UW In The News

Op-Ed: Clerking for Justice Ginsburg, we learned about the law — but also about love

Law Firms Pay Supreme Court Clerks $400,000 Bonuses. What Are They Buying?

Ryan J. Owens, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the other author of the study, said its basic conclusion was that “knowing your former boss gives you a leg up.”

“When you clerk for a justice for a year, you come to know how that justice thinks very intimately,” he said. “You know the ins and outs of the justice’s thought processes.”

Two leaders urge colleges to encourage student voting

Chancellor Blank and Harvard University President Lawrence S. Bacow: If you are leading a college or university right now — or if you are making the academic year possible as a member of the faculty or staff at any one of our nation’s institutions of higher education — asking something more of your students in the midst of a global pandemic may seem impractical. But one assignment cannot wait. We urge you to encourage your students to register to vote, to become informed of the issues and the candidates, and to cast a ballot

Black Maternal and Child Health Alliance launched to improve the birth outcomes of Black mothers and babies in Dane County

Noted: The group will be co-chaired by inaugural members Dr. Tiffany Green, assistant professor in the Departments of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Alia Stevenson, Chief Programs Officer with the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness.

“The Black Maternal & Child Health Alliance is comprised of Black women serving in important roles in health care, our community, and as decision-makers and knowledge experts. Our highest priority is to ensure that the health and wellbeing of Black mothers remains front and center,” says Co-Chairs Green and Stevenson in a statement. “As the Alliance moves forward, we are pleased to join the Dane County Health Council as we work together to advance the health of Black mothers, babies and their families in this county.”

UW Madison COVID-19 dashboard gets a B+ grade in transparency

Ajay Sethi, a UW Madison associate professor in population sciences who works on the dashboard, said while universities do not have to report the information, they know it is important to do so.“Dashboards are common, and I think transparency is paramount right now during our pandemic,” he said.

Student debt is fueling the Black-white wealth gap — and pursuing a college degree has become ‘racialized,’ this professor says

That’s thanks in part to Fenaba Addo, an associate professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies debt and its role in racial wealth inequality. Addo’s research has shown, among other things, that the gap in student debt held by Black and white borrowers grows by 6.8% each year. As a result, Black young adults hold 10.4% less wealth on average than their white counterparts due to student debt.

To cope with covid anxiety try acceptance of uncertainty

Uncertainty can provoke a vicious cycle of anxiety, says Jack Nitschke, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Our brains help us get good at what we’re doing,” he says

Black voters in Wisconsin face threat to their voting rights

“It’s not a fair election system when one side has such a severe election advantage, and it was done intentionally,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Trump ‘Red Mirage’ Election Night Victory Is Unlikely, Political Scientists Say

Prof. Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Newsweek that Mendelsohn’s prediction was unlikely.

Wisconsin Braces for a Critical Court Ruling on Its Election

“The backers of Jill Stein were young and disaffected from the political system,” said Barry C. Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Typically, minor-party voters are looking for somebody that’s different from what the major parties are offering.” (The Libertarian candidate in 2016, Gary Johnson, received more than 106,000 votes in Wisconsin.)

UW-Madison retains rank as 13th best public college in America, report says

The underdog coronavirus vaccines that the world will need if front runners stumble

“Everyone is rooting for them to succeed beyond anyone’s expectation, but it’s prudent to think about what happens if they don’t,” says Dave O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “We need to make sure we have back-up plans — and back-up plans to those back-up plans.”

Coronavirus Puts School Cafeteria Workers At Risk, Too

For as long as federal funding for school lunch programs has existed, the labor that makes those meals possible has been low-paid and underappreciated. “A lot of teachers were forming unions in the 1960s and ’70s, but there was a reluctance for cafeteria workers to do the same,” Jennifer Gaddis, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and author of The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools, told me. “There was this idea that you’re taking money away from free-lunch programs for kids. But historically, there’s never been a lot of national or state-level support within school nutrition, until recently.”

New York Will Test the Dead More Often for Coronavirus and Flu

Thorough testing can also affect which bodies are autopsied at medical examiners’ offices, where resources and staff have been strained, said Dr. Erin Brooks, a pathologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Someone whose cause of death can be confirmed by a positive test for the coronavirus, for instance, might not need to be investigated further.

In Year of Voting by Mail, a Scramble to Beef Up In-Person Voting, Too

For all of the attention on voting by mail, perhaps four in 10 votes — 60 million ballots — are likely to be cast in person this fall, either early or on Election Day. Overall turnout could well reach 150 million for the first time, up from 137.5 million in 2016, according to Barry C. Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Digital vote suppression efforts are targeting marginalized groups, report warns

“It’s really hard to persuade people … to convert or convince the disinterested, but it’s easy to suppress turnout if you target people who are marginalized, like non-whites and female and younger voters,” said Young Mie Kim, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied misinformation networks on social media. “All you need to do is make sure they don’t turn out to vote.”

Commission charts narrow path for editing human embryos

“I welcome the commission’s report, which continues to add depth to the ongoing global conversation about the science of germline editing,” says Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who is part of a committee organized by WHO that is examining how to best govern this controversial arena.

Borsuk: In a pandemic-altered school year, educators face challenge tracking student progress

How are people going to figure out how students are doing in school this year?

“I can’t imagine how this isn’t going to be the most challenging year that we’ve ever had for answering that question,” said Brad Carl, an expert on the subject who is with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “How are we going to tell?”

UW seeks 2,000 people for Phase III clinical trial of potential COVID-19 vaccine

A crucial Phase III clinical trial of a vaccine against COVID-19 begins this week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and its teaching hospital UW Health.

Coffee, Ketchup and Nike Air Max: It’s the COVID Consumer Economy

Michael Collins, a professor at the University of Wisconsin’s consumer science department, calls this a “substitution effect.”

“It’s pretty clear people behave as if they have different pots of money,” he said. “Now I don’t eat out at all, so I have a couple of hundred dollars of new income not allocated to anything. I can substitute that money away from eating out and treat myself to other things.”

Michael Moore says Trump on course for win in presidential election

“In Minnesota, it’s 47-47,” Moore continued. “In Michigan, where Biden had a big lead, Trump has closed the gap to 4 points.” In a poll published on August 20, the GOP-leaning Trafalgar Group found support for Biden and Trump tied at about 47% in Minnesota, while another poll by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found Biden with a 4-point lead over Trump in Michigan.

Twitter deletes Trump’s coronavirus death toll retweet, citing misinformation

“Comorbidities” reported by the CDC include heart disease, obesity, diabetes and hypertension — conditions that can make a person more vulnerable to the virus. Each would be listed on a person’s death certificate, along with covid-19. Death certificates may also list sepsis, respiratory arrest, kidney failure or other conditions as the immediate cause of death, but those are caused by the infection. The virus remains the reason that they died, said Nasia Safdar, an infectious-disease professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

These Scientists Are Giving Themselves D.I.Y. Coronavirus Vaccines

There is a long history of scientists openly testing vaccines on themselves and their children, but in recent decades it has become less common, according to Susan E. Lederer, a medical historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. What’s ethically and legally acceptable for testing and distributing your own medical product varies by institution and by country.

Police and Race in Kenosha, Beyond the Jacob Blake Shooting

“Midwesterners don’t understand their history of racism, and so these things seem surprising. They seem to come out of nowhere or be new when they’re really a reflection of who we’ve always been,” says Christy Clark-Pujara, associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Department of Afro-American Studies. “It’s not terribly surprising to me what happened in Kenosha.”

Activists call for an end to systemic racism in America

Christy Clark-Pujara interview

Hurricane Laura’s rapid intensification is a sign of a warming climate, scientists say

Jim Kossin, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Wisconsin, says the warm ocean waters and exchange of heat between the ocean and atmosphere, plus the lack of dry air or strong upper-level winds, created an ideal environment for Hurricane Laura to rapidly intensify all the way to the Louisiana coastline.

Kenosha shooting victims Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum are remembered

“It’s like a funhouse mirror,” said Cecelia Klingele, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “People look at the same facts and have wildly different reactions. It is troubling because when people are having such different reactions, I guess tragedies like this shouldn’t be a surprise. People are afraid of each other and that is a situation that creates danger for everyone.”

Twitter suspended dozens of accounts. But were they Russian? It’s hard to tell.

Young Mie Kim, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied misinformation networks on social media, said the accounts “look like coordinated behavior and share some similar traits with Russian tactics,” but she cautioned about making firm attributions.

The Problem with Implicit Bias Training

While the nation roils with ongoing protests against police violence and persistent societal racism, many organizations have released statements promising to do better. These promises often include improvements to hiring practices; a priority on retaining and promoting people of color; and pledges to better serve those people as customers and clients.

Tiffany L. Green

Tiffany L. Green, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Bruce Arians questions effectiveness of protests; DeMaurice Smith responds

Athletes today aren’t necessarily risking life and limb by staging protests — if anything, NFL players are sparing themselves some harm by canceling practices — but according to a professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, their platforms give them “a unique role to play” in effecting change.

“Their protest reaches ordinary people in the United States and worldwide,” Linda Greene said via email Thursday. “Their protest also touches and concerns the multibillion dollar interests of coaches, franchises, and media and other corporations, including advertisers, who depend on their labor.”