News
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Street artist battles with GM over its photos of his Z Garage muralOn the top of what is likely Detroit's hippest parking structure, a mural is gaining attention. The focus on the colorful piece of artwork over the entrance to an elevator shaft, however, has as much to do with the artist's federal lawsuit against General Motors as it does about the impression left by the piece. The Swiss artist Adrian Falkner is accusing the Detroit automaker of copyright infringement in a GM ad campaign for Cadillac. Falkner, who signs his work "SMASH 137," maintains that the mural on top of the Z Garage, one piece of Dan Gilbert's empire of Bedrock-owned properties downtown, was a centerpiece of an ad campaign in 2016 for the Cadillac XT5. GM dismisses the claim, which seeks unspecified compensation. John Rothchild, an associate professor at Wayne State University Law School, said such cases are not necessarily unique. "It's not unusual to have a case challenging the use of an image in the background of an advertisement of a television program," he said. "That happens frequently. This is a little bit unusual because it involved graffiti in an outdoor location, but even that is not unique." -
Wayne Law names Weinberg associate dean for research and faculty developmentProfessor Jonathan T. Weinberg is Wayne State University Law School’s inaugural associate dean for research and faculty development.
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Supreme Court hands victory to pro-life crisis pregnancy centersOn June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers by holding that a 2015 California law regulating them, the Reproductive FACT Act, violates the First Amendment. I am a constitutional law professor who has written extensively on the First Amendment.
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Janus decision extends First Amendment ‘right of silence’Forty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state could require nonmembers of a public employee union to pay an “agency fee,” otherwise known as costs of collective bargaining, for their representation by the union.
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Trump could pardon himself from crimes committed while in officeUnless you’ve fallen into the sinkhole on the White House lawn, you’re well aware of President Trump’s Twitter declaration that he can pardon himself just like he would anyone else.
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Supreme Court ruling adds privacy protection for the digital ageThe Supreme Court has handed down a landmark privacy decision in a case about cellphone location data, suggesting there should be stronger protections against government searches for the increasing amount of private information that’s stored online.
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New European rules may give U.S. internet users true privacy choices for the first timeEurope’s new data privacy rules, the General Data Protection Regulation, have taken effect, but what they actually mean remains to be discovered. And whether the GDPR, as it’s known, really helps protect your private data may depend on complaints that Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist, filed against Google, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp on the day the regulation went into effect.
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Michigan could be on the verge of another drinking water crisisNick Schroeck with the Environmental Law Clinic at Wayne State University, says it used to be common for manufacturers to dispose of chemicals with little thought of long-term ramifications. “Back, pre-environmental law, think pre-1970s, you may have had chemicals that were just dumped out back behind the factory,” says Schroeck. ”Now we know these PFAS chemicals are very persistent in the environment, meaning they don’t break down. They’re in the environment for a very, very long time… They would accumulate over time in the groundwater plume under the soil.”
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Can religious business owners discriminate after Supreme Court baker ruling?A Supreme Court ruling in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a custom cake for a same-sex wedding could mark the first step toward allowing businesses to withhold certain services based on religious grounds, but it doesn't open the floodgates for widespread discrimination.
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Why Michigan needs to draw more revenue from its booming bottled water industryWhy Michigan needs to draw more revenue from its booming bottled water industry. Michigan, the “Great Lakes state,” sits in the middle of one-fifth of the Earth’s surface freshwater. It has a higher percentage of surface water than any other American state.
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Supreme Court to rule on your First Amendment right to silenceRobert Sedler, a professor of law at Wayne State University, examines the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and people’s right to remain silent. Supreme Court Justices have previously ruled that the government cannot compel people to speak its message or associate with ideas they do not hold. The Supreme Court will decide two right-to-silence cases this term. “The First Amendment protects a person’s right to convey his own message, to voice her own ideas and not to be compelled to publicly disclose personal beliefs and associations,” he said. “When the government tries to compel a person to speak its message, these rights are seriously damaged. The right to free speech is likewise violated when people are required to associate themselves with an idea with which they disagree.”
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Justice McCormack to keynote Wayne Law commencementMichigan Supreme Court Justice Bridget Mary McCormack will deliver the keynote address at Wayne State University Law School’s Commencement ceremony on Monday, May 14.
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Gang rape. Suicides. Shooting deaths. The dark side of social mediaOver the last two years, according to an analysis by the Free Press and BuzzFeed, at least 50 violent acts, two a month, have occurred on Facebook and Instagram live and Twitter's Periscope — the latest one here in Detroit. Criminologist Matthew Larson, an associate professor of criminology at Wayne State University, said given the millions of live-streams every day, "these acts of violence are especially rare and no doubt outliers."
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Potash: Another Great Lakes water withdrawalOpening a new potash mine in Western Michigan would bring almost 200 jobs and billions of dollars to the state’s economy. It would also require more water to be withdrawn at a location not far from the spot where Nestle is already withdrawing water at a rate that allows the company to package 4 million bottles of water a day.
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Carl Levin: Congress is falling short on its oversight dutiesThis week, the Wayne Law Review and the Levin Center at Wayne State University Law School will present a symposium on Congressional Oversight in the 21st Century.
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Three-year, $2.4 million grant expands WSU racial equityThe Detroit Equity Action Lab (DEAL), an initiative of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University Law School, will advance the cause of racial equity with the support of a $2.4 million grant awarded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
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WKKF awards $2.4 million to Wayne State for racial equity initiativeWayne State University in Detroit has announced a $2.4 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to expand a racial equity initiative at its law school.
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Kellogg Foundation awards $2.4 million to Wayne Law for racial equity initiativeThe W.K. Kellogg Foundation has awarded Wayne State University Law School a $2.4 million grant for phase two of its Detroit Equity Action Lab, an initiative to advance the cause of racial equity.
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It’s getting harder to prosecute politicians for corruptionThe McDonnell case signals an erosion of federal corruption laws. I contend that this ruling effectively allows elected leaders to do favors for donors while raking in bountiful campaign contributions or gifts from them – with little fear that they might cross the line into illegality.
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Abortion freedom of speech battle heading to the Supreme CourtWhether you’re for abortion or against – can the state force you to say anything about it? What about posting a notice with information for the other side? This year, the U.S. Supreme Court must decide.
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Taxpayers are subsidizing hush money for sexual harassment and assaultMany of the recent stories about sexual abuse claims against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and other powerful actors, journalists and executives mention settlements either they or their employers made to silence women who accused them of misconduct. These settlements often require alleged victims to sign a nondisclosure agreement – essentially a pledge of secrecy – in exchange for a cash payment. They are designed to keep the reputations of allegedly abusive high-flyers intact, an arrangement that can allow repeated wrongdoing. As a law professor who focuses on white-collar crime, what I find striking about these contracts is how they can be treated as tax-deductible business expenses. That means American taxpayers are helping foot the bill for keeping despicable behavior in the shadows.
