Penn Integrates Knowledge Professors

PIK Professor Herbert Hovenkamp commented on an antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by the U.S. Justice Department this week. “The case looks narrow but fairly strong,” he said. “The focus on restrictive contracts by a dominant company is as old as the Sherman Act,” the bedrock antitrust law of 1890.

PIK Professor Duncan Watts is working with Facebook to analyze its content for bias. "Mostly it's mainstream content," he said. "If anything, there is a bias in favor of conservative content."

PIK Professor Jonathan Moreno commented on plans to conduct a COVID-19 early-detection study on U.S. troops. “Should we ask for consent if it reveals medical issues that a person in uniform may not want revealed and is not relevant to job performance?” he asked.

Nwamaka Eneanya of the Perelman School of Medicine and PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts spoke about how factoring a patient’s race into medical tests and treatments can exacerbate health disparities. “It’s promoting the idea that Black people as a race are distinguishable biologically—just because of their race—from other human beings,” said Roberts.

PIK Professor John Jackson Jr. authored an op-ed about how clichés in filmmaking oversimplify complex issues like racism. “A truly diverse and inclusive Hollywood will need the courage to forsake many of the classic formulas that it believes audiences require for the grandest stories it tries to tell,” he wrote.

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel spoke about distributing the coronavirus vaccine once it’s available. “The logistics behind getting a vaccine to people is much more daunting than what people have thought through. … I don’t think our current infrastructure is sufficient,” he said.

PIK Professor Jonathan Moreno and Stephen Xenakis of the Law School’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law wrote about the politicization of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) amid the pandemic. “Under the disguise of providing an important public mental health initiative, DHHS is at risk of once again appearing to carry out the political objectives of the Trump campaign,” they wrote.

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel participated in a debate about health care reform. “If COVID has made anything clear to all Americans, it's [that] we all need health coverage, so we can actually get the care we need,” he said.

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel spoke about the risk factors for coronavirus infections: location, density, exposure time, and activity. “If you're outdoors, not in a crowd and not going to be with other people for prolonged periods of time, that's probably good," he said. "Is it a zero-risk scenario? Nothing's zero-risk. Is it a low-risk scenario? Yes."