The University of Minnesota at Twin Cities is considering a set of statements on free speech that, if passed, could be the strongest such affirmation seen on any campus. Former UVA president Robert O’Neil, professor emeritus of law and a free speech expert, said he encountered free speech challenges in his career, including when an invited speaker was shouted off the stage at another institution; he later promised to return after the university affirmed his right to speak. While the O’Neil said he had some misgivings about the proposed “paramount” value language at Minn...
The Obama administration has roundly criticized states such as North Carolina and Mississippi for passing laws that allow discrimination in the name of religious freedom. But at the same time, the administration has left in place a 2007 memo from the Bush White House that allows religious charities with federal contracts to discriminate in hiring for federally funded programs. UVA law professor Douglas Laycock has assured the administration that the memo is legally sound.
(By Boris Heersink, a Ph.D. student, and Jeffery A. Jenkins, a professor, both of UVA’s Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics) Now that Donald Trump has all but wrapped up the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, the party’s elites are divided over whether or not they will support him.
Increase in use of smart phones makes people inattentive and hyperactive, says a study. Society's increasingly pervasive use of digital technology may be causing ADHD-like symptoms even among the general population. "Less than 10 years ago, Steve Jobs promised that smartphones 'will change everything.' And with the Internet in their pockets, people today are bombarded with notifications - whether from email, text messaging, social media or news apps - anywhere they go. We are seeking to better understand how this constant inflow of notifications influences our minds," sai...
Society's increasingly pervasive use of digital technology may be causing ADHD-like symptoms even among the general population, according to a new study. "Less than 10 years ago, Steve Jobs promised that smartphones 'will change everything,'" said Kostadin Kushlev, a UVA psychology research scientist who led the study with colleagues at the University of British Columbia.
The names of several Northern Virginia health facilities officially changed, effective Sunday. The name change includes UVA Culpeper Hospital, which officially changes to Novant Health UVA Health System Culpeper Medical Center.
Partnering universities, such as UVA’s Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research Project, will track waves and the oysters’ success in slowing them, while environmental monitoring will tackle the health of the salt marsh, birds’ responses to the new reefs, water quality and the health of aquatic life nearby.
If infants are swaddled during sleep, their risk of dying from SIDS is higher, especially if they are placed on their stomachs, new research suggests. "Babies who were swaddled were 50 to 60 percent more likely to die of SIDS," said lead researcher Dr. Rachel Moon, a UVA professor of pediatrics.
A new biography explains the contradictions in a man who defended equality while owning slaves. In their new book, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination,” Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf, two of the most eminent living Jefferson scholars, take their turn trying to answer the riddle.
The future looks bright for the many UVA students who are getting ready to walk across the Lawn. Graduates are entering into the best job market since the recession.
Voters on both sides also overwhelmingly dislike their favored candidate. Only 6 percent of Trump supporters said they like the business mogul personally, and just 11 percent said the same for Clinton. “This phenomenon is called negative partisanship,” said Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics, in an interview with Reuters. “If we were trying to maximize the effect, we couldn’t have found better nominees than Trump and Clinton.
UVA’s Larry Sabato has released an Electoral College map showing Trump losing, 347 to 191. To put those numbers in perspective, Sabato’s projection would put Trump in 2016 somewhere between the totals of John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 – both losers.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan has invited Trump, this year's likely Republican presidential nominee, to meet on Thursday with Ryan and other congressional leaders on Capitol Hill, Ryan's office said in a statement on Friday. A key part of the conversation is sure to be Trump's combative, in-your-face campaign persona and Republican leaders' requests for him to tone it down, but political analysts said Ryan will have other considerations in mind, as well. One issue is likely to be his own future, said Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics.
“Impressive as Bernie Sanders’ insurgency has been, the nomination will belong to Hillary Clinton,” Larry J. Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics, wrote in his popular “Crystal Ball” blog that tracks the campaign.
“If Democrats want to build a durable Senate majority, they probably need to get more than just 51 or 52 seats; they probably need 54 or 55, to be honest,” said Kyle Kondik, who analyzes elections for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia. “So where do those seats come from?”
Political scientists say it is far too soon to predict whether Clinton and the Democrats can realistically expand their appeal beyond the familiar roster of swing states. “There is no chance of a blowout election, not with the level of polarization we have right now,” said Geoff Skelley, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at UVA’s Center for Politics.
Trump’s approval ratings among Hispanic voters currently stand at 12 percent. “Trump has alienated growing demographic groups such as Hispanics, and he is at toxic levels with women and young people,” said Larry Sabato, who heads UVA’s Center for Politics.
UVA Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neuro-behavioral Sciences Dr. David Hamilton says suicide can be a casualty of war. "The trauma that war leaves on a person’s mind doesn't last a year or five years," he said. "It lasts a lifetime."
Republicans have not held one of Connecticut’s five congressional seats since 2008, when U.S. Rep. Chris Shays was defeated in the 4th District. And despite the volatility of the political landscape, they face daunting odds this year, said Geoffrey Skelley of UVA’s Center for Politics.
(Commentary by Farzaneh Milani, chair of UVA’s Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures) When Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia almost 200 years ago, he made the Rotunda and the library, rather than a church, its very center. I have always thought this to be a perfect metaphor for Jefferson’s belief in the separation of church and state and his desire to present the newly established republic and university as a beacon of religious freedom to the world.