[Chronicle]

June 6, 2002
Vol. 21 No. 17

current issue
archive / search
contact

    In the News

    The Chronicle’s biweekly column In the News offers a digest of commentary and quotations by a few of the University faculty members, students and alumni who have been headlining the news in recent weeks. Chicago faculty members are some of the most frequently quoted experts, so space allows publishing references to only selected examples. To read many of the full newspaper articles mentioned in this column, visit the In the News column at the University News Office Web site at: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/.

    Cass Sunstein, the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School and an expert on constitutional law, wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Friday, May 31 New York Times. Sunstein argued that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the case Federal Maritime Commission vs. South Carolina State Ports Authority lacks any basis in the constitutional text. “It ruled that sovereign immunity means that federal agencies cannot hold a hearing in a proceeding brought by a private party complaining that a state has violated a federal law,” wrote Sunstein. “No framer of the Constitution ever suggested that this immunity protects states when they are brought before federal agencies,” wrote Sunstein.

    The recent appointment of Thomas Rosenbaum, the James Franck Professor in Physics, to serve as Vice President for Research for the University and Argonne National Laboratory, which the University operates for the Department of Energy, was carried by the Associated Press Newswires Wednesday, May 29.

    Nicholas Vogelzang, Director of the Cancer Research Center at the University and the Fred C. Buffet Professor in Medicine, who is lead investigator for a clinical trial of a new drug called Alimta, was interviewed for a Tuesday, May 21 Wall Street Journal story that reported on the clinical trial results. The drug showed positive results in treating people who suffer from a rare cancer, mesothelioma, caused by exposure to asbestos. “This is the first time we have ever documented an improvement in mesothelioma survival,” said Vogelzang about the drug’s effects.

    The new Graduate School of Business’ integrated campus was the subject of a near-full-page story that appeared in the Saturday, May 18 Chicago Tribune. The story reported on how the GSB’s consolidation of classrooms, faculty offices as well as meeting rooms and research space will improve the school’s sense of community among its students. The story quoted Edward Snyder, Dean of the GSB; Reid Hastie, Professor of Behavioral Science in the GSB; Brett Coleman, a second-year M.B.A. student; and Laura Jun, a first-year M.B.A. student.

    McGuire Gibson, Professor in the Oriental Institute and Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, was interviewed about his archaeological team’s latest discoveries for a New York Times story about the University’s and Syrian government’s Joint Hamoukar Expedition. “Hamoukar has the appearance of a critical step in the history of civilization,” said Gibson. Discoveries of buildings and artifacts at the site dispute the standard view that civilization first arose in southern Mesopotamia, which today is known as Iraq.

    Leo Kocher, Associate Professor in Physical Education & Athletics, was quoted in the Monday, May 27 issue of Newsweek magazine in a commentary written by George Will. Will wrote about Title IX, the law that prohibits sexual discrimination in education, which, more specifically, has been applied to athletics programs in schools. “Say there’s a school that has equal numbers of boys and girls and it decides to offer 200 athletic opportunities. If they have 100 girls who want to play sports and they have 1,000 boys who want to play sports, the law says you must give 100 opportunities to those 100 girls and you must give 100 opportunities to those 1,000 boys. In the end, 100 percent of the girls are fully accommodated, but only 10 percent of the boys are taken care of.”

    The research of Eve Van Cauter, Professor of Endocrinology in Medicine, who recently has studied the health risks to people who develop sleep deficits, was part of a story about the effects of sleep deprivation published Tuesday, May 21, in The Washington Post.

    Allen Sanderson, Senior Lecturer in Economics, wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Tuesday, June 4 Chicago Tribune. Sanderson wrote about the recent press coverage of “the revelation of rampant anabolic steroid use in Major League Baseball.” Comparing baseball to other competitive sports, he argued that modern medical and technological advances already have changed and enhanced performance among athletes to the point where determining what is natural and what is unnatural competition is impossible. “How natural is it that a youngster would have to be swimming competitively by age 6 if he or she is to have any hope of making the U.S. Olympic team? To achieve greatness, skaters have to be hitting the ice before they can read.”

    Leonid Ryzhik, Assistant Professor in Mathematics and the College, was interviewed Tuesday, May 28, on BBC Radio’s News Hour program about a call in England for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Ryzhik argued against the boycott, saying science and politics should be kept separate.

    Olufunmilayo Olopade, Associate Professor of Hematology/Oncology in Medicine, was quoted in a Tuesday, May 21 Los Angeles Times article that reported on a recent study that shows that the removal of the ovaries may lower the risk for breast cancer for women who carry the genes that increase their risk for that type of cancer.