Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Why Women Should Control Wall Street

Post author:Andrea K. Schneider
Post published:October 17, 2008
Post category:Corporate Law

So last week when I received my TIAA-CREF statement (like many professors, I assume) you might have heard me scream from Milwaukee. But now I have a better idea –- I should be running the market! Tim Harford, a columnist for the Financial Times and author of The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World explained last week on NPR that men are too hormonal to be running Wall Street. Yes, let me repeat that, men are too hormonal. As Mr. Harford explains,

There’s a former Wall Street trader who is now a researcher at Cambridge University in the UK. His name is John Coates. What he told me was that when he ran a trading desk in Wall Street during the last dot com boom and bust, he found that his traders were exhibiting almost physical symptoms of mania. So they were punching the air. They were yelling. There was – not to put too fine a point on it – there was more pornography floating around in the office. This is of course is a very masculine, macho environment. But what John Coates also noticed was that the few women who were on the trading floor didn’t seem to be affected.

Talking to Your Own People

Post author:Andrea K. Schneider
Post published:October 17, 2008
Post category:Political Processes & Rhetoric

The best part about politics, and particularly presidential elections, is that each news story or political ad demonstrates the well-known negotiation theory of confirming evidence. In other words, we only believe data that confirms what we already think. And, watching the debate last night or listening to the political commentary afterwards probably confirmed for you what you already thought about the candidates. And, this phenomenon doesn’t really help us or the candidates.

9th Circuit: Garcetti Poses Mixed Question of Law and Fact

Post author:Paul M. Secunda
Post published:October 17, 2008
Post category:Labor & Employment Law

Thanks to Ross Runkel for providing this summary of an interesting new Garcetti public employee free speech case, Posey v. Lake Pend (9th Cir. 10/15/2008), considering whether the determination of if an employee is speaking pursuant to his official duties is a question of law or fact. Of course, this is an important question because it goes to whether these cases can be disposed of by the court on summary judgment:

Posey sued the public employer, asserting a claim for 1st Amendment retaliation. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer. The 9th Circuit reversed.

The court framed the primary issue on appeal as “whether, following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 IS 410 (2006), the inquiry into the protected status of speech in a First Amendment retaliation claim remains a question of law properly decided at summary judgment or instead now presents a mixed question of fact and law.”