Center for Policy Studies
Public Affairs Discussion Group

BENDING SCIENCE: HOW ADVOCATES DISTORT THE FACTS USED BY COURTS AND REGULATORS

Wendy Wagner, J.D., Joe A. Worsham Centennial Professor, University of Texas School of Law

Friday April 23, 2010
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Crawford Hall - Room 9
Inamori Center
Case Western Reserve University

Dear Colleagues,

We may expect advocates to play loose with the truth in the halls of Congress and the mass media. But the situation isn’t much better, Professor Wagner and her colleague Thomas O. McGarity argue, within the legal and regulatory processes. Courts and regulators are too easily manipulated, partly because Supreme Court opinions and rules issued by the Executive Office of the President assume that, “the scientific community’s own internal vetting” processes assure that credentialed science “has been purified by professional oversight.” But that vetting is not sufficient to overcome political “arts” such as “creating research to fit one’s needs,” “concealing unwelcome information,” “turning reliable research into ‘junk’,” “bullying scientists who produce damaging research,” and “assembling an expert group to advance a favored outcome.”

Our final Friday Lunch discussion of the academic year is an exposé, even if it may sound like a “how to.”

As usual, we will gather in Room 9 of the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence, on the lower level of Crawford Hall, for free cookies, beverages, and brown bag lunch.

Best regards,
Joe White

About Our Guest

Professor Wagner is a leading authority on the use of science by environmental policy-makers. She received a Masters of Environmental Studies in 1984 and her law degree in 1987, both from Yale, where she was Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal and Managing Editor of the Yale Journal of Regulation. Before entering teaching, she practiced for four years, first as an Honors Attorney in the Enforcement Division of the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division, and then as Pollution Control Coordinator with the Department of Agriculture's Office of the General Counsel.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Texas, Professor Wagner taught at Case Western Law School, where she established herself as a prolific scholar. Among her many articles, "The Science Charade in Toxic Risk Regulation" (Columbia Law Review, 1995) and "Equal Treatment for Regulatory Science" (co-authored with David Michaels in American Journal of Law and Medicine, 2004) were chosen as one of the best environmental law articles of the year and reprinted in the Land Use and Environmental Law Review. Professor Wagner was also a visiting professor at Columbia and Vanderbilt Law Schools.

Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

This is the last Friday Public Affairs Discussion Group newsletter for the 2009-2010 academic year. The Friday Public Affairs Discussion Group will resume on August 27, 2010.

The Friday Lunch discussions are held on the lower (ground) level of Crawford Hall. Visitors with mobility issues may find it easiest to take advantage of special arrangements we have made. On most Fridays, a few parking spaces in the V.I.P. lot in between Crawford Hall and Amasa Stone Chapel are held for participants in the lunch discussion. 

Visitors then can avoid walking up the hill to the first floor of Crawford by entering the building on the ground level, through the garage area under the building. The further door on the left in that garage will be left unlocked during the period before the Friday lunch. On occasion, parking will be unavailable because of other university events.

For more information about these and other Center for Policy Studies programs, please see http://policy.case.edu.

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