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Full-Text Articles in Social Welfare Law

A Middle-Class New Deal: A Call To Action, Angela K. Littwin Dec 2025

A Middle-Class New Deal: A Call To Action, Angela K. Littwin

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The books featured in the Debt in the Real World Symposium paint compelling portraits of American financial insecurity and distress. The fact that half of U.S. households cannot make ends meet is a devastating development, but it also presents an opportunity for making change because economic insecurity is now an “us” problem rather than a “them” problem. The next step is to organize, and as part of that process, to develop a vision of an economy that works for everyone. The title of one featured book, Michele Dickerson’s forthcoming The Middle Class New Deal, is a strong starting point because …


Missing Strugglers: Debt’S Reach, Bankruptcy’S Limits, And A Proxy For Who’S Left Out, Dalié Jiménez Dec 2025

Missing Strugglers: Debt’S Reach, Bankruptcy’S Limits, And A Proxy For Who’S Left Out, Dalié Jiménez

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This essay uses Debt’s Grip as a point of departure to examine how debt operates as a system of social control in the United States. While the book offers a vivid portrait of those who file for bankruptcy, it also gestures toward a broader reality: millions of financially distressed individuals who never access relief. Drawing on legal scholarship and political theory, this Essay argues that debt disciplines individuals, fragments solidarity, and undermines democratic agency. It proposes a new metric—the ratio of debt collection lawsuits to bankruptcy filings—as a proxy for unmet need, revealing a population of “missing strugglers” visible to …


Myth Busters: A Review Of “Debt’S Grip”, Susan Block-Lieb Dec 2025

Myth Busters: A Review Of “Debt’S Grip”, Susan Block-Lieb

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Debt’s Grip follows a long line of literature that looks to combat legal and cultural myths about consumer debt and consumer bankruptcy with quantitative and qualitative analysis on these topics. Who files for bankruptcy and why? Fighting longstanding myths is tough work, but Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless and Deborah Thorne have marshalled a strong set of tools, and strong intellectual allies, to support this epic battle.


How And Why To Be A Strategic Debtor, Chrystin Ondersma Dec 2025

How And Why To Be A Strategic Debtor, Chrystin Ondersma

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Shame and fear prevent many Americans who need debt relief from seeking it. Americans who struggle with debt should reject fear and shame and should instead feel empowered and entitled to seek relief in bankruptcy. Almost every American will need to take on debt at some point. We’re expected to use credit to acquire educations, homes, cars, and appliances—even medical care. Americans do not incur debt strategically, but rather as a matter of survival. In Dignity Not Debt, I argued that human dignity, not profits, should guide policymakers, and that our collective goal should be to end both survival debt …


Can The New Literature About Debt Make A Real Difference In The Real World?, Norman I. Silber Dec 2025

Can The New Literature About Debt Make A Real Difference In The Real World?, Norman I. Silber

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Thank you for inviting me to participate in this symposium organized around a group of new books about “Debt in the Real World.” My discussion in Part I considers from a historical perspective the place these books occupy as part of a long tradition of consumer reform which has combined popular literature with scholarship to promote change. Part II then explores themes common to this new wave. Part III closes by arguing that as in earlier periods the new wave can make headway notwithstanding attacks on governmental interventions; that there may be space in our political geography for some of …


Power, Tools, And Process: Some Reflections On Bankruptcy Minimalism, Edward J. Janger Dec 2025

Power, Tools, And Process: Some Reflections On Bankruptcy Minimalism, Edward J. Janger

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal, Melissa Jacoby offers a brilliant and sweeping indictment of the way in which bankruptcy law is currently practiced in the United States. As she puts it, “This book is a story of falling out of love. With a law.” Like me, Professor Jacoby came of professional age, at the close of the first age of the Bankruptcy Code. Enacted in 1978, we both learned the statute in the mid-1990s, at a time when the transformative power of the 1978 Code was reaching its peak. On the business side, corporations …


Chasing The American Dream: Young Adults In Financial Crisis, A. Mechele Dickerson Dec 2025

Chasing The American Dream: Young Adults In Financial Crisis, A. Mechele Dickerson

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

For nearly two decades, I have written about housing and I have chronicled why it is so hard for middle-class Americans to become homeowners. More recently, I have explored the concept of the “traditional” household (husband, wife and 2.5+ children) and stressed that, notwithstanding the substantial federal and state subsidies this household formation receives, it is no longer the norm. While the housing crisis persists, it has now metastasized into a widespread and sweeping financial and social breakdown. In my forthcoming book, The Middle-Class New Deal: Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream, I more broadly explore the challenges adults …


Interdisciplinary Research Is Hard And Other Lessons From Debt’S Grip, Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless, Deborah Thorne Dec 2025

Interdisciplinary Research Is Hard And Other Lessons From Debt’S Grip, Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless, Deborah Thorne

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This symposium spotlights recent book-length treatments of household finance. Its organizers asked us to write an essay that would add to our recently published book, Debt’s Grip. At first, we were at a loss. The book documents what it means to live in financial precarity after decades of risk shifting onto households in the United States. We had spent a couple of years writing the book, which in turn is built on over a decade of teamwork in data collection. If we had something more to say, we would have said it in the book. For those looking for new …


Sterilization, Haunting And The Future Of Disability Law, Linda Steele Dec 2025

Sterilization, Haunting And The Future Of Disability Law, Linda Steele

Journal of Law and Policy

This article proposes that a methodology of ‘haunting’ could be used by disability rights lawyers and disability law scholars to challenge structural injustice against disabled people. The author make this argument through the example of forced sterilization. Forced sterilization pursuant to eugenics laws in the United States during the early to mid-twentieth century is a profound injustice perpetrated on disabled people which is yet to be fully reckoned with and repaired. While eugenics sterilization laws have been repealed, and some states have additionally made public apologies and introduced compensation programs, forced sterilization of disabled people continues to be perpetrated pursuant …


Barbarians At The Gate Or Angels At The Crossroads? Examining The Impact Of The Uk Green Taxonomy On Private Equity Firms, Melek Redzheb, Fatjon Kaja Sep 2025

Barbarians At The Gate Or Angels At The Crossroads? Examining The Impact Of The Uk Green Taxonomy On Private Equity Firms, Melek Redzheb, Fatjon Kaja

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This Article explores whether the UK Green Taxonomy will foster sustainable corporate governance in private equity-backed portfolio companies. We explore how the Taxonomy will address the greenwashing problem that plagues financial markets, including the private equity industry. Our analysis suggests that general partners will have a twofold response to the new reforms. In the short term, they will seek to address the social concerns of limited partners by negatively screening unsustainable companies and cherry-picking more sustainable ones (the so-called “exit” strategy). In the long term, however, they will adopt a dynamic strategy to transform unsustainable targets into sustainable enterprises on …


The Dubious Role Of Institutional Investors In Driving The Green Transition: Legal And Economic Constraints, Giovanni Strampelli Sep 2025

The Dubious Role Of Institutional Investors In Driving The Green Transition: Legal And Economic Constraints, Giovanni Strampelli

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

There is a well-established trend that the process of transition to a sustainable economic growth model marked by the pursuit of environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) objectives has large companies at its center, which are considered an essential hub for this purpose given their weight in the global economy. In this context, the role of shareholders, especially institutional investors, plays an important role. Indeed, it is widely recognized that they, having an increasing prominence in the shareholder base of large, listed companies, can push these public companies to adopt more virtuous conduct in the areas of, among others, environmental protection …


Emission Impossible: Challenging The Imposition Of New York City’S Local Law 97, Daniel Lopiccolo Sep 2025

Emission Impossible: Challenging The Imposition Of New York City’S Local Law 97, Daniel Lopiccolo

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

New York City’s Local Law 97 was passed by the City Council in 2019 with the goal of reducing citywide carbon emissions. The law imposes civil penalties on property owners whose buildings fail to comply with carbon emissions limits stipulated by the city. While the law admirably aims to minimize New York’s carbon footprint, its present burden is excessive and disproportionate to the offense committed, making the cost of affording lower and middle-class housing units increasingly untenable for many New Yorkers, especially for property owners in co-op and condo communities. Many such as Glen Oaks Village Owners, Inc., the plaintiffs …


Conflicting Canons Of Construction: The Aftermath In Veterans’ Law, Carlissa R. Carson Apr 2025

Conflicting Canons Of Construction: The Aftermath In Veterans’ Law, Carlissa R. Carson

Brooklyn Law Review

Until June 28, 2024, when the United States Supreme Court overturned decades of administrative law precedent, veterans' law judges, veterans, and practitioners alike would gather in the administrative law arena to watch an unpredictable battle: Chevron vs. Gardner. The outcome of bouts between these heavyweights was as unexpected as the plot twist in an M. Night Shyamalan film. As a result, our nation’s veterans were defeated. Federal courts tended to apply either Chevron (agency deference) or Gardner (veteran friendliness) and courts rarely mentioned both canons of construction in the same opinion. It was difficult to predict which canon of construction …


Silent Suffering: Demanding Individual Accountability For Sexual Assault Against Disabled Children In School Environments, Stephanie Flores Dec 2024

Silent Suffering: Demanding Individual Accountability For Sexual Assault Against Disabled Children In School Environments, Stephanie Flores

Journal of Law and Policy

Disabled children are among the most vulnerable in society, particularly in school environments where they depend on the actions and care of others for their safety. These children face significantly higher risks of sexual abuse than their non-disabled peers, and school officials' negligence can exacerbate this danger. Despite the prevalence of such cases, the Fifth Circuit's refusal to recognize school officials’ liability under the state-created danger doctrine, as seen in Fisher v. Moore, deprives disabled children of adequate legal recourse under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The decision holds that school officials cannot be held personally liable for the peer-inflicted sexual …


The Right To Preschool: Once A Wartime Necessity, Now A Fundamental Step Towards Educational Equity, Alex Raskin May 2024

The Right To Preschool: Once A Wartime Necessity, Now A Fundamental Step Towards Educational Equity, Alex Raskin

Journal of Law and Policy

The most vital time for cognitive development is the first five years of a child’s life, impacting everything from language skills to social and emotional abilities. This makes access to high-quality universal preschool a necessity, as increasingly more families are without stable childcare in America. Preschool tuition now averages $10,000 annually and without paid parental leave, millions of children are left without formal learning or adequate supervision before kindergarten. This disproportionately impacts Black and brown students and students with disabilities, while continuing cycles of poverty and the gender wage gap. The only time the U.S. government provided high-quality universal preschool …


Affirmatively Furthering Health Equity, Mary Crossley Mar 2024

Affirmatively Furthering Health Equity, Mary Crossley

Brooklyn Law Review

Pervasive health disparities in the United States undermine both public health and social cohesion. Because of the enormity of the healthcare sector, government action, standing alone, is limited in its power to remedy health disparities. This article proposes a novel approach to distributing responsibility for promoting health equity broadly among public and private actors in the healthcare sector. Specifically, it recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services issue guidance articulating an obligation on the part of all recipients of federal healthcare funding to act affirmatively to advance health equity. The Fair Housing Act’s requirement that recipients of federal …


Puerto Rican Presidential Voting Rights: Why Precedent Should Be Overturned, And Other Options For Suffrage, Sigrid Vendrell-Polanco Mar 2024

Puerto Rican Presidential Voting Rights: Why Precedent Should Be Overturned, And Other Options For Suffrage, Sigrid Vendrell-Polanco

Brooklyn Law Review

The United States has continued to hold Puerto Rico as a colony, much like the British empire did the US colonies, and has given it no clear path to incorporation, statehood, or independent sovereignty. It has also denied its citizens the right to vote for their president and have voting representation in Congress. Current case law regarding Puerto Rican presidential voting rights and voting representation in Congress rests on precedent that dates almost as far back as its acquisition—the infamous Insular Cases. This case law is inconsistent with prior precedent, constitutional principles, and does not account for Puerto Rico’s contributions …


Addressing The Toll Of Truth Telling, Inga N. Laurent May 2023

Addressing The Toll Of Truth Telling, Inga N. Laurent

Brooklyn Law Review

Across the United States, there are mounting and renewed calls for applying restorative justice principles to deeply entrenched societal ills based on reconciliation, namely in the form of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs). Amid our great mobilization, we would be wise to pause, contemplating lessons from lived experiences. Since the 1970s, approximately thirty-five national truth commissions have taken place. In South Africa, Canada, Sierra Leone, and many processes, TRCs have proven adept at cataloguing approved instances of victim and survivors’ (VS) stories and elaborately contextualizing conflict through a new historical lens. Despite the transformative potential of TRCs, they are still …


Embracing The End: A Comparative Analysis Of Medical Aid In Dying In Canada And The United States, Joel Krinsky Dec 2022

Embracing The End: A Comparative Analysis Of Medical Aid In Dying In Canada And The United States, Joel Krinsky

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Since the late nineteenth century, debate has unfolded over the use of euthanasia and physician-assisted death to alleviate the suffering of individuals with medical illnesses. The controversy surrounding the issue persists and its implications are significant. While most countries prohibit Aid in Dying (AID), legalization of the practice has expanded globally in recent years. Canada and the United States (US) are two such jurisdictions that have expanded access to AID. Canada has federally legalized the practice, which the country refers to as Medical Aid in Dying (MAID), and in 2021, the country expanded the eligibility criteria for individuals seeking access …


No Pact With The Devil: Defending & Strengthening New York City’S Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (Pact) - P3, Madeline Martinez Jun 2022

No Pact With The Devil: Defending & Strengthening New York City’S Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (Pact) - P3, Madeline Martinez

Journal of Law and Policy

Faced with the dual threats of a federal receivership and a growing deficit of federal appropriations, in 2018, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio enrolled the New York City Housing Authority (“NYCHA”) into the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (“PACT”). PACT would allow NYCHA to convert its federal Section 9 funding streams into federal Section 8 vouchers and permit the local public housing authority to enter public-private partnerships with private developers. This move would infuse NYCHA with an additional $12.8 billion in funding to counteract its roughly $31.8 billion deficit. However, immediately after the mayor unveiled his plans to pursue PACT, …


Administrative Deference And The Social Security Administration: Survey And Analysis, Nicholas M. Ohanesian Jun 2022

Administrative Deference And The Social Security Administration: Survey And Analysis, Nicholas M. Ohanesian

Journal of Law and Policy

The purpose of this article is to examine the role of administrative deference when decisions of the Social Security Administration are reviewed by federal courts. The concept of administrative deference to administrative agencies in federal courts goes back to the 1930’s during the rise of the New Deal­­—with the high-water mark reached by the Supreme Court in Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council. Since this point, there has been a growing chorus calling to re-examine or outright roll back the deference owed to these agencies when their decisions are reviewed in federal court. Prior to rewriting the standards, this article …


America’S Constant Crisis Of Care: The Case For Passing A National Direct Care Ratio For Nursing Homes, Marissa Espinoza Jun 2022

America’S Constant Crisis Of Care: The Case For Passing A National Direct Care Ratio For Nursing Homes, Marissa Espinoza

Journal of Law and Policy

For decades, the conditions in America’s nursing homes have been the subject of bombshell media reporting, governmental investigations, and public outrage. Longstanding issues—such as chronic staffing shortages and inadequate infection control measures—were laid bare as the COVID-19 pandemic tore through nursing homes, exposing society’s most vulnerable populations—the elderly and the sick—to appalling living conditions. Amid horrifying media reports documenting life inside nursing homes, and in response to mounting public outrage, legislators sprang into action. The most aggressive policy proposed was a direct care ratio, which caps the profits that nursing home owners can extract from facilities by mandating a minimum …


Down And Dirty: Remedies And Reparations For Intersected Environmental And Reproductive Justice, Mickaela J. Fouad May 2022

Down And Dirty: Remedies And Reparations For Intersected Environmental And Reproductive Justice, Mickaela J. Fouad

Brooklyn Law Review

Pollution is a rampant issue in the United States, ranging from smog-filled air to infertile soil to contaminated water. Yet despite the pervasive nature of pollution, its harms are not equally distributed amongst society. Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities disproportionately bear the burden of pollution and consequently suffer more harms because of it. Many of the health consequences from pollution are reproductive in nature: proximity to pollution can compromise fertility, cause difficulty in carrying a pregnancy to term and result in birth defects, disabilities, and reproductive cancers. This note focuses on the reproductive consequences of pollution and relies …


Punishing Drug Use During Pregnancy: Is It Time To “Just Say No” To Fetal Rights?, Danika E. Gallup Dec 2021

Punishing Drug Use During Pregnancy: Is It Time To “Just Say No” To Fetal Rights?, Danika E. Gallup

Brooklyn Law Review

In family courts throughout the country, civil neglect and abuse petitions are routinely brought against individuals based on their drug use during pregnancy. While some may be quick to justify such state interventions in the name of child protection based on the presumption that drug use always harms fetuses in utero and the child once it is born, this note questions the propriety of such justifications. While drug use during pregnancy may result in detrimental health outcomes, the theoretical underpinning of this premise has been dramatically distorted due to racist and classist assumptions that permeate child protective schemes. Medical research …


The Patient Assistance Problem, Daniel O’Brien Lichtenauer Dec 2021

The Patient Assistance Problem, Daniel O’Brien Lichtenauer

Journal of Law and Policy

Implemented in January 2006 as a voluntary enrollment supplement to standard Medicare plans, Medicare Part D coverage subsidizes the cost of prescription drugs for participants. However, significant gaps in coverage exist for those suffering from rare diseases that require costly drugs. Pharmaceutical companies seek to remove the powerful market force of patient price sensitivity by directly sponsoring or substantially funding “patient assistance programs” that help cover out-of-pocket costs. While pharmaceutical donors insist that their goal is strictly altruistic, the reality is that many of these programs offer a financial windfall for drug makers because they help funnel patients towards new …


High Time For A Change: How The Relationship Between Signatory Countries And The United Nations Conventions Governing Narcotic Drugs Must Adapt To Foster A Global Shift In Cannabis Law, Alexander Clementi Dec 2021

High Time For A Change: How The Relationship Between Signatory Countries And The United Nations Conventions Governing Narcotic Drugs Must Adapt To Foster A Global Shift In Cannabis Law, Alexander Clementi

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Since the early 1970’s, the inclusion of cannabis and its byproducts in the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs has mandated a strict prohibition on cultivation and use of the substance, which has led to a largely global practice of criminalization and imprisonment of anyone found to be in its possession. Yet recently, mostly in response to growing public health concerns, countries like Uruguay, Portugal, The Netherlands, Canada, and the United States have enacted laws which seek to decriminalize or even legalize cannabis use and possession. Yet, cannabis remains classified as a Schedule IV narcotic under the Single Convention, …


Shifting Antitrust Laws And Regulations In The Wake Of Hospital Mergers: Taking The Focus Off Of Elective Markets And Centering Health Care, Maya Inka Ureño-Dembar Sep 2021

Shifting Antitrust Laws And Regulations In The Wake Of Hospital Mergers: Taking The Focus Off Of Elective Markets And Centering Health Care, Maya Inka Ureño-Dembar

Brooklyn Law Review

Access to health care requires access to a care center and access to comprehensive health care services. Rampant hospital mergers are uniquely poised to reduce both the number of hospitals, requiring patients to travel further, and the services provided within a newly merged hospital, namely reproductive health services. This phenomenon is clearly seen through the merging of secular and nonsecular hospitals, which often result in patients being forced to travel much further for reproductive health care. In the United States’ current model, health care is not a right, but is treated as a commodity. As such, it is governed by …


Not All Violence In Relationships Is "Domestic Violence", Tamara Kuennen Dec 2020

Not All Violence In Relationships Is "Domestic Violence", Tamara Kuennen

Brooklyn Law Review

This article argues that not all violence in intimate relationships is “domestic violence.” Domestic violence is a pattern of acts perpetrated with a motive: power and control over another. National anti-domestic violence organizations, activists and advocates, and a number of academics agree on this construct of domestic violence. Law, on the other hand, requires neither a pattern nor a motive; it defines domestic violence to include any single act of violence in a relationship, regardless of the perpetrator’s intent. Because legal intervention is the primary intervention for domestic violence today, feminist legal scholars have sought to reform the law to …


Splendid Isolation: Va’S Failure To Provide Due Process Protections And Access To Justice To Veterans And Their Caregivers, Yelena Duterte Dec 2020

Splendid Isolation: Va’S Failure To Provide Due Process Protections And Access To Justice To Veterans And Their Caregivers, Yelena Duterte

Journal of Law and Policy

Imagine you are a spouse and caregiver of a severely injured post-9/11 veteran. Your spouse served in the Marine Corps, with several deployments to Iraq. During their last deployment, your spouse sustained a severe traumatic brain injury and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Due to these injuries, they need consistent care throughout the day. Thankfully, upon their return, the VA provided a caregiver program that allowed you to step away from your job and focus on caring for your spouse full time. As part of this program, you received a caregiver stipend of $2,400 per month, healthcare, and support from …


Decriminalizing Prostitution: Embracing The Swedish Model By Removing The Mistake-Of-Age Defense From New York’S Stop Violence In The Sex Trade Act, Carley Cooke Dec 2020

Decriminalizing Prostitution: Embracing The Swedish Model By Removing The Mistake-Of-Age Defense From New York’S Stop Violence In The Sex Trade Act, Carley Cooke

Journal of Law and Policy

In recent years, New York has re-focused on the widely debated topic of how to best manage and regulate prostitution in the United States. As a state-level issue, the debate presents an invaluable opportunity to re-examine how New York as a society views sex work. The answer in New York focuses on the idea that sex work is real work, where workers should be able to carry out their profession without stigma or fear of arrest. As it stands, the proposed reform largely focuses on decriminalizing both the purchase and sale of sex. This approach contrasts with the legal structure …