosecutor‘s investigation is nearing an end in the Darfur war crimes case, Mike Newton, Vanderbilt University‘s international criminal law expert, can discuss the legal issues surrounding crimes against humanity. Read More