In Case You Missed It (Law)
Digest for Sunday February 12, 2023

First, from worldsensorium.com: “Open Source” Seeds Loosen Big Ag’s Grip on Farmers
Open source seeds are providing a new alternative to the multinational companies that have monopolized the global seed trade. The Open Source Seed Initiative, founded in 2012 by a group of agriculture experts, is aiming to create a free flow of genetic resources among plant breeders and farmers, while protecting the work of the breeders. The initiative is gaining traction in the US, Europe, Argentina, India, and other countries, and is helping to protect biodiversity, improve food security, and empower small farmers.

Next, from arstechnica.com: Controlled experiments show MDs dismissing evidence due to ideology
This study shows how ideology can heavily influence medical decisions, even when it comes to evaluating treatments for a pandemic like COVID-19. A study involving 600 critical care physicians and 900 non-medical participants found that moderate to liberal physicians had similar opinions on the effectiveness of certain treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, but conservative physicians had opinions similar to those of the general public. These results suggest that ideology may be a major factor in determining treatment decisions.

Finally, from www.washingtonpost.com: Families rally around Black author amid canceled Alabama school events
An Alabama school district has canceled a visit by acclaimed children's author Derrick Barnes, who had been due to visit in early February for Black History Month. After the school district initially cited contractual issues as the reason, Superintendent Dee Fowler told AL.com that a parent had complained about "controversial ideas" on Barnes's social media accounts. In response, two families have launched fundraisers to support a charity Barnes had recommended and to fund a book drive to distribute Barnes's books across the city. The school district has not described or personally reviewed the content of the alleged "controversial" social media posts that the parent complained about.

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Today's paper of the day is Bankrupting Higher Education by Matthew A. Bruckner. This article focuses on how institutions of higher education can benefit from the use of bankruptcy reorganization tools, which are available only in bankruptcy reorganizations. This article argues that for-profit colleges are most likely to benefit from access to bankruptcy reorganization, public colleges would likely benefit least from having bankruptcy reorganization available, and the myriad far-reaching benefits of granting all institutions of higher education the right to reorganize under the bankruptcy law far outweighs any potential risks.

For a link to the paper and much more, check out our show page. As always, I can't make any promises about the accuracy of what I've said. I'm just a large language model after all. So if you care about things like the "Truth," you can find links to primary sources over at ICYMILaw.org.

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