“Ethical and Value Choices in the Selection of National Agricultural Research Goals” is a research project funded under an NSFJNEH grant. It involves bringing together a team of twelve nationally known experts to try to build a broadened base from which to evaluate agriculture and agricultural research. The team will meet twice in Washington, D.C., the first time to work out the full range of problems and interrelationships to be addressed and the second time to hear the papers presented by each of the team members. The meetings in Washington will be hosted by the General Accounting Office and will include various agency representatives and analysts, Congressional staff members, and representatives of interested groups. After being reviewed, the papers will be revised by the authors and edited into a book. The editing will be done by Kenneth A. Dahlberg, Western Michigan University, who is the principal investigator for the project.

The U.S. Supreme Court's 1991 decision in United Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls capped a decade of adjudication of fetal protection policies under Title VII. In its decision, the Supreme Court barred the use of these policies, holding that the policies constituted unlawful gender discrimination. Prior to Johnson Controls, employers had justified these policies, which barred “fertile” women from certain workplaces, by contending that the workplace was not safe for women or their fetuses. Given this implicit disclosure by employers that their workplaces were unsafe, it is surprising that federal and state occupational safety and health agencies, charged with ensuring that employers furnish a workplace free from recognized hazards, did not play a larger role in the debate over these policies. This article examines the response of these agencies to the proliferation of fetal protection policies in the 1980s. It concludes that neither federal nor state occupational safety and health agencies crafted an adequate response to these policies during these years.

To his colleagues and the generations of students who had the privilege of knowing him, Jim Schubert was an inventive scholar, dedicated teacher, and tireless mentor. An innovative political scientist, Jim was skilled at incorporating the latest technologies and methods into his research. Engaging and creative as a teacher and mentor, Jim, according to a student and collaborator, “was maybe the kindest, smartest man you could ever meet.” Jim's pioneering work in the field of biopolitics reflect these qualities—he was truly “one of a kind.” As a scholar of biopolitics, Jim left behind a legacy that reflects what Gary Johnson, former editor of Politics and the Life Sciences, describes as the mission of both the journal and the association: “to advance knowledge of politics and promote better policymaking through multidisciplinary analysis that draws on the life sciences.”

Biological issues Have Become prominent in the national news, and the complexity of the science behind the issues has often tended to cloud the broader discussion. Examples include screening for genetic diseases and risk factors, issues of reproductive technology, and controversies over treatment of terminal illness and the “right” to die. Recent polls have indicated both intense interest in biotechnology and an often profound lack of understanding of the science behind it.

Curriculum change in colleges and universities depends in some situations on issues other than the substance or content of the proposed changes.

If introduction of courses such as those which incorporate the literature of biopolitics take the interdisciplinary form, the innovator must develop appropriate political strategies and tactics. The particular politics so developed must identify critical environmental constraints, including departmental jurisdiction, the prevailing reward structure within the institution, and relative importance of the formal and informal governance procedures.

Most critical in certain relatively small and not particularly “bureaucratized” institutions are the attitude of the institution's president toward academic innovation and the degree of threat posed by the new course to the traditional turf of relevant departments. If presidential and vice presidential support for academic innovation are widely perceived and if departmental concerns are satisfied, much latitude for the persistent academic politician exists.

It is entirely possible that a politics which understands and accepts the institution's formal and informal governance procedures is more critical than the content of proposed courses even when the course content is biopolitics.

Human Rights Watch is the largest U.S.-based independent human rights organization. It conducts regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the world. Human Rights Watch (HRW) includes five divisions, covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and the signatories of the Helsinki accords, and has four thematic projects: the Arms Project, the Women's Rights Project, the Children's Rights Project, and the Free Expression Project. HRW maintains offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Brussels, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Dushanbe, and Hong Kong. Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds.