News Archive

Professor Jennifer Drobac discussed civil lawsuit involving a Purdue basketball player accused of transmitting a communicable disease. She considers possible defenses in the case, and talks about the ramifications of such law suits.

In a story that appeared in the April 17 issue of the Anderson Herald Bulletin, Professor Drobac pointed out that as a defense, the basketball player's lawyers could argue that the particular disease he's accused of transmitting isn't often tested for during sexually-transmitted disease testing. In addition, she talks about the ramifications of holding people liable in these kinds of instances. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to criminalize or shame people who have diseases,” Professor Drobac said in the story. “We did that with leprosy and HIV. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Professor Drobac also talked about the case in a story published on April 12 in the student newspaper, Purdue Exponent.

Professor Drobac’s latest book, Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers: Adolescent Development, Discrimination, and Consent Law, was published by University of Chicago Press. Professor Drobac is a Visiting Scholar during the Spring 2018 semester at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, and Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain and Behavior. She is conducting research for her next book, The Myth of Consent, which she is co-writing with Professor Oliver Goodenough. That work will explore the neuroscience of adult decision making and how the science should influence law reform. She is the R. Bruce Townsend Professor of Law at IU McKinney.