Points of Pride - Current

April 2011

Faculty Accomplishments:

Professor Robert Spoo was one of three winners of the TU Outstanding Teacher Award. This is one of the highest forms of recognition that TU can bestow upon a member of the faculty. It is limited to no more than three faculty members per year. The winners are nominated by students, and the selection is made by the elected Faculty Affairs Committee of the Faculty Senate from among those nominated by students. Spoo has been promoted to full professor effective this upcoming fall semester.

Professor Samuel Wiseman's article, "Waiving Innocence," will be published in Volume 96 of the Minnesota Law Review. This article addresses criminal defendants giving up the right to the testing, and possibly preservation, of DNA evidence. It explores the validity of these waivers, their consequences, and the justifications behind their use.

ProfessorTamara Piety, who participates in the "Marketing to Children Learning Community" of NPlan (the National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity), attended a meeting in Washington, D.C., of a group of lawyers working on food marketing issues. Invited participants included several lawyers from government, academia and public interest groups, including representatives from Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity and from Public Citizen. Piety was also invited to join an amicus brief filed by a distinguished group of law professors in the case of Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The brief argues in favor of a proposed regulation, opposed by the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce, requiring publicly traded companies to include in their proxy statements to shareholders, nominees for positions on the board of directors proposed by shareholders with a specified threshold stake in the company.

Professor G. William Rice spoke at the Wake Forest University's "American Indian Land Rights and Religious Freedom: A Community Symposium." He opened the event by addressing the topic "The Scope of American Indian Land Rights."

Professor Ray Yasser was one of group of academics signing a letter to the Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney in the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division requesting that the department launch an official investigation into college football’s Bowl Championship Series (BCS) as in violation of the antitrust law. The other signatories include Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago and Daniel Rascher of the University of San Francisco. It is a distinguished group.

Professor Judith Royster presented a paper on Conjunctive Management of Reservation Water Resources: Legal Issues Facing Indian Tribes, at the University of Idaho Law Review Symposium -- One Source: Evolution of the Policies Surrounding Ground & Surface Water Management in the West, on April 15, 2011. The article is forthcoming. In May, Royster presented "Tribal Water Marketing" at the 3rd Annual Oklahoma Water Law Conference in Tulsa.

Professor Elizabeth McCormick testified in front of the Joint Immigration Subcommittee of the Oklahoma Legislature about the impact of pending immigration-related state legislation on the immigrant community and the implementation of federal immigration law.

Professor McCormick also presented, How Human Trafficking May Affect Your Practice, at an Oklahoma Bar Association Program. Her presentation was entitled U Visas for Victims of Human Trafficking.

In addition, Professor McCormick presented at a two-day conference in Tulsa and Oklahoma City of the Oklahoma Human Trafficking Task Force. Her presentation was entitled, "Best Practices for Representing Immigrant Victims of Human Trafficking."

Professor Russell Christopher has co-authored "The Paradox of Statutory Rape," that has been accepted for publication in Vol. 87 of the Indiana Law Journal.

Professor Christopher Russell also presented his paper, "Targeted Killing and the Imminence Requirement," at a conference, Using Targeted Killing to Fight the War on Terror: Philosophical, Moral and Legal Challenges, at The Institute for Law and Philosophy of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Professor Hannah Wiseman recently wrote, "Formulating a Law of Sustainable Energy: The Renewables Component," that will appear in 2011 in the Pace Environmental Law Review. The article was written with the help of two TU College of Law students, Nichole Saunders and Lindsay Grisamer, who interviewed wind developers for the project.

Professor Wiseman presented "Reviving Regionalism in Energy Law" at the University of Toledo College of Law and “Expanding Regional Renewable Energy Governance” at Arizona State University’s Young Scholars’ Conference; and was a panelist via teleconference for "Hydrofracking: Exploring the Legal Issues in the Context of Politics, Science, and the Economy," at the University at Buffalo Law School. She also will be a panelist at the American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference in Boston on a panel titled "Land, Covenants, and Law" and will present "Public Communities, Private Rules." In May Wiseman will be a presenter at the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation’s 2011 Natural Resources Law Teachers Institute in Columbia River Gorge, Oregon. Also in May, Wiseman will be a panelist on Hydraulic Fracturing Issues at the Oklahoma Water Law Conference in Tulsa. And in June, she will teach a one-week Solar and Wind Development course at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.

Student Accomplishments:

Christopher Scott, rising 3L, has accepted an internship this summer with ConocoPhillips in its Global Real Estate Division.

College of Law Accomplishments:

The University of Tulsa College of Law advanced 13 spots compared to last year in a nation-wide ranking of law schools in the 2012 edition of U.S. News and World Report's "Best Graduate Schools." TU is ranked 110 out of 188 schools. This year's jump comes on the heels of a 24-spot improvement in last year's ranking, making an increase of 37 places over two years.