Law Commons^™

Social Activism Through Shareholder Activism, Lisa M. Fairfax

Washington and Lee Law Review

This article is based on the author's keynote address at the 2018-2019 Lara D. Gass Annual Symposium: Civil Rights and Shareholder Activism at Washington and Lee University School of Law, February 15, 2019.

In 1952, the SEC altered the shareholder proposal rule to exclude proposals made “primarily for the purpose of promoting general economic, political, racial, religious, social or similar causes.” The SEC did not reference civil rights activist James Peck or otherwise acknowledge that its actions were prompted by Peck’s 1951 shareholder proposal to Greyhound for desegregating seating. Instead, the SEC indicated that its change simply reflected a codification …

Civil Rights And Shareholder Activism: Sec V. Medical Committee For Human Rights, Sarah C. Haan

Washington and Lee Law Review

This article builds upon the author's remarks at the 2018-2019 Lara D. Gass Annual Symposium: Civil Rights and Shareholder Activism at Washington and Lee University School of Law, February 15, 2019.

What does “corporate democracy” mean? How far does federal law go to guarantee public company investors a say in a firm’s policies on important social, environmental, or political issues? In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready to start sketching the contours of corporate democracy—and then, at the last minute, it pulled back. This Article tells the story of Securities and Exchange Commission v. Medical Committee for Human Rights …

Chancery’S Greatest Decision: Historical Insights On Civil Rights And The Future Of Shareholder Activism, Omari Scott Simmons

Washington and Lee Law Review

This article builds upon the author's remarks at the 2018-2019 Lara D. Gass Annual Symposium: Civil Rights and Shareholder Activism at Washington and Lee University School of Law, February 15, 2019.

Shareholder activism—using an equity stake in a corporation to influence management—has become a popular tool to effectuate social change in the twenty-first century. Increasingly, activists are looking beyond financial performance to demand better corporate performance in such areas as economic inequality, civil rights, human rights, discrimination, and diversity. These efforts take many forms: publicity campaigns, litigation, proxy battles, shareholder resolutions, and negotiations with corporate management. However, a consensus on …

For Him Who Shall Have Borne The Battle: How The Presumption Of Competence Undermines Veterans’ Disability Law, Chase Cobb

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

When the Veterans Administration denies a veteran’s claim for disability benefits it often does so based on the opinion of an expert medical examiner—usually a doctor or a nurse. But under a recent federal rule, the VA carries no burden of laying a foundation for the expert medical examiner’s opinion—no burden of establishing the quality of the expert’s education or the depth of her experience; no burden of establishing the scope of the expert’s training or the soundness of her reasoning. Instead, the VA may simply presume the qualifications of its own expert examiner and throw the burden on the …

Masthead

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Michelle L. Drumbl, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Tax Clinic at W&L Law, introduces this issue of the Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, which includes material presented at and inspired by the Journal's 2018 symposium, Always with Us? Poverty, Taxes, and Social Policy.

A Typology Of Place-Based Investment Tax Incentives, Michelle D. Layser

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Article makes several contributions to tax, poverty, and empirical legal literature. First, it defines the category of place-based investment tax incentives and identifies key elements of variation across the category. Despite their prevalence at all levels of government, place-based investment tax incentives remain undertheorized and largely undefined in the literature. The typology presented here reflects an analysis of three federal tax incentives (the New Markets Tax Credit, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, and the new Opportunity Zones law) and a detailed survey of tax incentives included in state enterprise zone laws. By defining this category of tax laws and …

Converging Welfare States: Symposium Keynote, Susannah Camic Tahk

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Susannah Camic Tahk, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, speaks to the Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice 2018 symposium, Always with Us? Poverty, Taxes, and Social Policy. She addresses the following questions: To what extent do the particular advantages of the tax antipoverty programs persist as the tax antipoverty programs take center stage? Can tax programs, once distinguished from their direct-spending counterparts on the grounds of relative popularity and legal and administrative ease of access maintain those hallmarks as the tax-based welfare state grows …

Extra Law Prices: Why Mrpc 5.4 Continues To Needlessly Burden Access To Civil Justice For Low- To Moderate-Income Clients, R. Matthew Black

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Whether alternative business structures might improve access to justice for low- to moderate-income clients remains a contentious matter.8 Because alternative business structures are generally unavailable, lawyers rely on 501(c)(3) non-profit status and sliding-scale fee structures to reach an underserved market of low-to moderate-income clientele. Nevertheless, use of a sliding- scale fee structure is rare—perhaps because it fails to maximize law firm profits. A sliding-scale fee structure also does not assist clients who need legal services, but do not qualify for LSC-funded programs and are unable to pay even a portion of subsidized legal fees.

This Note addresses why using a …

This Land Is Your Land? Survey Delegation Laws As A Compensable Taking, Doug Chapman

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

While every state in the Union has a statute delegating in some form surveying authority to private entities, the practice has been especially visible and controversial due to pipeline construction in the Commonwealth of Virginia. A major point of contention in pipeline development has centered upon the ability of private companies to use delegated eminent domain powers to survey land for possible future development. While recent decisions by both a federal Virginia District Court and the state’s Supreme Court have upheld the state’s surveying delegation law from landowner challenges, the issue is far from resolved. Virginia therefore provides an ideal …

Virginia Industrialization Group, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Powell Correspondence

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note, Caden Hayes

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Punishing Poverty: Robinson & The Criminal Cash Bond System, Lauren Bennett

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The current cash bail system works in a way that punishes poverty. In Robinson v. California, the Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment to punish an individual for a status or condition. Poverty is a status. The cash bail system is unconstitutional under Robinson and the Eighth Amendment because it punishes the status of poverty. Similar to drug addiction, poverty “may be contracted innocently or involuntarily or it might even take hold from the moment of a person’s birth.” Kalief Browder had no control over his family’s financial position. Yet, this financial position kept him …

Dignity And Discrimination In Sexual Harassment Law: A French Case Study, L. Camille Hébert

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In 2012, France adopted new prohibitions on sexual harassment into its Labor and Penal Codes. That enactment, which significantly broadened the definition of actionable harassment, was based on a model of harassment law that defines sexual harassment as a form of discrimination, while the French have traditionally conceived of sexual harassment as a form of sexual violence. Cases decided under the new prohibitions, as well as additional legislation adopted in France in 2016 and 2018, the latter prompted by France’s “#MeToo” movement, suggest that the French are beginning to perceive sexual harassment as implicating issues of both dignity and equality …

“Just When I Thought I Was Out . . . .”: Post-Employment Repayment Obligations, Stuart Lichten, Eric M. Fink

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The common law doctrine of “employment at will” has dominated U.S. employment law for over a century. Pursuant to this concept, an employer may discharge an employee at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all. An employee may similarly resign at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all. Despite the rule’s facial even-handedness, it operates against the background of “the deeply rooted conception of the employment relation as a dominant-servient relation rather than one of mutual rights and obligations.” Within that relationship, “the employer [has] the right to impose any requirement on …

The New-Breed, “Die-Hard” Chinese Lawyer: A Comparison With American Civil Rights Cause Lawyers, James E. Moliterno, Rongjie Lan

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In times of social upheaval, lawyers can mark the way toward social change. In particular, when lawyers become more aggressive than traditional lawyers in the cause of fighting injustice, they face backlash from multiple sources, including government and their own profession. Such was the case during the U.S. civil rights movement. Unusually aggressive behavior by cause lawyers was met with hostility from their own profession and from government action. Those lawyers, while battered at times with physical violence, bar ethics charges, contempt of court, and state hostility, survived and changed social conditions at the same time they altered the culture …

Cycles Of Failure: The War On Family, The War On Drugs, And The War On Schools Through Hbo’S The Wire, Zachary E. Shapiro, Elizabeth Curran, Rachel C.K. Hutchinson

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Freamon, Bodie, and Zenobia’s statements cut straight to the heart of The Wire’s overarching theme: Individuals are trapped in a complex “cycle of harm” where social problems of inequality, crime, and violence are constantly reinforced. The Wire was a television drama that ran on HBO from 2002 through 2008, created by David Simon. The show focuses on the narcotics scene in Baltimore through the perspective of different stakeholders and residents of the city. The Wire highlights how self-perpetuating, interconnected, and broken social institutions act in concert to limit individual opportunity. These institutions squash attempts at reform by punishing good ideas …

Bytes Bite: Why Corporate Data Breaches Should Give Standing To Affected Individuals, Caden Hayes

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

High-profile data hacks are not uncommon. In fact, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, there have been at least 7,961 data breaches, exposing over 10,000,000,000 accounts in total, since 2005. These shocking numbers are not particularly surprising when taking into account the value of information stolen. For example, cell phone numbers, as exposed in a Yahoo! hack, are worth $10 a piece on the black market, meaning the hackers stood to make $30,000,000,000 from that one hack. That dollar amount does not even consider copies the hackers could make and later resell. Yet while these hackers make astronomical payoffs, the …

Healthtech: How Blockchain Can Simplify Healthcare Compliance, Kathryn M. Bennett

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note broadly explores solutions to modern-day accessibility and security problems latent in electronic health records. Specifically, this Note discusses HIPAA and HITECH, the current law in place, and how blockchain technology can be used to fix the accessibility and security problems of current electronic health records. This Note proposes that blockchain technology can help a healthcare industry struggling to adhere to the current rule of law in an era of Big Data. Further, Blockchain technology can help individual consumers, particularly those with significant health issues, obtain the best possible medical care while simultaneously keeping their private and sensitive information …

Dogs Of War Get A New Lease On Life: Why The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act Violates The Eighth Amendment In Light Of United States V. Slatten, Michael D. Stinnett-Kassoff

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The United States has relied on Private Military Firms (PMFs) extensively to carry out its numerous overseas military missions since the end of the Cold War. Civilians and contractors have always had a place in American wars, even during the American Revolution and beyond. But the recent American incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq brought an unprecedented number of private contractors into the forefront of these conflict zones, the discussions surrounding them, and the legal questions arising from their ashes. Particularly, private contractors in Iraq seemed to be operating in a legal grey area—they clearly were not soldiers, and they clearly …