A judge’s decision that the word “victim” generally could not be used in court to refer to the people shot by Kyle Rittenhouse after protests in Kenosha, Wis., last year drew widespread attention and outrage this week. But legal experts say that determining who should be considered a victim — in a case that hinges on Mr. Rittenhouse’s assertion of self-defense — is at the center of what jurors must decide in his trial, expected to begin next week. Mary Fan, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
Robert Goulder of Tax Notes and Jeffery M. Kadet of the ºìÌÒÊÓƵ discuss the House Ways and Means Committee proposal to eliminate key features of the subpart F regime.
When Gov. Jay Inslee issued his COVID-19 vaccine mandate for state employees, he left in somewhat of a legal loophole allowing employers to grant “reasonable accommodation for medical or religious reasons.” The medical reasons part is pretty self-explanatory. The religious reasons part? Not so much. Patricia Kuszler, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
Remarks at The SEC Speaks in 2021. Professor Fan's scholarship is cited in footnote 22: "For a thoughtful review of the information generally available to investors in private markets, see Jennifer S. Fan, Regulating Unicorns: Disclosure and the New Private Economy, 57 B.C. L. Rev. 583 (2016)."
The Office of Police Accountability says they are investigating a Seattle police officer after the Seattle Police Department filed a complaint last week. The concern comes from troublesome tweets which may have been made by the officer. William Bailey, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
“It does sound unusual, but it's worth noting that this whole circumstance is unusual,” says Tim O’Brien, a tech industry executive currently working on AI policy at Microsoft, who studied geofence warrants at the ºìÌÒÊÓƵ. “If I were law enforcement, I would argue that the three-step process is unnecessary in this case, because the moment you set foot inside the Capitol, you became a suspect or witness.”
While homicides committed across the United States spiked by nearly 30% last year according to FBI data released this week, the surge wasn’t quite as pronounced in Washington, which saw a 21% increase in killings amid the pandemic. Mary Fan, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
A seldom-used state law allows vigilante criminal prosecutions — and the state Supreme Court just opted to leave it on the books. Hugh Spitzer, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
Advanced cameras and artificial intelligence allow robot vacuums to move deftly around your home — new features that concern privacy experts. Ryan Calo, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a set of aggressive measures aimed at beating back a nationwide surge in coronavirus cases driven by the highly infectious delta variant, including new federal vaccine and testing requirements for large companies and health care workers. Hugh Spitzer, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s Amazon-busting legislation, the “Ending Platform Monopolies Act” that would potentially force the company’s dismantling, has earned Biden administration support, the 7th District Democrat said in an interview with GeekWire. Douglas Ross, affiliate instructor of law at the UW, is quoted.
“Utah, in this case, is part of a trend across the country of judges trying to address concerns that video is missing,” said Mary Fan, a law professor at the University of Washington who has written a book on police cameras.
In den USA zeichnet sich ein Paradigmenwechsel ab. Die geplante Kartellrechtsreform könnte die Tech-Konzerne zu Fall bringen. (The United States is about to face a paradigm shift. Planned proposals for an overhaul of existing antitrust laws could see Big Tech stumbling.)
“Startups have a seemingly intractable problem: a lack of diversity. Despite research showing that diverse founding teams have a higher rate of return than white founding teams, one characteristic of startups remains relatively unchanged: the dearth of BIPOC and women founders, investors, board members, and counsel in the venture capital ecosystem,” writes Jennifer Fan, UW assistant professor of law.
“We are now called to answer similar opportunities to help — for humanitarian reasons and in service to our own country — as refugees continue their arrival from Afghanistan, again at the bitter conclusion of war,” writes the Everett Herald Editorial Board. John Haley, affiliate professor of law at the UW, is featured.
In assessing whether an employee’s words should result in discipline, the government has to weigh how much consequence the speech has for the work the employee or employer does, Spitzer said. The consequences in Kuper’s case would have been greater had he been a superintendent or a nurse, or posted the comments from the school district’s Facebook account. “But I will say that this particular CFO has probably reduced his effectiveness and value to the district by using pretty bad judgment,” said Spitzer.
Some state workers have suggested lawsuits against Gov. Inslee's new vaccine mandate. Hugh Spitzer, professor of law at the UW, is interviewed.
The Washington state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and two advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit over the November ballot initiative known as “Compassion Seattle,” which would require the city to quickly build 2,000 shelter units and then potentially give the next mayor grounds to ramp up camp removals to keep parks and sidewalks clear. Hugh Spitzer, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
A top Federal Trade Commission official dismissed Facebook’s justification for cutting off researchers’ access to data as “inaccurate.” Facebook said it disabled the accounts of researchers at the New York University Ad Observatory to comply with an agreement with the FTC. Ryan Calo, professor of law at the UW, is quoted. [This is part of "The Technology 202" update]
For years, immigrant rights advocates have been saying that ICE deliberately retaliates against activists. It's a charge ICE consistently denies. But advocates say there's a growing body of evidence that can't be ignored — and they're urging the Biden administration to do something about it. A report by the UW School of Law Immigration Clinic is referenced.
Fan said the answer to this issue is not something for an expert to decide; it's something for communities to decide. What the public wants will look different across the county and should be democratically decided.
A rapidly growing number of U.S. states, including Colorado, California and New York, have turned to ID.me, which uses facial recognition software, in hopes of cutting down on a surge of fraudulent claims for state and federal benefits that cropped up during the pandemic alongside a tidal wave of authentic unemployment claims. Ryan Calo, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
A Senate committee on Thursday approved the nomination of Robert Anderson, professor emeritus of law at the UW and the longtime director of the University of Washington’s Native American Law Center, as the top lawyer at the Interior Department, advancing President Joe Biden’s nomination to a final vote of the full Senate.
The project offers clients access to a list of COVID-19 resources, a series of trainings on negotiation and one-on-one pro bono legal consultations. Demand for the offerings has been high, says Jennifer Fan, a UW law professor who is co-leading the project.
Amid all the voting changes in state laws, giving more power to partisan officials to overturn an election is at the top of the list of concerns. Lisa Manheim, associate professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
