For more information, please contact:
Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251
ADVISORY TO PRODUCERS, COLUMNISTS, AND ASSIGNMENT, PLANNING, SPORTS, LEGAL, BUSINESS, CITY DESK AND FEATURES EDITORS
CHICAGO--July 27, 2009--Chicago-Kent College of Law and Stuart School of Business have experts available to discuss current issues. To reach experts on IIT's Downtown Campus, call Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251. Press releases and earlier advisories are available on our Web site: www.kentlaw.edu/news/advisory.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-6 to forward the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the full Senate. A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says full debate on the nomination would probably begin next week. Senator Reid hopes to hold a final vote on the nomination before the Senate begins its month-long recess on August 7. If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor, who currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, would replace retired Justice David Souter. Judge Sotomayor, 54, was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush and was named to the federal appellate bench in 1997 by President Bill Clinton. Chicago-Kent experts are available for interviews.
Don't ask, don't tell. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has announced the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearings in the fall to review the military's ban on gays serving in the military. No specific legislation on the policy currently is being considered. Citing statistics released by the Center for American Progress, Sen. Gillibrand says more than 13,000 people have been discharged from the military for violating "don't ask, don't tell" since the policy went into effect in 1993, with 265 of those service members discharged since President Obama took office in January. Professor Michael I. Spak, an expert on military law, is available for interviews about the policy. Professor Spak served on active duty with the U.S. Army in the Judge Advocate General's Corps from 1963 to 1969 and has remained in the U.S. Army Reserve. As Colonel Spak, he is currently liaison officer of the Judge Advocate General's School in Charlottesville, Virginia. Professor Spak is the author of the law review articles The U.S. Military Should Give Up Its Excuses and Change Its Policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" to a Policy of Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Don't Ask (and) Don't Tell Don't Work: Now What?
Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is "seriously considering" lifting Pete Rose's lifetime ban from the sport, opening the possibility that Rose could be named to the Baseball Hall of Fame, according to a published report in the New York Daily News. The story says the commissioner could be influenced by "behind-the-scenes lobbying" from former home-run king Hank Aaron and Rose's former teammates Frank Robinson and Joe Morgan. (Robinson and Morgan are members of the Hall of Fame's board of directors.) In accordance with league rules, then-baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Rose from baseball for life for betting on baseball. In 1989, one day before the ban, Rose signed a document that did not admit any guilt and included a provision that allowed him to apply for reinstatement after one year. Rose unsuccessfully applied in 1997, and in 2002 he met with current commissioner Bud Selig regarding reinstatement to the game. Selig indicated that any consideration of Rose's reinstatement would be contingent upon a public admission of guilt. For nearly 15 years, Rose denied he bet on baseball. However, in 2004, the former Cincinnati Reds star and manager admitted in his autobiography that he bet on games "four or five times a week." Sports law attorney and adjunct professor Eldon L. Ham is the author of Larceny and Old Leather: The Mischievous Legacy of Major League Baseball (Academy Chicago Press 2005). Professor Ham is available to discuss the Pete Rose controversy and how Rose's reinstatement to the game might impact other banned players such as "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and Buck Weaver.
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