Today’s News from the University of Kansas
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Law Review Symposium to explore future of renewable energy
LAWRENCE — Renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, has become an essential resource. Current legal frameworks have supported significant wind and solar energy, but are they sufficient to accelerate clean energy in the next decade? Speakers from across the nation will present papers and discuss the topic of “Accelerating Clean Energy: The Next Decade of Reform” at the 2020 Kansas Law Review Symposium on Oct. 16, which is free and open to the public.
KU announces ExCEL Award winners, concludes 108th Homecoming celebration
LAWRENCE — Two University of Kansas students, Elaine Pope of Overland Park and Adrian Romero of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, are winners of the 30th annual Excellence in Community, Education and Leadership (ExCEL) Awards. The award presentation during the KU-Oklahoma State football game Oct. 3 concluded KU’s 108th Homecoming celebration. The Alumni Association also honored Katy Wagner, a pre-medicine senior from Topeka, with the Jennifer Alderdice Homecoming Award.
SEC has been illegally denying hearings for 25 years, professor writes in new article
LAWRENCE — When parties are accused of wrongdoing by a regulatory agency like the Securities and Exchange Commission, they are ordinarily entitled to procedural rights, like the right to present their defense at an in-person oral hearing. But what happens if the agency unilaterally decides to skip those hearings? A University of Kansas law professor has written a new article for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy pointing out that is exactly what has been happening for 25 years at the SEC and other federal regulatory agencies.
KU bioengineering program awarded grant to expand opportunities for underrepresented students
LAWRENCE — University of Kansas graduate student Pamela Johnson, along with her mentor Jennifer Robinson, assistant professor of chemical & petroleum engineering, has earned a prestigious Gilliam Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The award of $50,000 is renewable for up to three years and supports promising graduate students from diverse backgrounds who will work in teams with their individual advisers to build inclusive training environments.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Ashley Golledge, School of Law, [email protected], @kulawschool
Law Review Symposium to explore future of renewable energy
LAWRENCE — Renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, has become an essential resource. Current legal frameworks have supported significant wind and solar energy, but are they sufficient to accelerate clean energy in the next decade? Speakers from across the nation will present papers and discuss the topic of “Accelerating Clean Energy: The Next Decade of Reform” at the 2020 Kansas Law Review Symposium on Oct. 16.
The symposium will run from 12:45 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The online event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Register and preview the complete schedule online.
“Renewable energy growth is currently hampered by fossil fuel companies, outdated legal frameworks and public opposition,” said Symposium Editor Jenny Bartos, a third-year KU Law student. “Being that Kansas is a leading wind producer in the United States, we have a duty to discuss challenges facing renewable energy and propose changes to the current legal environment to support renewable energy growth.”
Speakers will include:
- Joel Eisen, professor of law, University of Richmond School of Law
- Elizabeth Kronk Warner, dean and professor of law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
- Uma Outka, associate dean for faculty and professor of law, University of Kansas School of Law
- Melissa Powers, professor of law, Lewis & Clark Law School
- Joseph Tomain, dean emeritus and professor of law, University of Cincinnati College of Law
Scholarship associated with the symposium will be published in a spring 2021 issue of the Kansas Law Review. For more information, contact Bartos at [email protected].
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Contact: Jennifer Sanner, KU Alumni Association, 785-864-9782, [email protected]; @KUAlumni
KU announces ExCEL Award winners, concludes 108th Homecoming celebration
LAWRENCE — Two University of Kansas students, Elaine Pope of Overland Park and Adrian Romero of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, are winners of the 30th annual Excellence in Community, Education and Leadership (ExCEL) Awards. The award presentation during the KU-Oklahoma State football game Oct. 3 in David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium concluded KU’s 108th Homecoming celebration.
Pope, a senior in English and pre-medicine, participates in the University Honors Program. She is a member of Chi Omega sorority, where she served as special events coordinator and currently directs programming as a member of the executive board. She is director of Rock Chalk Revue and founder of FOCUS Bible Study. She participated in a study abroad program in England and Scotland in 2019 and was a member of the Business Leadership Program for two years. She traveled with the Jayhawk Health Initiative Medical Brigade to Panama in 2019 and participated in a FOCUS mission trip to Peru in 2020. She was a certified nurse aide at Mid-America Nursing & Allied-Health Institute in Overland Park, and she volunteered at the Hope Family Care Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
Romero, a senior in chemical engineering with an environmental emphasis, is vice president of student outreach for the Engineering Student Council and a regional student representative for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. He participates in the University Honors Program and has been a resident assistant for KU Student Housing since 2018. He is an undergraduate research assistant in water sustainability and resource recovery, and he helps perform COVID-19 testing in wastewater samples in Douglas and Johnson counties. He was an engineering student senator and a student assistant in the Office of International Admissions. He interned in the water technology group at Black & Veatch in summer 2020 and participated in a summer research project at West Virginia University in 2019. He is an IHAWKe Exceptional Scholar and was named a Student Housing Staff Member of the Year in 2019.
The ExCEL Award provides an annual $250 scholarship to students. Nominees were selected on the basis of leadership, effective communication skills, involvement at KU and in the Lawrence community, academic scholarship and ability to work with a variety of students and organizations.
The Alumni Association also honored Katy Wagner, a pre-medicine senior from Topeka, with the Jennifer Alderdice Homecoming Award, which recognizes students who demonstrate outstanding loyalty and dedication to the university. The award honors Alderdice, of Lawrence, who led student programs for the Alumni Association from 1999 to 2009 and earned her KU master’s degree education in 1999.
The theme for this year’s Homecoming was “Rock Chalk Around the World.” The event was sponsored by the KU Bookstore and Truity Credit Union and supported by Crown Toyota, Volkswagen.
Several traditional Homecoming activities were replaced this year with digital events, including a weeklong game of bingo, which drew nearly 400 Jayhawk participants, and a virtual scavenger hunt, both of which were played via the KU Alumni app. More than 200 students and alumni also participated in Kyou Networking Week, a series of 11 virtual events in a variety of professional fields, hosted by the Alumni Association and its Jayhawk Career Network. A Facebook Live event, featuring a performance by the Marching Jayhawks and a celebratory flyover, rounded out the week and took the place of the annual Homecoming parade.
The week’s events were organized by the KU Alumni Association and a student-led steering committee, which was chaired by Peyton Hadley, a sophomore from Shawnee majoring in film & media studies; Julie Jorgensen, a senior from Cedar Falls, Iowa, majoring in strategic communications; Madi McGuire, a senior from Lake Saint Louis, Missouri, majoring in human biology; Andrew Ost, a junior from Olathe majoring in finance; and Peyton Werner, a senior from Topeka majoring in information systems and business analytics. They worked with Alumni Association staff member Megan McGinnis, assistant director of student programs.
For more information about this year’s event, visit kualumni.org/homecoming.
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
SEC has been illegally denying hearings for 25 years, professor writes in new article
LAWRENCE — When parties are accused of wrongdoing by a regulatory agency like the Securities and Exchange Commission, they are ordinarily entitled to procedural rights, like the right to present their defense at an in-person oral hearing. But what happens if the agency unilaterally decides to skip those hearings? A University of Kansas law professor has written a new article pointing out that is exactly what has been happening for 25 years at the SEC and other federal regulatory agencies.
Alexander Platt, associate professor of law at KU, is the author of “Is Administrative Summary Judgment Unlawful?,” which was recently named “Download of the Week” by The Legal Theory Blog. It is forthcoming in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and is available on SSRN.
The paper examines in detail the use of administrative summary judgments by the SEC. The action has lawyers for the defense and prosecution submit paperwork to the presiding judge instead of conducting a full, in-person hearing. That action is illegal, Platt wrote, under section 556(d) of the Administrative Procedure Act, often referred to as the “Constitution for the Administrative State.” Yet the practice has been broadly accepted by agencies and blessed by several appellate courts. The practice is widely viewed as a way to skip over “unnecessary” hearings.
Summary judgment is commonly used by lawyers in state and federal courts to expeditiously resolve cases. But, as Platt wrote, that was not always so. When Congress passed the Administrative Procedure Act in the mid-20th century, many courts sharply restricted the use of the technique. Platt wrote that Congress followed this restrictive mode and intended to allow defendants facing enforcement actions by administrative agencies with an absolute right to oral hearings.
“The statute is clear. In any case where the agency (SEC) is looking to impose sanctions on a party, they may not skip the oral hearing,” Platt said. “Agencies and courts have gotten this issue so wrong because they just haven’t looked at the APA or its history.”
Platt illustrated several reasons why the practice can be harmful. Chief among them is the aforementioned denial of a right to a legal party. For example, someone who has been convicted of illegal securities-related activity in a federal or state court is likely to face additional sanctions by the SEC. Before the agency’s administrative law judge imposes these additional sanctions, the person has the right to explain why the wrongdoing happened, their level of remorse, intentions to atone for wrongdoing and more.
“There are cases where it’s plausible that the denial of in-person hearings could make a real difference. Once you’ve been prosecuted, the SEC will often want to bring additional proceedings to impose sanctions,” Platt said. “Being able to make the case in person could make a real difference.”
Administrative summary judgment can also distort the agency enforcement priorities as well as public perception of those priorities.
“At times, the enforcement policy of the SEC seems to have rested heavily on the use of administrative summary judgments, because that technique allows them to file and resolve a larger number of cases,” Platt said.
Platt noted how the SEC in the mid-2010s used the administrative summary judgment extensively as part of its “broken windows” method of enforcement. Each year, the agency emphasized record-breaking enforcement statistics, which seemed to show the agency had pursued many more cases than normal. But, while it may appear the agency was tough on enforcement, Platt said that a closer look at the numbers shows that a good number of these actions were relatively minor offenses, raising the possibility that the agency was actually leaving more harmful violations uninvestigated and unpunished.
The illegal use of administrative summary judgments is not confined to the SEC, as Platt wrote. The practice has spread across the American enforcement bureaucracy, with agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Nuclear Regulatory Commission engaging in the practice as well, all in violation of the law.
It is not difficult to understand how a practice that is in fact illegal has been allowed to happen and persist. In the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, courts commonly deferred to agencies to interpret statutes such as the APA and how to enforce them. However, the Supreme Court and many lower courts have taken a different approach in recent decades, holding such agencies to the letter of statutes.
Platt said he doesn’t expect things to change without judicial intervention. A respondent facing sanction from the SEC or other federal agency can use the arguments outlined in the paper to challenge the use of administrative summary judgment in front of the agency, and then, ultimately, the appellate courts that review agency decisions.
“I don’t think it’s likely the SEC will willingly change its procedures,” Platt said. “Because they’ve been doing it so long, and because they have so many courts of appeals on their side. They’re not going to voluntarily discontinue the practice. That leaves litigation.”
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Don’t miss new episodes of “When Experts Attack!,”
a KU News Service podcast hosted by Kansas Public Radio.
https://kansaspublicradio.org/when-experts-attack
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Contact: Cody Howard, School of Engineering, 785-864-2936, [email protected], @kuengineering
KU bioengineering program awarded grant to expand opportunities for underrepresented students
LAWRENCE — University of Kansas graduate student Pamela Johnson, along with her mentor Jennifer Robinson, assistant professor of chemical & petroleum engineering, has earned a prestigious Gilliam Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
The award of $50,000 is renewable for up to three years and supports promising graduate students from diverse backgrounds who will work in teams with their individual advisers to build inclusive training environments. The fellows’ mentors will also participate in professional development activities aimed at increasing the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds in the sciences.
Johnson and Robinson said they will use the fellowship to create programming in the School of Engineering to help guide women graduate students as they aim for academic and other high-level positions in the profession.
“This is a fellowship that mainly supports the graduate student, as far as stipend and tuition, with a major focus on increasing diversity and inclusion in the sciences,” Robinson said.
“I thought this was a great way to collaborate and network with scientists around the country and learn about their research, but also to increase diversity efforts at KU,” Johnson said.
Johnson pointed to a recent study that shows women are less likely to drop out of doctoral STEM programs if they are joined by other female students in their cohort.
“When you create camaraderie and a culture that’s inclusive, you can create opportunities,” Johnson said.
Robinson said she will use her portion of the fellowship grant to pair up female graduate students in bioengineering, as well as the Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, with female faculty mentors. Other efforts will include monthly brown bag lunches featuring female faculty, as well as gatherings focused on how to negotiate in employment situations and managing “impostor syndrome.”
”One thing I missed as a graduate student was having candid conversations with a number of female faculty,” Robinson said. “I personally think this is one of the neat things about being in an academic environment — you have the freedom, flexibility and privilege to promote the people coming up behind you in an environment that everyone deserves, but that isn’t always there.”
Johnson agreed.
“I think we have a lot of improvement we can work on for culture, for areas in academia to be more inclusive and to build camaraderie,” she said. “I’ve been really lucky to work with Professor Robinson. I think it’s really encouraging to see where I could take my career, to see what she’s done. By seeing yourself in somebody else’s shoes, it encourages you to pursue career paths where women are underrepresented.”
Johnson, who did her undergraduate work at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, is in her fourth year in KU’s bioengineering doctoral program. Her research focuses on “tissue scaffolding” — examining how to treat osteoarthritis in women by creating materials that help the body repair damaged and aging tissue by replacing estrogen that is lost with age. Scientists believe this may reduce the effects of the condition.
She is considering an academic career as a faculty member at a research institution where she would continue her work with biomaterials.
Johnson said she was thankful to KU faculty and officials supporting her application for the fellowship, including Arvin Agah, dean of the engineering school; Audrey Lamb, director of graduate training in chemical biology, and Carl Lejeuz, former interim provost. Robinson said Johnson had earned the fellowship, serving as a graduate student senator and winning awards during her time at KU.
“This,” Robinson said, “is how we want to support the next generation of female engineers.”
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