M.V. Lee Badgett, PEP Steering Committee Member, says discrimination against LGBTQ in India costs between 0.1 and 1.4 percent of gross domestic product, based on a review of health care and workplace data in an interview with the Washington Post. She says, “When a country loses that much GDP, normally we say that it’s had a recession.” Her comments are in a news story about how students and alumni from some of the top universities in India are seeking to overturn colonial era laws that are used as pretexts for mistreatment and exclusion of LGBTQ people. India’s Supreme Court is expected to issue rulings in coming weeks on the laws. This research was also featured in the Georgia Voice.

New research from the UMass Amherst Center for Employment Equity (CEE) finds that a 2013 extension of anti-discrimination coverage for sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has greatly expanded protections for LGBT people, especially for residents of the 28 U.S. states that do not have SOGI anti-discrimination laws. In the report, “Evidence From the Frontlines on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination,” co-authored by PEP Steering Committee member M.V. Lee Badgett, Amanda Baumle, and Steven Boutcher, researchers examined data from more than 9,100 SOGI discrimination charges filed with the EEOC or a state agency between 2013-16. Badgett said the research is important to show that the expanded protections are helping. "We have some patchy laws and policy and some states don't have (protection)." She said the ability to file with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission "is really access to justice" and the report shows that even people in states without laws are afforded federal protection. "We hope it's useful (to show) the need to have a policy that does cover everybody in the country." Read more here.

Paul M. Collins, 2015 PEP Fellow, is interviewed by Gloucester Daily Times, discussing that President Donald J. Trump may not heed the advice of the state’s two U.S. senators in choosing to fill two vacancies on the U.S. District Court bench in Massachusetts. “While tradition dictates that home-state senators have a great deal of influence over district court nominations in their states, the Constitution does not require the president to nominate individuals put forward by home-state senators,” Collins says.  He also comments in the Herald and the Washington Post on the selection of Judge Brett Kavanaugh as President Donald J. Trump’s choice to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Collins is co-author of an op-ed in The Washington Post where he argues that candidates for the top court should answer questions about their views on key issues and shouldn’t refuse to comment on areas of controversy. Collins also says, “Assuming nothing comes out about him that will be so controversial that it would put off the American public, this nominee has a very good chance of getting confirmed” by the Senate.

The Greenwall Foundation, which promotes bioethics research, has awarded Elizabeth Evans, 2018 PEP Fellow, a two-year, $128,164 grant to support her research, “Exploring shared decision-making as an ethical response to the opioid epidemic.” The shared decision-making approach is informed by ideas from public health ethics specifying that public health, when identifying public health threats and understanding the risks and benefits of ways to address them, has an obligation to communicate with and involve not only experts but the people affected by practice and policy. “Findings will inform the creation of policies and protocols that are respectful of patients’ healthcare needs, preferences and values, while also empowering patients to work in partnership with others in determining how the opioid crisis should be addressed,” Evans notes. Read more here.