Law School Faculty Highlights

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has appointed University of Mississippi law professor Ronald Rychlak to the state’s first mobile-online sports betting task force.

House Bill 606, which passed by overwhelming vote in March, decreed that 13 experts across the state would be convened for the task force. The committee will study the intricacies and challenges of legalizing mobile-online sports betting in the state. 

Under Hosemann’s direction, David Blount, chair of the Senate Gaming Committee, in August invited Rychlak, distinguished professor of law and Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government, to join.

While the economic benefits of legalizing mobile sports betting could be large, Rychlak cautioned against hasty implementation that could leave people at risk.

“One of the things I spoke to is when and if we go to an online-based betting that those protections that we have in place must remain so that we won’t put kids in jeopardy,” said Rychlak, who is also a faculty athletics representative at Ole Miss and co-author of “Gaming and Gambling Law: Cases, Materials and Problems” (Carolina Academic Press, 2021). 

“You increase the risk exponentially of threats and bribes to athletes.”

Well over half the country – 34 states and Washington, D.C. – have legalized sports betting in some form. However, since the widespread implementation, several instances of players and people in athletics support roles being threatened and harassed for their performances have been reported. 

“When people bet on these things, they take it very personally,” Rychlak said. “They think they have a stake in it.

“I hope we realize when we’re talking about college students and college athletes, that we do everything we can to minimize the risks to students.”

The task force, which first met in September, has a deadline of Dec. 15, to prepare a final report, which will be made available to the public.

“The chairs have made it clear that they expect there to be a bill proposed this legislative session, so the question is what is it going to look like,” Rychlak said. “The end result is to have a piece of legislation that does not overlook important things.

“Having that legislation does not mean it will pass, but they want to have something to take forward that hasn’t overlooked important considerations.” 

Mississippi allows only in-person sports betting and geofenced mobile-betting within casino grounds. Some casino operators fear that legalization of online sports betting could cut into their business models, while others see the expansion as an opportunity to draw in new customers.

Before drastic changes in committee, HB 606 was written to legalize mobile-online sports betting in the state. In 2022, four bills that would have legalized online sports betting in Mississippi died in committee. In 2019, two similar bills failed.

Much of the concern involves moral or religious opposition to gambling, Rychlak said. States that have legalized mobile sports betting have seen increases in reported gambling addiction, particularly in men aged 18-35.

However, those interested in sports betting are frequenting other states or illegal casinos, Rychlak said.

“You have to understand that there are people who have gambling problems and are going to suffer from this,” he said. “I’m also concerned just in general about the college kids sitting around with a phone app that is controlled by a gambling industry that can tell you should parlay your losses.

“Everywhere they’ve done this, calls to anonymous gambling addiction hotlines have essentially doubled, and the high-risk area is young men.”

It is common for states to first study the proper implementation of sports betting before legalizing it.

Before legalizing mobile-online sports betting earlier this year, Vermont passed a similar study bill in 2022. Georgia’s lawmakers considered a similar bill earlier this year, though it failed to pass, and New York introduced a study bill in 2018 before legalizing sports betting in 2022. 

University of Mississippi law professor Michelle Hanlon co-authored an article published in the journal Science that offers best practices for human research in space.

Each time astronauts venture into space provides researchers with data on how the human body reacts to long-term exposure to zero gravity and other facets of space life. As the race to build communities, tourism and business in space accelerates, humans must continue to share this physiological data, Hanlon said.

“If we want to create communities in space – and we do – we have to understand how the body is affected so we can make that life as comfortable as possible,” she said. “You can’t just say the body changes; you have to know how the body changes.” 

The article, “Ethically cleared to launch?” is the result of a meeting of 30 bioethicists, health policy experts, space health researchers, commercial spaceflight professionals, law specialists and government regulators from across the globe. These specialists met last December at the Banbury Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring, New York, where they discussed issues of human experimentation and research in space.

As space tourism becomes a reality – Virgin Galactic is offering trips to space, with the next launch slated for Oct. 5 – the issue of whether these companies will continue to collect biological data on space tourists, as space agencies have on astronauts, has become more relevant.

The U.N.’s Outer Space Treaty of 1967 designates astronauts as “envoys of mankind.” Hanlon wants to encourage space tourists, as potential future envoys, to help researchers better understand space life. 

“As the population of humans going to space increases, we have tremendous opportunities to do the basic science to understand what it’s like to live and work in space,” she said. “If you travel to space, maybe there is an additional responsibility because the Space Treaty looks at you a little bit differently.” 

While the choice to collect and share this data is optional, it is necessary for scientists to have a wealth of information about what happens to a body in space from a variety of sources, Hanlon said.

“Only 650 or so people have gone to space, but if you look at the astronauts, they are all constantly doing experiments on how space affects them,” she said. “We’ve sent 650 very fit people into space. What is it like on a body that hasn’t been training for eight years to go to the space station?” 

Hanlon said she hopes that the article provides guiding principles for responsible conduct in respect to human research in space while reminding the scientific community that the issue of space travel and tourism is no longer coming – it is here.

“We want to wake up the scientific community to the fact that this is happening now,” she said. “We need to start understanding these issues now, before we have a lunar community.” 

Michelle Hanlon, Executive Director of the Center for Air and Space Law and Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Mississippi School of Law, has been awarded the 2023 Chris Pancratz Space Activist of the Year Award from the National Space Society.

“There are so many passionate advocates for space, I am truly humbled and honored to be the one selected this year to receive the award,” said Hanlon. “I will hold it up to students as proof that even one single voice can make a substantive difference especially in the quickly evolving realm of space law.”

A former President of NSS, Hanlon is recognized around the world as a  leading expert on space law. Additionally, she is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Space Law, the oldest Journal in the world devoted to analyzing the legal problems arising out of human activities in space, and the Journal of Drone Law and Policy, the first of its kind.

In addition to her roles at Ole Miss Law, she is also Co-Founder and President of For All Moonkind, Inc., a nonprofit corporation that is the only organization in the world focused on obtaining international legal recognition for and protection of human cultural heritage in outer space.

Hanlon was instrumental in the development of the One Small Step Act in the United States, the first national legislation to acknowledge the existence of human heritage in outer space.  For All Moonkind has been recognized by the United Nations as a Permanent Observer to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and Hanlon contributes regularly to the international discourse on space law through the Committee. Most recently, she urged the United Nations to recognize and adopt temporary heritage protection zones around certain sites on the Moon as part of a legal framework for space resource utilization. Under Hanlon’s leadership, more than 100 space law and heritage law experts from every inhabited continent contribute their valuable time and experience to advance For All Moonkind’s important mission. Last March Hanlon announced the formation of For All Moonkind’s Institute on Space Law and Ethics bringing together thought leaders in the space industry with the mission to develop an accepted ethical foundation for all space activity.

Hanlon’s research and advocacy centers upon the concept of “due regard” in space law and evolving the framework necessary to assure that human exploration of space is responsible, successful and sustainable. In this regard she has done considerable work and written and presented extensively on topics related to orbital debris remediation, space solar power, small satellite constellations, environmental considerations and the protection of human heritage in space.

Hanlon is an advisor to The Hague Institute for Global Justice Off-World Approach project. She also serves on the Advisory Committees of a number of space-related start-up organizations.

Michelle received her B.A. in Political Science from Yale College and her J.D. magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center. She earned her LL.M in Air and Space Law from McGill University where the focus of her research was commercial space and the intersection of commerce and public law.