Experience Faculty & Research

This week several major Internet companies announced that they were taking down Infowars, Alex Jones’ inflammatory online platform. Notably absent from the list was Twitter. This is a case that is testing the core values of the major Internet providers and the practical applications of their community standards. And to date, Twitter is failing those tests. Read more

• Biography: Professor Michael Posner
• Department: Center for Business and Human Rights

A decade ago, a group of Internet companies, civil society organizations, academics, and investors launched the Global Network Initiative (GNI), a collaborative effort to promote free expression and protect user privacy on the Internet. Google helped lead this effort and a parallel project devoted to developing a human rights framework for the Internet. In 2010, Google further demonstrated its leadership by making a principled decision to withdraw its search-engine services from China. Read more

• Biography: Professor Michael Posner
• Department: Center for Business and Human Rights

In 1822, James Madison wrote that “a popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both.” Operating in a much simpler world, Madison and the other architects of American democracy did a brilliant job in developing a constitutional model that guarantees a free press and supports accountable government-essential elements to the provision of “popular information.” Read more

• Biography: Professor Michael Posner
• Department: Center for Business and Human Rights

Over the last two weeks, I have traveled to Myanmar and Bangladesh. This was my first visit back to Myanmar in more than five years. And while I am a chronic optimist, my visit offered grim confirmation of the dramatic deterioration of conditions in the country, especially for the Rohingya ethnic minority. These catastrophic conditions underscored the decline of U.S. leadership on human rights in this part of the world and globally. Read more

• Biography: Professor Michael Posner
• Department: Center for Business and Human Rights

This morning Microsoft President Brad Smith posted an essay on the company’s blog that raises important questions about the human rights challenges related to facial recognition technology. Microsoft, and in particular, Smith, have led the tech industry in addressing human rights issues that inevitably grow from the spreading use of emerging technologies. As Smith points out, these new technological capacities are often a force for good, but are also subject to manipulation and can cause great harm. What is clear is that these new technologies are now part of our lives and will play an ever-greater role in the future. Smith rightly focuses on vexing challenges relating to the governance of facial recognition technologies, a rapidly evolving area which requires new models in which both governments and companies assume greater responsibilities. Read more

• Biography: Professor Michael Posner
• Department: Center for Business and Human Rights

There are two types of people in the United States right now: those who have heard of comedian Hannah Gadsby and those who haven’t. When people in the first group – particularly those who have seen Gadsby’s work - cross paths with people in the second group, a predictable zeal takes hold. They talk about the importance of Gadsby’s Netflix special, Nanette, to anyone who is from - or cares about people from – a marginalized group. They quote breathless pieces from Forbes.com, Rolling Stone, Salon.com, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, Vulture.com and many others. Eventually, the zeal culminates with, “Trust me. Just see it.” Read more

• Biography: Professor Dolly Chugh
• Department: Management and Organizations

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the visa ban is a piece of President Donald Trump’s broader efforts to drastically curtail immigration into the United States. A centerpiece of his “America First” agenda, Trump’s anti-immigration offensive also involves seeking to deport the so-called Dreamers and deter Central Americans from crossing the southern border by separating parents from their children. The message is clear: America is slamming the door on new immigrants, especially those coming from the global South. Read more

• Biography: Professor Michael Posner
• Department: Center for Business and Human Rights

The two leading financial trends of our time are the integration of digital technology and the advance of financial inclusion. The latter involves both provision of accessto those who have no account (the ‘unbanked’) and increased usageof financial services by those with a tenuous link to the formal system (the ‘underbanked’). A combination of swift technological change and government promotion is speeding the rise of inclusion. Read more

• Biography: Professor Kim Schoenholtz
• Department: Economics

The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council is yet another step in the administration’s retreat from the world stage. Once widely viewed as a global leader on issues like human rights, the U.S. is now a marginal player, in headlong retreat from the leadership position it has occupied since World War II. Read more

• Biography: Professor Michael Posner
• Department: Center for Business and Human Rights

For many, Juneteenth is a day of American patriotism, celebrated with barbecues and baseball games, parades and parties, rodeos and reunions, much like the Fourth of July. Confused? Read on to find out why some refer to Juneteenth as the Black Fourth of July or America’s second Independence Day. Read more

• Biography: Professor Dolly Chugh
• Department: Management and Organizations

At last year’s EFMD annual conference in Berlin, Germany, Paolo Boccardelli, dean of LUISS Business School and the conference co-chair, outlined 10 global trends that will have an impact on management education in the future: Read more

• Biography: Professor Michael Posner
• Department: Center for Business and Human Rights

The arrival in power of a populist, Euroskeptic government in Italy has focused investors’ minds like few other events this year. The yield differential, or spread, between Italian and German bonds has widened sharply, indicating that investors view Italy as a riskier bet. And Italian equity prices have fallen – particularly in domestic bank shares, the best proxy of country risk – while insurance premia against a sovereign default have increased. There are even fears that Italy could trigger another global financial crisis, especially if a fresh election becomes a de facto referendum on the euro. Read more

• Biography: Professor Nouriel Roubini
• Department: Economics

As a social psychologist, I know how hard it is to do unconscious bias training well. After all, we do not yet have the research-based “solution” everyone is always asking for. So when Starbucks decided to close 8000 stores for unconscious bias training of almost 175,000 employees, I had a lot of questions. Read more

• Biography: Professor Dolly Chugh
• Department: Management and Organizations

Initial coin offerings have become the most common way to finance cryptocurrency ventures, of which there are now nearly 1,600 and rising. In exchange for your dollars, pounds, euros, or other currency, an ICO issues digital “tokens,” or “coins,” that may or may not be used to purchase some specified good or service in the future. Read more

• Biography: Professor Nouriel Roubini
• Department: Economics

Sprint and T-Mobile are trying to justify their recently announced merger by claiming that the combined company would be able to invest in 5G service. Yet no matter how much T-Mobile CEO John Legere and Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure push this justification for their merger, it doesn’t make any sense. Read more

• Biography: Professor Nicholas Economides
• Department: Economics