Faculty in the News
In January Faculty Fellow Bernadette Atuahene was invited by Ariana Huffington to become a featured blogger on the Huffington Post. Since then she has published two blog entries: “Haiti: Has God Turned His Back on the Country?” and “We Need to Anticipate Terrorists, Not React to Them.” Based on her Huffington Post blog post on terrorism, the BBC Radio program, World Have Your Say, invited her to participate in a one-hour show on January 5, 2010. On Sunday, January 31, 2010, she appeared on the Rainbow Push-sponsored talk show, International Sunday School Broadcast to speak about terrorism and the Haiti earthquake. This show is regularly broadcast on Chicago Cable 25 on Sunday mornings.
Atuahene's editorial, “Congress must do more for those evicted,” was published in the Athens Banner Herald and four other regional newspapers, on October 25, 2009.
John Comaroff’s research was cited in the opinion piece “ ‘Lawfare’ puts courts in the political firing line,” by Judge Dennis Davis, Cape Times (S. Africa), January 4, 2010, and in “The Dark Side of ‘Lawfare’,” an edited and abridged version of a lecture given by advocate Michelle le Roux at the University of Cape Town's Summer School on January 20, published in the Mail& Guardian Online (S. Africa), February 5, 2010.
John Hagan’s book, Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada, was cited in the article “Canadian Prime Minister is determined to send back the some 200 American asylum-seekers,” by Sandra Contenta, MinnPost.com, January 11, 2010.
Hagan and Holly Foster’s finding that “having a father undergo incarceration is associated with increased likelihood of homelessness, lack of civic engagement and decreased likelihood of having health insurance” was quoted in “Parental Incarceration and Adversity in Young Adulthood,” by Michael E. Roettger, Corrections Today, December 1, 2009.
In March, 2010 Terence Halliday and co-author Bruce Carruthers were awarded the American Sociology Association Law Book Prize for Bankrupt: Global Lawmaking and Systemic Financial Crisis (2009).
Halliday presented a program with his current collaborator, former ABF Research Associate Sida Liu (now of the University of Wisconsin- Madison), at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in late November 2009. Halliday and Liu addressed the Winston Lord Roundtable on Asia, the Rule of Law, and U.S. Foreign Policy, with the question: Are Lawyers the Vanguard of Political Liberalism in China?
The Duke University Chronicle reported on the Sanford School of Public Policy seminar, “Investing in Children” where James Heckman was the keynote speaker. Arguing the merits of early childhood education, Heckman said, “even things that are genetically determined are moderated by the effects of the environment.” Heckman also noted that early childhood interventions are much more effective than remedial programs later in life. “Panel seeks increased government spending on children,” Duke University Chronicle, March 30, 2010.
In January, Heckman addressed the Missouri Leaders Summit on Early Childhood Investment, held at the St. Louis Federal Reserve. Said Heckman, “The real measure of child poverty is the quality of parenting. Family environments…are major predictors of cognitive and socio-emotional abilities as well as crime, health and obesity.” “U Chicago economist argues benefits of early childhood intervention at MO Leaders Summit,” by Laura Flavin, St. Louis American, January 7, 2010.
Heckman was quoted in a Chicago Tribune article on Parents Too Soon, a home visiting program that teaches parenting skills to low-income, at-risk mothers. “Reshaping the fate of mother and son; with help from a counselor’s visits, a teen tries to overcome her violent past so her son can enjoy a future,” by Stephanie Branchero, Chicago Tribune, December 3, 2009.
On February 9, 2010 Bonnie Honig inaugurated her tenure as the Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor in Political Science at Northwestern University with the public lecture, “Antigone Interrupted: Greek Tragedy and the Future of Humanism.”
“Freakonomics: The Movie,” a documentary film adaptation of Steven D. Levitt’s best-selling book Freakonomics (2005, co-authored with Stephen J. Dubner), made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 30, 2010. The film was co-directed by Heidi Ewing, Alex Gibney, Seth Gordon, Rachel Grady, Eugene Jarecki, and Morgan Spurlock.
“Kill our cows- and save the planet,” by Tom Leonard, Telegraph Online, October 13, 2009, reported on Levitt’s and Dubner’s latest book, Superfreakonomics (2009).
Laura Beth Nielsen was quoted in an article that reported on three cases before the Supreme Court, involving “fee shifting, ” an approach that helps ensure that lawyers are paid for work in certain types of cases. Said Nielsen, “These are, for the most part, underrepresented people. They’re poor, they’re children, and they’re often going up against the biggest defendant there is, the U.S. government, and everything we do to make that harder is a threat to everyone’s civil rights.” “Are Ordinary People Losing Access to Courts? US Supreme Court reviews three cases about attorneys’ fees,” by Holly Yeager, AARP Bulletin Today, March 15 2010.