Law

High tech trends like online music sharing, podcasting, blogging and streaming Internet video services seem to be evolving faster than you can click a mouse. But how are laws and business models changing to keep pace with these innovations? Read More

Vanderbilt clinical professor of law Alex Hurder has spent much of his career championing the rights of people with mental and physical disabilities. Now Hurder is taking on an even more powerful role as an advocate for individuals with disabilities. Read More

A new study led by Nancy King, Lee S. and Charles A. Speir Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University, finds that fewer state convictions and sentences are being ruled unconstitutional by federal courts. Read More

A new private stock market created by NASDAQ for mega-rich investors may be considered one of most significant developments on Wall Street in decades, but it's not such a great idea, according to Vanderbilt international trade and investment expert Chris Brummer. Read More

Another Supreme Court term has come to a close, and, while many things changed in the law, one thing stayed the same: The justices spent much of their time reversing the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Read More

In a court of law, a person is innocent until proven guilty. But when a person's photograph and arrest information are posted on television newscasts, newspapers, radio reports and Web sites, he or she is essentially being painted as a criminal before being tried by a judge or jury. That's the opinion of University Professor of Constitutional Law & Health Law & Policy James Blumstein. Blumstein is going to U.S. District Court on July 11 to convince a judge to enforce a 33-year-old court order that bans Nashville Metro Police from giving out raw arrest information. Read More

The recent school desegregation decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court drive home three important lessons. Read More

An Op-ed by Claire Smrekar, associate professor of education and public policy, on the recent U. S. Supreme Court ruling regarding race-based assignment plans for the school districts of Louisville, Ky. and Seattle, Wash. Read More

Today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling to allow issues ads funded by corporations and labor unions to air close to an election has major implications for the 2008 presidential campaign, according to Vanderbilt University political scientist John Geer. Read More

The United States Supreme Court is set to make decisions on a number of hotly debated cases and a diverse group of Vanderbilt University experts is ready to talk about those cases. Read More

America's past immigrant experience should be studied by those wanting to overhaul current immigration laws, says historian Gary Gerstle. Read More

Emeritus Vanderbilt Law Professor Theodore (Ted) Smedley, who helped define law education at Vanderbilt and who thrust the law school onto the national scene, died of a heart attack June 15. He was 94. Read More

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