Faculty in the News

Columbia Law School Clip Report, November 16–30, 2017

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The Independent—November 16, 2017
Amid the carnage in Yemen, civilians also face consequences of the US war on terror
“These families told us that they lost loved ones, they lost valuable property, and they watched people bleed to death before their eyes. They don’t have the funds or ability to access necessary medical care,” said Sarah Knuckey, a Columbia University international law professor who has extensively researched drone strikes and US counterterrorism.

 

The Times—November 17, 2017
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brexit-may-be-just-what-british-trade-needs-pqlhw9ltc
And guess who actually decides most of those rules? The EU. Columbia Law School professor Anu Bradford calls this the “Brussels effect”. European rules on everything from food, chemicals and the internet have effectively become global standards.

Vox.com—November 17, 2017
The Republican tax bill is far, far, far worse than it had to be
Luckily there’s a plan in Congress that achieves that goal, is revenue-neutral, and doesn’t raise taxes on the poor or middle class. It’s Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-MD) Progressive Consumption Tax Act . . . The plan, based on a proposal by Columbia tax law professor Michael Graetz, accomplishes basically all of Republicans’ substantive tax reform goals.

AP—November 19, 2017
Trump era sparks new debate about nuclear war authority
Matthew Waxman, a professor at Columbia Law School, says changes of this sort would put a valuable check on the president and protect his nuclear authority from potential military insubordination.

Lawfare—November 19, 2017
Safeguarding Nuclear Launch Procedures: A Proposal
By Matthew Waxman, Richard K. Betts
“Right now, the president can launch a nuclear first-strike on his authority alone. Below we outline a proposal to constrain that authority. This proposal grows out of discussions within a study group at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies consisting of eminent experts on nuclear policy and civil-military relations.”

The New York Times—November 19, 2017
Why Is New York Full of Empty Stores?
To borrow from Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor who has examined the issue, “Blight extracts a social cost.”

The Register—November 20, 2017
Open-source defenders turn on each other in 'bizarre' trademark fight sparked by GPL fall out
To hear SFLC executive director and Columbia Law School professor Eben Moglen tell it, the case stems from three years of being unable to arrange a meeting with SFC's executive director Karen Sandler and SFC president Bradley Kuhn to discuss some issues.

Bloomberg—November 20, 2017
John Kapoor Charged in Opiate Bribe Scheme (Audio)
John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, and Robert Hockett, a professor at Cornell Law School, discuss charges against billionaire John Kapoor for a scheme to illegally pay doctors to help boost sales of his company’s opioid-based painkiller.

The Washington Post—November 21, 2017
AT&T-Time Warner antitrust suit leaves tech firms wary
“This signals an active Justice Department, and that can’t be great news for a company like Facebook, which has a pretty well-known reputation for wiping out its competitors,” said Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, the author of “The Attention Merchants.”

The Washington Post—November 21, 2017
The Trump administration’s AT&T lawsuit looks political, but motive might not matter in court
“The U.S. has made an enormous effort over the past decades to advocate sound antitrust policies abroad,” said Anu Bradford, an antitrust specialist at Columbia Law School. “The [Justice Department] and the FTC have, in particular, emphasized the need to stick to economic analysis and taken a firm stand that merger control should not be used for political ends.”

Marketplace—November 21, 2017
FCC targets net neutrality
Big carriers argue that net neutrality stifles innovation in a fast-moving industry.  But Columbia law professor Tim Wu says net neutrality rules have been in place for years and, “this is just upending something which has been working really well,” he argues.

Note: See special section* on additional net neutrality coverage following the main report.

The New York Times—November 21, 2017
AT&T Suit May Herald a New Antitrust Era-Or Trumpian Pique
For regulators to reject a vertical merger "represents a stark departure from the U.S. enforcement practice of the recent decades," Columbia law professor Anu Bradford said in an email.

E&E News—November 21, 2017
FERC, pipelines and climate change: Revolution in progress?
Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, noted that broader disclosure can yield tangible benefits, including prompting developers to propose projects with a smaller footprint in the first place and mobilizing private citizens to voice their concerns.

Marco Eagle—November 22, 2017
The Bookworm: Past meets present
The ring’s on your finger, the engagement was just announced and you both feel like you’ve got plenty of time. Now’s your chance to enjoy the process of getting married. Here’s your opportunity to plan the future. But “Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality” by Katherine Franke asks the question: Why marry at all?

AP—November 22, 2017
Trump Admin Suit Over AT&T-Time Warner Merger Signals New Antitrust Era
For regulators to reject a vertical merger “represents a stark departure from the U.S. enforcement practice of the recent decades,” Columbia law professor Anu Bradford said in an email.

CNN—November 23, 2017
Trump Justice Department puts Corporate America on notice
“This marks the beginning of an ice age,” said Tim Wu, a professor of antitrust law at Columbia Law School. “The burden is on companies now to prove they’ll help Joe Six Pack on the street and not just improve their defense against competitors.”

The Economist—November 23, 2017
Taxing inheritances is falling out of favour
In their book “Death by a Thousand Cuts”, on the politics of the American estate tax, Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro describe the emerging consensus that taxing inherited wealth was unfair and unwise.

Voice of America—November 25, 2017
Trial of Turkish-Iranian Trader to Start Without Main Suspect
“One cannot be sure, but the most likely explanation for the release of a detained defendant, in the absence of any formal release from detention, is that he is in the custody of the FBI,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor now a professor at Columbia University in New York.

Balkinization—November, 25, 2017
Expanding the Judiciary, the Senate Rules, and the Small-c constitution
As David Pozen and Joey Fishkin argue in a forthcoming article, there may be political reasons for the fact that Democrats continue to treat politics as an iterated game, but among the reasons can't be that it is an iterated game.

ABC—November 26, 2017
A poison in our island
“The bottom of the dome is just what was left behind by the nuclear weapons explosion,” says Michael Gerrard, the chair of Columbia University’s Earth Institute in New York. “It’s permeable soil. There was no effort to line it. And therefore, the seawater is inside the dome.”

E&E News—November 27, 2017
Trump races to pick judges who oversee environment cases
Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, said he's also expecting to see “a lot more litigation about fossil fuel extraction, especially on federal lands and waters,” as the Trump administration seeks to expand domestic energy production.

Law.com—November 27, 2017
Vast Majority of NY Law Schools Improve Bar Exam Passing Rates
For the second year in a row, graduates of NYU, Columbia and Cornell performed the best on the New York State bar exam with a 97.9 percent success rate for NYU graduates and the other two schools not far behind.

The Journal of Things We Like (Lots)—November 28, 2017
Is FOIA Actually Hurting Democracy?
David Pozen’s Freedom of Information Beyond the Freedom of Information Act has compellingly questioned this fundamental assumption, giving me more pause than anything else I have read in quite some time.

The New York Times—November 28, 2017
E.P.A. Heads to Coal Country to Hear Views on an Obama Climate Rule
Holding the hearing in West Virginia “is like holding the only hearing on financial deregulation at the Wall Street Hilton — it does not denote a keen interest in alternative views,” Michael B. Gerrard, the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, said in an interview last week.

SCOTUSblog—November 28, 2018
Argument analysis: Justices frustrated by “gibberish” in statutes limiting state-court adjudication of securities class actions
By Ronald Mann
“Presumably the justices won’t issue an opinion concluding that the statute means nothing. But the tenor of the argument suggests that they may have a hard time finding a reading to which all of them can subscribe.”

EcoWatch—November 28, 2017
A Tiny Island Used as a Nuclear Dumpsite Is About to Be Submerged by Water
In this way, Enewetak "is at the intersection of two of the biggest problems of the last century and this century, nuclear weapons and sea level rise," Michael Gerrard, the chair of Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York who has studied the atoll, told Global Citizen.

The Globe and Mail—November 30, 2017
White House plan to replace Tillerson would cap unprecedented period in U.S. foreign policy
Prof. Waxman, who now teaches at Columbia University's law school, said Mr. Tillerson's instinct to reform the bureaucracy is correct, but that he appears to have irreparably "botched" the process. “I've never seen morale so low at the State Department and there's a tragic drain of talent going on that will be hard to remedy,” he said.

LA Times—November 30, 2017
Industries that cheered Trump's climate regulation rollbacks now worry they'll go too far
Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, said the companies that fought the Clean Power Plan have reason to be anxious about the prospect of nothing taking its place. “They are seeing a perceived opportunity to weaken regulations slip away,” Burger said in an email.

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*Special report on Tim Wu’s commentary/quotes on net neutrality

Following the FCC’s Nov. 21 proposal to repeal net neutrality rules, Tim Wu has been at the center of news coverage of this announcement, criticizing and commenting on the potential implications of a rollback. Here are highlights:

CNN—November 21, 2017
Trump administration sends mixed messages on big media
"People are just kind of confused," said Tim Wu, a professor of antitrust law at Columbia Law School who opposes the Trump administration's plan to repeal the protections. "It's like the Trump administration at large -- there is no rhyme or reason or consistency behind the decisions it makes.

The New York Times—November 22, 2017
Why the Courts Will Have to Save Net Neutrality
By Tim Wu
“In our times, the judiciary has increasingly become a majoritarian force. It alone, it seems, can prevent narrow, self-interested factions from getting the government to serve unseemly and even shameful ends. And so it falls to the judiciary to stop this latest travesty.”

NOTE: This op-ed was talked about widely on social media and was cited by a series of publications, including Recode, Techmeme, the Washington Examiner, TechSpot, the Santa Fe New Mexican, the Terre Haute Tribune Star, and Common Dreams.

The New York Times—November 22, 2017
Net Neutrality Repeal: What Could Happen and How It Could Affect You
Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University who is credited with coining the phrase “net neutrality,” said the repeal plan not only rolls back the Obama-era rules, it goes further. It specifically permits broadband carriers to block media content, Mr. Wu said, an added power which was not the case during the administration of George W. Bush.

The Seattle Times—November 22, 2017
Undoing net neutrality an economic blow
In 2002, Tim Wu, then a professor at the University of Virginia and now at Columbia University, coined the term network neutrality in a paper. He wrote, “The neutrality principle here proposed would allow consumers to reach any internet application or operate any kind of home network while also preserving the ability of operators to police network abuse.”

NPR, “All Things Considered”—November 26, 2017
Net Neutrality: The Long View (Audio)
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has released a proposal to repeal all of the agency's rules governing net neutrality. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with the man who coined the term "net neutrality," Columbia University law professor Tim Wu.

Newsweek—November 28, 2017
Nazis Want Net Neutrality Repealed to 'Unleash a Plague of Frogs on Twitter.' It Won’t Happen
Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, and the man credited with coining the phrase “net neutrality” in 2002, told Newsweek that the idea that a net neutrality repeal would somehow empower trolls was an “extremely bizarre idea.”

WNYC—November 29, 2017
Capitol Pressroom (Audio)
What is net neutrality and how will the internet be impacted if it is taken away? Tim Wu, Author and Professor at Columbia University broke it down for us.

 

 

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This report shares mentions of Law School faculty cited in print, broadcast, and online news outlets. It is not intended to be inclusive of every media mention.