By Louis Jacobson By all indications, former President Donald Trump is preparing to announce his 2024 presidential bid, possibly as soon as an event Nov. 15 at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Could his status as a presidential candidate limit his exposure in several continuing legal battles? Legal experts told Politifact that Trump wouldn’t benefit in any official way by formally announcing his candidacy, especially two years ahead of the next election. And the unofficial benefits would be modest at best. “While being a declared candidate doesn’t afford him any legal protections, it does enable him to claim that any investigation is politically motivated,” said Elise Bean, a former congressional investigator for then-Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who now works for the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at the Wayne State University Law School.

By Kirsten Matoy Carlson  Kirsten Matoy Carlson, professor of law and adjunct professor of political science at Wayne State University, wrote an article for The Conversation providing context for a forthcoming Supreme Court case about the constitutionality of a 1978 law enacted to protect Native American children in the U.S. and strengthen their families. The law, the Indian Child Welfare Act, was originally passed by Congress in response to requests from tribal leaders and other advocates for Native Americans to stop states from removing Indian children from their families. Now, in the case before the Supreme Court, non-Indians seeking to adopt or foster Indian children have challenged provisions of the law. The non-Indians say the law illegally discriminates against the Indian children based on their race and tells states officials what to do. As a federal Indian law scholar and the mother of two Indian children, Matoy Carlson writes that she knows Indian status is a political, not a racial, designation.  

One of the biggest and most controversial proposals on the November Midterm ballot is Proposal 3, which focuses on abortion and reproductive rights. The petition for the proposal set a record with more than 730,000 valid voter signatures, with momentum coming after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. The proposal is also one that amend the Michigan Constitution. Constitutional law expert Jonathan Weinberg, a professor at Wayne State University Law School, discusses how the proposal would be applied. “This proposal says that it’s about pregnancy, basically. It’s about the ability to choose to have a baby, the ability to choose not to have a baby…” Weinberg discusses constitutional precedent, the issue of parental consent and notification, and more.     

The Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University Law School will present a screening of “Walk With Me: The Trials of Damon J. Keith” on Thursday, November 3, from 4 to 9 p.m. at the Spencer M. Partrich Auditorium.   

Challenging racism is hard, painful work. Detroit, however, has a new cohort of racial equity leaders taking that challenge head-on. The Detroit Equity Action Lab (DEAL) recently announced its seventh cohort of Racial Equity Fellows to join its multiracial and multigenerational network of leaders dedicated to ending structural racism in Detroit. The 2022 cohort of 28 diverse fellows represent more than 10 sectors, including public policy/advocacy, human services, art, and education. “DEAL 7 is our first hybrid cohort and we are thrilled to be back in person to deliver programming and curate a physical space for connection, collaboration, and learning,” said Asandi Conner, DEAL’s director.  

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission pulled back in its first preemptive challenge to a takeover by Metal Platforms Inc., dropping some claims from a lawsuit that seeks to block the tech giant’s acquisition of virtual reality app Within Unlimited. The agency, which sued to block the deal on antitrust grounds July 27, said it asked US District Judge Edward Davila Friday to let it remove some allegations about anticompetitive effects in the market for virtual-reality fitness apps. Meta said the FTC’s case is “based on ideology, not evidence” and pointed out that the newly amended complaint drops allegations that its most popular virtual-reality game, Beat Saber, directly competes with Within’s Supernatural fitness app. Stephen Calkins, an antitrust professor at Wayne State University Law School, described the FTC’s move to amend its complaint as “unusual,” particularly in a merger challenge, since those are often expeditated. “On a merger case, it’s not that common because it all happens fairly quickly,” said Calkins, who served as the FTC’s general counsel during the Clinton administration, adding that it is “certainly unusual to do it” within two months.  

By Sheila Pursglove  A rising 3L at Wayne State University Law School, Dominica Convertino’s interest in the legal field stems from her passion for politics and public policy; and she hopes to combine these interests by pursuing a career in administrative law. Convertino spent more than five years working as a senior banker. During those years, her passion for public policy and law grew further. “While I loved helping my clients find solutions to their financial troubles, I began observing that many of my clients’ problems were indicative of larger, systemic failures,” she said. “I came to realize policymakers can mitigate the effects of harmful financial practices through common-sense regulatory schemes. From there, I became very interested in the intersection of the financial industry and the law.”

By Louis Aguilar If things go as planned, the area north of downtown Detroit will see the rise of four major new university and medical projects that could greatly expand the power of “Eds and Meds” in the city. Eds and Meds refer to higher educational institutions like Wayne State University and such medical facilities as Henry Ford Health System and the Detroit Medical Center. The three are part of an economic engine that helps drive Midtown, something the four Eds and Meds projects would bolster further. Michigan State University is planning to locate a new medical school near Henry Ford Health’s headquarters that would be a major boost to the New Center area. The University of Michigan’s new business school venture with billionaire Stephen M. Ross on land donated by the Ilitch organization’s Olympia Development of Michigan would breathe new hope into the Ilitch group’s long-deferred dream of transforming blocks of land north of downtown in what is called District Detroit. The other projects include a new theater and dance complex and jazz center at Wayne State and a new cancer research center and medical school facility by Wayne State University’s School of Medicine and the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute somewhere near the DMC or WSU’s main campus. The projects also set up potential competition for funding among Michigan’s top three research universities on Wayne State’s home turf. But one urban development expert expects the strong track records of the institutions in raising money not to result in a loss of money for Wayne State. Dr. Wael Sakr, dean of the Wayne State University School of Medicine, acknowledged the competition with UM and MSU for money, but also expressed faith in the strength of WSU’s plans for the Karmanos Cancer Institute. “We have an experienced team of fundraisers that is working intensely on the funding,” he said. WSU President M. Roy Wilson stated earlier that the university would also consider raising money through bonds for the School of Medicine/Karmanos venture. The Karmonos Cancer Institute’s elite designation will likely help raise money from new and national funders. “There may be more competition, but each of these plans can be successful,” said John Mogk, a distinguished service professor of law at Wayne State who has followed urban planning issues for decades and has been an adviser on numerous urban development projects in Detroit and around the state. “All of these projects can show the tremendous benefits and impact they will bring to the community,” Mogk said. “Every institution involved has a proven track record. Projects that have a great chance of being a success usually find the money they need.”   

On Thursday, the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, in collaboration with the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, released a new “Portrait in Oversight” commemorating the first and only bicameral investigation by the Senate and House intelligence committees. The joint investigation examined the intelligence failures leading up to the 9-11 terrorist attack n the United States and helped produce key reforms. “Understanding how Congress handled classified information issues in prior investigations like the 9-11 inquiry – as well as Iran-Contra and the Church Committee – can help guide future congressional investigations into such matters as the classified materials at Mar-a-Lago and the US. Departure from Afghanistan,” said Jim Townsend, director of the Levin Center. “Reminding Congress about the value of bipartisan techniques and precedents is one reason the Levin Center works to preserve congressional investigative history in its series of ‘Portraits in Oversight.’”  

An investigation by the Senate Committee on Finance into problems with the U.S. organ transplant network held a hearing Thursday after benefitting from the work of two Wayne Law School students, Yesenia Jimenez and Thea Barrak, who interned with the committee under a summer program administered by the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University Law School “The Levin Center has been sending summer law interns to Capitol Hill for seven years now to work for committees conducting bipartisan investigations,” said Jim Townsend, director of the Levin Center. “It’s been a delight to see Wayne law students not only gain investigative legal experience, but also earn praise from committee staff for their high-quality work. Yesenia and Thea have made Wayne Law proud while raising the law school’s visibility in Washington.”  

By Dan Papscun  The Federal Trade Commission’s challenge of Meta Platform Inc.’s acquisition of a virtual reality gaming company revives a little-used argument against Big Tech’s classic acquisition playbook. The agency, in a July 27 lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges Meta’s acquisition of Within Unlimited would likely create a monopoly by eliminating competition for virtual reality fitness applications. Within is the developer of the popular fitness app Supernatural. But rather than only challenging the acquisition as harmful to competition now, the FTC is primarily alleging that Meta is seeking to eliminate a future competitor. Potential competition cases are rare and difficult to win, said Stephen Calkins, a professor at Wayne State University Law School. The argument depends on the idea that customers differentiate between apps that incidentally provide a workout versus ones entirely focused on exercise, Calkins said. Because the virtual reality market is so early in its development, making any strong judgments about its market characteristics is tenuous because of how little data is available, Calkins said.  

By Tom Bartlett  In its proposed rules for enforcing Title IX, issued last month, the U.S. Department of Education promised that it would “restore crucial protections for students that were eliminated or weakened by the Trump administration.” The 700-page document addresses broad philosophical issues, like the definition of sexual harassment, along with a host of nitty-gritty procedural matters, like whether complaints require signatures. Among the slated changes in the rules is a return to what’s known as the “single investigator” method of conducting inquiries, in which, a complaint is often handled by one administration. In 2020, Betsy DeVos put an end to that approach, announcing that those accused of wrongdoing must be allowed to challenge the evidence at a live hearing in order to “ensure a fair and transparent process.” Removing the requirement for a hearing might be the most significant of the Biden administration’s proposed reforms of how the federal gender-equity law is enforced, and the one with the greatest potential to alter how colleges carry out Title IX investigations. It’s also troubling to some Title IX experts, while others defend it. Nancy Chi Cantalupo, an assistant professor of law at Wayne State University who was a consultant for President Barack Obama’s task force on campus sexual assault, thinks “single investigators” is a misnomer. In many cases, she says, more than one administrator is involved in an investigation, even if there is no formal hearing. She prefers the phrase “civil-rights investigator.” Cantalupo has written that hearings can be needlessly adversarial, can “compel the parties to attack each other’s credibility and evidence,” and are “less likely to create openness to restorative justice.”  

Kirsten Matoy Carlson, professor of law and adjunct professor of political science at Wayne State University, wrote an article for The Conversation providing background and perspective as an expert in federal Indian law on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta. Matoy Carlson explains that the most recent case is noteworthy because it says that states may exercise authority in Indian Country even without express congressional authorization. For centuries, Matoy Carlson said that was not the case.