For Immediate Release
July 27, 2009

Media Contact:

Kara Tershel, (202) 662-9500

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Georgetown University Law Center has partnered with the Vincent A. Stabile Foundation to endow new programs designed to protect the health and safety of consumers of cosmetics, dietary supplements and related products.

Funding from the Stabile Foundation will allow Georgetown Law to reestablish the course "Lawyering in the Public Interest," resuming the work on consumer protection law begun by Professor Joseph Page and Law Center students in the early 1970’s.

In 1971, Page began a seminar titled "Lawyering in the Public Interest" to tackle a series of important consumer protection issues. Inspired by Toni Stabile’s book, Cosmetics: Trick or Treat?, which was described by the Los Angeles Times as "the most chilling expose since Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed," Page and his students examined why cosmetics and grooming products were not required to list their ingredients. Their efforts helped lead the Food and Drug Administration to require labeling disclosures under the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act.

Today, while most cosmetic ingredients are disclosed, health risks associated with these products still exist. Page and Stabile have therefore picked up where they left off to reestablish "Lawyering in the Public Interest."

Endowed by the Vincent A. Stabile Foundation, named for Stabile’s late brother, "Lawyering in the Public Interest" will become two courses during the 2009-2010 academic year. A course on the federal regulation of cosmetic safety and grooming products will be taught by Sandra Schubert of the Environmental Working Group. A course on dietary supplements will be taught by Allison Zieve of the Public Citizen Litigation Group.

The Stabile Foundation has also endowed the Toni Stabile Postgraduate Fellowship, awarded annually to recent Georgetown Law graduates pursuing public interest work in consumer protection, as well as the Toni Stabile Endowed Scholarship Fund, which will assist students with financial need who are pursuing careers in public interest law.

"We are grateful to Toni Stabile and the Stabile Foundation," said Georgetown Law Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff. "Their generosity will enable Georgetown Law to address the ongoing need to protect consumers of cosmetics, dietary supplements and related products by focusing attention on these important issues and by supporting new generations of lawyers in this field."

Stabile added, "Since Georgetown is ideally situated in the nation’s capital and just blocks from the agencies responsible for protecting American consumers, I am encouraged to know that its graduates will carry this work forward."

 

About Georgetown University Law Center 

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It has the largest full-time faculty in the nation and is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body representing more than 60 countries.