Education, Business, & Law

Illustration of two people in an office using a large shared table divided by a glass partition, each wearing face masks while sitting at their laptops.

The post-COVID workplace: Will employees be safe?

Experts at Wharton weigh in on what to expect when employees return to the workplace post-pandemic, and whether to expect all employees can, and will, return to a traditional workplace.

From Knowledge@Wharton ・

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David Hoffman on broken contracts during pandemics

Law professsor David Hoffman argues that there isn’t a precedent, outside a major unexpected event, to keep a party from fulfilling a contract. The pandemic raises a questions about obligations, public policy, and public health.

From Penn Law ・



In the News


WHYY (Philadelphia)

‘I don’t know where to move’: Philly immigrants who’ve lived through coups warn of the rise of fringe groups

Bulent Gultekin of the Wharton School said that compared to the coup he witnessed in Turkey 60 years ago, the recent attack on the U.S. Capitol was more like a “mob scene” than a coup. “It doesn’t mean that things will be the same or we’ll forget about this very quickly, it’s a very important lesson,” he said. “In a country where it’s divided and so many are polarized, this is always a problem in the long run.”

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NBC News

Democrats have a new tool to undo Trump's 'midnight rule-making.' But there's a catch

Cary Coglianese of the Law School spoke about the seldom-used Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn federal rules with a simple majority and prohibit federal agencies from reissuing similar rules without their approval. “If there’s a type of rule that the incoming administration would really like to ensure never gets adopted again, the CRA is a good way to do that,” Coglianese said.

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The Hill

Parler sues Amazon, asks court to reinstate platform

David Hoffman of the Law School said Parler’s lawsuit against Amazon has been weakened because Amazon had warned the social media platform about violating the terms of their agreement prior to terminating the account. “There have been repeated warnings over time about Parler’s failure to comply with Amazon’s terms of use,” Hoffman said. “Given those repeated warnings over time, it’s sort of rich to say, ‘You didn’t give us enough time.’”

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CBS Philadelphia

Philadelphia police increases presence in parts of city again following storming of US Capitol

Claire Finkelstein of the Law School said President Trump may have committed a crime by encouraging his supporters to breach the U.S. Capitol building. “The question is whether or not the president was intentionally trying to interfere with the peaceful transition of power and trying to launch an attack using his supporters as weapons against the U.S. government,” Finkelstein said. “If we were to find out additional facts that suggested some intentionality on the part of the president, then I believe he could be guilty of sedition.”

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WHYY (Philadelphia)

Congress expected to certify Biden’s win this week—despite GOP push to subvert the vote

Kermit Roosevelt of the Law School attributed efforts to call into question the results of the presidential election to longer term political objectives. “I’m afraid that it’s going to make the next four years a lot more difficult—not that they were going to be easy, anyway,” he said. “To the extent that we’re in an era of people living in different realities, this exacerbates that.”

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