U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar to Accept Touro Law’s Gould Book Award

Touro Law Center Dean Elena B. Langan is pleased to announce that United States Senator Amy Klobuchar will accept the Bruce K. Gould Book Award on Wednesday, November 10 from 6-7 pm for her latest book and national best seller, “Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age.” The event is being held virtually. 

“We are honored that Senator Klobuchar will be accepting this prestigious award,” stated Dean Langan. “Senator Klobuchar is a role model for so many and we are pleased to bestow this honor on her and share a virtual evening with her.”

Touro Law’s Bruce K. Gould Book Award is presented annually to the author of an outstanding publication related to the law, legal profession or legal system. The award is named for its benefactor Bruce K. Gould, an alumnus of Touro Law Center, class of 1984. The award has become known as one of the most prestigious awards of its kind. Since 1993, it has been presented to many notable recipients including Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Anita Hill, Alan M. Dershowitz, Bob Woodward, John Grisham, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Senator Christopher Dodd.

Amy Klobuchar is the senior senator from Minnesota, the first woman from that state to be elected to the U.S. Senate. She was born in Plymouth, Minnesota, and graduated from Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School. She lives in Minneapolis, MN.

She has authored several books, including the memoir The Senator Next Door (2015) and the book for which she is being honored at Touro Law, Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age (2021).

In Antitrust, Senator Klobuchar provides a fascinating history of the antitrust movement, outlining what led to the present moment and offering achievable solutions to prevent monopolies, promote business competition, and encourage innovation.

In a world where Google reportedly controls 90 percent of the search engine market and Big Pharma’s drug price hikes impact healthcare accessibility, monopolies can hurt consumers and cause marketplace stagnation. Klobuchar argues for swift, sweeping reform in economic, legislative, social welfare, and human rights policies, and describes plans, ideas, and legislative proposals designed to strengthen antitrust laws and antitrust enforcement.

Klobuchar writes of the historic and current fights against monopolies in America, from Standard Oil and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to the Progressive Era's trust-busters; from the breakup of Ma Bell (formerly the world's biggest company and largest private telephone system) to the pricing monopoly of Big Pharma and the future of the giant tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google.

She begins with the Gilded Age (1870s-1900), when builders of fortunes and rapacious robber barons such as J. P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were reaping vast fortunes as industrialization swept across the American landscape, with the rich getting vastly richer and the poor, poorer. She discusses President Theodore Roosevelt, who, during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920), "busted" the trusts, breaking up monopolies; the Clayton Act of 1914; the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914; and the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950, which strengthened the Clayton Act. She explores today's Big Pharma and its price-gouging; and tech, television, content, and agriculture communities and how a marketplace with few players, or one in which one company dominates distribution, can hurt consumer prices and stifle innovation.

As the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Klobuchar provides a fascinating exploration of antitrust in America and offers a way forward to protect all Americans from the dangers of curtailed competition, and from vast information gathering, through monopolies.

For additional information about this year’s Gould Award presentation, please contact Touro Law at events@tourolaw.edu or call (631) 761-7060.

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Patti Desrochers

Director of Communications

pattid@tourolaw.edu

(631) 761-7062