Law Commons^™

Regulating The Poor And Encouraging Charity In Times Of Crisis: The Poor Laws And The Statute Of Charitable Uses, James J. Fishman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

National crises such as September 11th and Hurricane Katrina resulted in an unprecedented outpouring of charitable generosity by Americans, which was encouraged by the government through tax incentives. This paper examines an earlier period of crisis, Tudor England (1485-1603), where the state encouraged philanthropy as a tool of social and political policy. Certain charitable activities were favored and others disadvantaged to spur private sector resources to resolve public problems.

The article discusses the evolution of the laws regulating the poor, which culminated in the Poor Law Legislation of 1601, a process that developed attitudes toward the poor and concepts of …

Outsiders Looking In: The American Legal Discourse Of Exclusion, Luis E. Chiesa

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In the first part of the article it is pointed out that during the last two hundred years our government has frequently enacted measures that unfairly burden certain social groups during times of crisis. The historical analysis set forth in Part II of this article reveals that adoption of such measures is usually justified by an appeal to national security. Thus, we have been told that we need to exclude some groups from the full protection of our laws in order to guarantee the safety of the rest of the populace. The rest of the article is dedicated to explaining …