For more information,
please contact:
Gwen Osborne,
director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251
ADVISORY TO PRODUCERS, COLUMNISTS AND ASSIGNMENT,
LEGAL, PLANNING, BUSINESS, AND DAYBOOK EDITORS
CHICAGO-- February 10, 2003--Chicago-Kent
College of Law, the Stuart Graduate School of Business
and the Center for Law and Financial Markets have
experts available to discuss current issues. To reach
any of our experts, call Gwen
Osborne, director of public affairs, at (312)
906-5251. Copies of press releases and earlier advisories
are available on our Web site: http://www.kentlaw.edu/news/
You Don't Know Auctions!: Each year, Internet
auction fraud costs American consumers approximately
$5 million. The most prevalent complaints involve
identity theft, misrepresented merchandise or undelivered
goods. How can consumers protect themselves? Students
in the Honors Scholars Program at Chicago-Kent College
of Law have collaborated with the City of Chicago
Department of Consumer Services and AT&T to create
"You Don't Know Auctions!", an interactive
Internet game to educate the public about online auctions
and to caution them about the dangers of auction fraud.
The Web address for the game is www.youdontknowauctions.com.
Dean Harold J.
Krent and honors scholars are available for
interviews.
On Friday, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix will
deliver an update to the UN Security Council detailing
what his team has found in Iraq. The Bush administration
has been unable to convince the majority of the 19
NATO-member countries to back its plan for war with
Iraq. Ambassadors from 16 countries will wait until
Blix's report is presented before they decide whether
to join the U.S., Great Britain and Turkey in calling
for military strikes against Iraq. Foreign policy
experts and Chicago-Kent professors Bartram
S. Brown and Henry
H. Perritt, Jr. are available for comment.
Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan
Tuesday told the Senate Banking Committee that a possible
war with Iraq is the single biggest threat to economic
health. What impact could a war have on the U.S. economy?
Professor Howard Simons of IIT's Center for Law and Financial
Markets is available for interviews.
Governor Rod Blagojevich last week signed into law
the Illinois Military Family Relief Fund Act
to help National Guard and reservist families cover
basic needs. There is often a disparity between military
and civilian pay. The fund, which accepts private
donations, was established to help households whose
incomes are decreased when a family member is called
up for active duty. Professor Michael
I. Spak, a colonel in the U.S. Army reserves,
is a co-author of Servicemember's
Legal Guide: Everything You and Your Family Need to
Know About the Law. He can discuss legal matters
of concern to members of the armed services, including
the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Soldiers'
and Sailors' Relief Act of 1940.
Chicago leads the nation in jobs lost, according
to statistics released last week by the U.S. Labor
Department. In 2002, the metropolitan Chicago area
lost 57,400 jobs, primarily in the manufacturing sector.
Chicago's unemployment rate is 6.5 percent, compared
to 6 percent nationwide. Henry
H. Perritt, Jr., a former deputy under secretary
of labor, currently is executive director of IIT's
Center for Law and Financial Markets. He is available
for interviews about how those in the financial services
and financial markets industries can update their
skills to remain competitive.
It's more than Tang and moon rocks. Eliezer
Geisler, professor and associate dean for
research at Stuart Graduate School of Business, says
the benefits of America's space program to our daily
lives "came not from specific devices generated
by the space program, but from applications of the
knowledge and technologies." Professor Geisler,
author of Creating Value with
Science and Technology, points to the long-term
value that resulted in advances in transportation,
communications and medicine. He is available for interviews.
President Bush has proposed eliminating the tax
rate on investors' dividend earnings. Professor
Keith Black of IIT's Center for Law and
Financial Markets says, "While this move will
cause a large decline in federal revenue, and will
likely be opposed by Democrats as a ‘gift to
the rich,' it may cause a change in many companies'
dividend policies." Professor Black says that
in the U.S. corporate income is taxed twice -- once
at the corporate level and again when investors pay
taxes on dividend distributions. While many investors
are asking large corporations for increased dividend
payments, a weak profit picture may preclude companies
from safely offering higher dividends to their stockholders.
What does this bode for the valuation levels of the
U.S. markets? Professor Black is available for interviews.
"Baseball as America," a new exhibit
at the Field Museum, chronicles the nation's love
affair with the sport. Adjunct professor and sports
attorney Eldon L. Ham, who will participate
in a symposium to commemorate the 100th anniversary
of the World Series later this year, is available
for interviews. In addition to current baseball issues,
he can talk about the first regular season radio broadcast,
WGN's opening day coverage of the Cubs-Pirates' game
on April 14, 1925; the Chicago headquarters of commissioner
Kennesaw Mountain Landis, and the Black Sox scandal.
Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 drama,
A Raisin in the Sun, has been selected
as the next book in the city's "One Book, One
Chicago" program. There will be citywide readings,
video presentations and discussions of the book and
the issue of race and housing in Chicago. Events in
Hansberry's award-winning play were inspired by her
father's legal challenge to restrictive covenants
in Chicago real estate sales that prevented African-Americans
from living in certain neighborhoods. The U.S. Supreme
Court heard the case, Hansberry v. Lee, in
1940. Chicago-Kent professor
A. Dan Tarlock teaches courses in property
law. Professor Tarlock is available to talk about
the Supreme Court decision and about racially restrictive
covenants in Chicago prior to 1948.
Robert S. Abbott graduated in 1898 from what is
now Chicago-Kent College of Law. Abbott was best
known for founding the Chicago
Defender in 1905 and expanding it into the
country's most influential African-American publication.
He is credited with focusing the nation's attention
on lynching, Jim Crow laws and racial discrimination.
The Defender, which
was outlawed in several states, encouraged African
Americans to leave the rural South for the urban North
in the early 20th century, giving rise to what was
called "The Great Migration." Chicago-Kent
has rededicated a scholarship to honor Abbott. The
scholarship provides funding for law students from
underrepresented minority groups. Richard Van Hees,
assistant dean for institutional advancement, is available
for interviews about the program.
On the Downtown Campus:
March 11: "Hospitality Begins with a Quality
Union Contract: The Union's Role in Reviving the Industry"
is the topic of the fifth annual Distinguished Labor
Leader Lecture delivered by John W. Wilhelm,
president, Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees
International Union, AFL-CIO. The program, which is
free and open to the public, will be held in the Gov.
Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium. The Distinguished Labor
Leader Lecture series presents addresses by leading
labor leaders on critical issues in the workplace.
The program is co-sponsored by the Chicago Federation
of Labor, AFL-CIO and Chicago-Kent's Institute for
Law and the Workplace. For more information, call
(312) 906-5090 or visit www.kentlaw.edu/depts/cle
on the Web.
March 27-28: 20th annual conference on Section 1983
Civil Rights Litigation. This two-day seminar
provides a comprehensive update, presented by leading
practitioners and legal scholars, on liability arising
out of Section 1983 and other civil rights statutes.
Police misconduct litigation, sexual harassment, municipal
liability, land use regulation, the Americans with
Disabilities Act, and recent cases before the U.S.
Supreme Court are among the topics to be explored.
For more information, call (312) 906-5090 or visit
www.kentlaw.edu/depts/cle/
on the Web.
--DTC--
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