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--May 10, 2006--Chicago-Kent College of Law, the Stuart Graduate School
of Business and the Center for 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/advisory.
The First Amendment does not protect government whistleblowers who disclose wrongdoing as part of their jobs. In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday said local, state and federal employers have heightened interests in controlling speech made by employees in their professional capacities that outweigh employees’ free speech rights. The justices said such employees "are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes." The ruling affects approximately 20 million public sector employees. Professor Martin H. Malin is director of Chicago-Kent’s Institute for Law and the Workplace and is a co-author of Public Sector Employment: Cases and Materials, the leading law school casebook on public sector law. Professor Malin is available for interviews about the case. Constitutional scholar Sheldon H. Nahmod is also available for interviews.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee will ask the attorney general and FBI director to testify about their decision to search a congressman’s office. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) said he will ask Justice Department officials to explain why the Capitol Hill office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) was raided earlier this month. Congressman Jefferson is the target of a federal criminal investigation. Last week, President Bush entered the controversy by ordering that the files removed from Jefferson’s office be sealed for 45 days. Chicago-Kent Dean Harold J. Krent is the author of the book Presidential Powers and a law review article "Of Diaries and Databases: Use Restrictions Under the Fourth Amendment." Dean Krent is available for interviews.
Immigration reform. The U.S. Senate last week passed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (CIRA) by a vote of 62-36. The Senate version legislation must now be reconciled with H.R. 4437, the House’s controversial immigration reform bill passed last December. Professor Matthew I. Bernstein, who oversees Chicago-Kent’s Immigration Law Clinic, is available for interviews about immigration reform legislation. Professor Bernstein can also discuss how CIRA differs from the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
An asterisk for Barry Bonds? The San Francisco Giants slugger has secured his place in baseball history by passing Babe Ruth in career home runs. However, Bonds’ record-breaking season has been overshadowed by allegations of steroid use, which he repeatedly has denied. Several investigations are underway. Adjunct professor and sports attorney Eldon L. Ham says that if it can be proven that Bonds willingly used steroids, Major League Baseball "should qualify his records accordingly. But short of that, baseball at least should give Roger Maris and Hank Aaron a real asterisk, designating them as ‘ . . . the last home run recordholders in the pre-steroid era.’" Professor Ham, the author of Larceny & Old Leather: The Mischievous Legacy of Major League Baseball, is available for interviews.
The disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa remains a mystery. After nearly two weeks of digging at an Oakland County, Michigan, horse farm once owned by a Hoffa associate, investigators have given up their search for Hoffa’s body. Local police officers joined FBI agents from Detroit, Chicago and Washington, D.C., in the search. The former Teamsters’ union president disappeared in July of 1975. Since that time, numerous rumors have surfaced regarding the possible whereabouts of Hoffa’s body. Professor Martin H. Malin, the author of Individual Rights Within the Union, is available for interviews about the Teamsters’ Union and the Jimmy Hoffa era.
Books by Kurt Vonnegut, Kate Chopin, Toni Morrison, Walter Dean Myers and Julia Alvarez were among nine titles challenged by a group of parents in Chicago’s northwest suburbs. After a lengthy discussion, the board of High School District 214 – the state’s second largest school district – voted 6-1 to retain all nine books on the required reading lists. Adjunct professors Nancy Z. Hablutzel and William C. Kling, experts in school law, are available for interviews about the controversy.
Downtown Campus Events
June 9: 25th annual Conference on Not-For-Profit Organizations. This one-day seminar is presented by a faculty of leading organization executives, attorneys, accountants and government officials. Program highlights include "Planning for Disaster Relief," "Good Governance and Protections for Directors and Officers," "Lobbying and Political Activities," and "Real Estate and Sales Tax Issues." Workshops will also focus on the legislative and regulatory environment in Washington, D.C., for tax-exempt organizations, new electronic filing requirements for IRS Form 990, and a report from the office of the Illinois Attorney General on issues affecting not-for-profit groups in the state. For more information, call (312) 906-5090.
June 17: Stuart Graduate School of Business Commencement exercises. Harvey Kahalas, newly appointed dean of the Stuart School, will deliver the commencement address. For the past nine years, Kahalas has served as dean and professor at the School of Business Administration at Wayne State University in Detroit and as executive director of Wayne’s Institute for Organizational and Industrial Competitiveness. The program will begin at 11 a.m. on the IIT Main Campus in the Hermann Union Building (HUB), 3241 S. Federal Street, in Chicago.
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