Federal Judge Allows Student Tuition Refund Class Action To Proceed Against Quinnipiac University Over COVID-19 Shift To Online Learning

Following up on my previous post, GWU And NYU Beat Student COVID-19 Tuition Refund Lawsuits:  Connecticut Law Tribune, Quinnipiac Must Face Some COVID-19 Claims Tied to Remote Education, Judge Rules:

A federal judge in Connecticut issued a partial favorable ruling Thursday to four students suing Quinnipiac University in a class action after its in-person learning was disrupted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Judge Kari Dooley ruled the parents of the four students had no standing to sue, but did rule for the students on their breach-of-contract and unjust-enrichment claims. Dooley did dismiss their conversion claim. The plaintiffs are seeking millions of dollars on behalf of the class.

Hundreds of similar lawsuits have been filed against colleges and universities across the nation, drawing a mixed bag of rulings from judges.

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Brunson, Johnson & Ryznar: Reforming The Home Office Deduction

Samuel D. Brunson (Loyola-Chicago) & Christian A. Johnson (Widener), An Employee Home Office Expense Deduction for the New Normal, 171 Tax Notes Fed. 41 (Apr. 5, 2021):

Brunson and Johnson argue for a limited above-the-line deduction to cover the costs of working from home and suggest that if Congress expands the deduction for unreimbursed home office expenses, it reconsider the requirements.

Margaret Ryznar (Indiana-McKinney), The Design of a Home Office Deduction, 171 Tax Notes Fed. 49 (Apr. 5, 2021):

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If Biden Approves Loan Forgiveness, What Could It Mean For Law School Debt?

ABA Journal, If Biden Approves Loan Forgiveness, What Could It Mean For Law School Debt?:

People with law school loans could benefit if President Joe Biden authorizes a plan to forgive all or a portion of student debt, but it could exclude those who owe private lenders and impose limits based on income, experts say. ...

The issue of student loan debt forgiveness figured prominently in the 2020 presidential campaign. In April, the White House announced that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona had been asked to explore President Joe Biden’s authority to cancel student loans, USA Today reports.

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Washington & Lee Hosts Virtual Book Event Today On Michelle Drumbl’s Refundable Tax Credits

Washington & Lee Law to Host Book Celebration and Discussion of Refundable Tax Credits:

Washington & Lee law professor and Tax Clinic director Michelle Drumbl’s recent book, Tax Credits for the Working Poor: A Call for Reform (Cambridge University Press 2021), is the topic of an upcoming book celebration event and discussion.

The event will occur in a virtual format on Wednesday, April 14 beginning at 3:00 p.m. and is open to the public. Registration in advance is required at go.wlu.edu/taxcredit.

Drumbl’s book examines the pros and cons of Congress tasking the Internal Revenue Service with the delivery of social benefits. At the core of the book is an examination of the earned income tax credit (EITC), which was introduced in the U.S. in 1975. According to Drumbl, the EITC remains the most significant earnings-based refundable credit in the Internal Revenue Code.

The economic shocks related to the COVID-19 pandemic saw Congress once again turn to the IRS to deliver aid to those in need, as tens of millions of individuals and families received three rounds of Economic Impact Payments. Most recently, Congress enacted a temporary one-year expansion of the Child Tax Credit that transforms the credit in size and scope: parents will receive a higher benefit per child, earned income is no longer a prerequisite to the credit, and part of the credit will be delivered in advance in monthly payments.

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Dean: A Plea To President Biden To Stop Perpetuating Racist Tax Policy

Steven Dean (Brooklyn), A Plea to President Biden to Stop Perpetuating Racist Tax Policy:

Dear President Biden,
You have pledged to fight to rid our nation of systemic racism. I believe you mean that. But it seems that many in your administration do not. Or perhaps they simply underestimate your resolve.

When you announced your plan last week to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure, you showed a way to pay much of the cost with tax increases on corporations. You did not dwell on the complex details, yet you did take time to single out the Cayman Islands and Bermuda to blame for the failures of our corporate income tax. For reasons that I understand all too well, you identified the wrong culprits.

In your remarks, you explained that corporations had hidden profits in the Caymans and Bermuda. That may be true, in a sense. But it also encapsulated the racism and xenophobia you promised to purge from our political discourse. ...

I blame your extraordinary team of tax specialists. When Paul Krugman joked that there were no tax experts that had not already joined your administration, I immediately thought of one whom they had not even had a conversation with until a few days ago.

With her acclaimed book The Whiteness of Wealth, Dorothy Brown showed the world what we tax nerds long suspected.

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Western New England Seeks To Hire Adjunct Faculty To Teach Online Tax Courses In Its LL.M. Estate Planning Program

Western New England University School of Law is seeking to hire adjuncts to teach these tax-related courses online for its LL.M. in its Elder Law and Estate Planning Program in either the 2021-22 or 2022-23 academic years:

• Advanced Issues in Wealth Transfer Taxes — Marital Deduction Planning
• Advanced Issues in Wealth Transfer Taxes — Generation Skipping Transfer Tax
• Income Taxation of Pass Through Entities
• Income Tax for Estate Planners
• Federal Wealth Transfer Taxes
• Federal Income Taxation of Trusts and Estates

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BigLaw Associates Are Burned Out. Special $60,000+ Bonuses May Not Be Enough To Keep Them

Business Insider, Big Law Associates Are Burned Out After a Year Of Rapid-Fire Deals and Intense Hours. Special $60,000-Plus Bonuses May Not Be Enough to Keep Them:

From M&A deals to IPOs to bankruptcy proceedings, Big Law associates are busier than ever.

For some, their jobs advising financial firms and corporations just got a lot more lucrative. At least 25 Big Law firms are awarding special bonuses up to $64,000 to high-performing associates in 2021.

But many of these bonuses aren't just a straightforward reward for all the hard work that's already been done. Some are being announced months before they hit bank accounts, which is unusual by industry standards.

Recruiters and other industry experts say the payouts are an effort to keep burned-out associates from leaving after a grueling year of high-volume remote work. And some associates Insider spoke to said that, while the money is nice, what they'd really like is to see the workload lighten.

Long hours aren't new for the field. Big Law associates, who range from mid-20-year-olds fresh out of law school to senior associates in their 30s with years of practice under their belts, can expect to work 60-70 hours per week in normal times, including late nights and weekends. While more junior lawyers spend their time drafting documents and learning on the job, older associates are expected to find clients and take the lead on some engagements. After about a decade of hard work and meeting billable-hour requirements, some lucky associates succeed in their quest to make partner, which can mean sharing in the firm's profits.

Still, this year has been different for the notoriously old-fashioned industry, with lawyers tackling a wave of restructurings, an onslaught of SPAC work, and an uptick in work in other areas all while working from home. While firms are looking to make lateral hires to help relieve the pressure, they're also scrambling to hold onto talent they already have.

60% Of Colleges Cut Or Froze Faculty Salaries During The Pandemic; 30% Reduced Or Eliminated Fringe Benefits

AAUP, 2020-21 Faculty Compensation Survey Results:

Data collection for the AAUP’s 2020–21 Faculty Compensation Survey concluded in March, with 929 US colleges and universities providing employment data for nearly 380,000 full-time faculty members as well as senior administrators at nearly 600 institutions. ...

The survey found that real wages for full-time faculty decreased for the first time since the Great Recession, and average wage growth for all ranks of full-time faculty was the lowest since the AAUP began tracking annual wage growth in 1972. After adjusting for inflation, real wages decreased at over two-thirds of colleges and universities. The number of full-time faculty decreased at over half of institutions.

To understand the ways in which institutions responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AAUP also asked participating institutions to identify how many faculty members–both tenure-line and non-tenure-track–were impacted by actions taken by institutions. US colleges and universities have taken a wide range of actions in response to financial difficulties stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when many institutions were already struggling to balance their budgets, many lowered their expenditures by implementing hiring freezes, salary cuts, fringe benefit cuts, furloughs, and layoffs. The results of the AAUP’s 2020–21 Faculty Compensation Survey highlight the prevalence of such actions and how they have affected faculty members. ...

• Average salaries increased 1.0 percent. This is the smallest increase on record since the AAUP began tracking this measure in 1972.
• After adjusting for inflation, real average salaries decreased 0.4 percent. After adjusting for inflation (the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, increased 1.4 percent in 2020), real wages decreased for the first time since the 2011–12 academic year. ...
• Nearly 60 percent implemented salary freezes or reductions.
• About 30 percent eliminated or reduced some form of fringe benefits. ...
• Almost 10 percent implemented furloughs for at least some faculty.

Inside Higher Ed, Faculty Salaries Dip This Year:

Top Salaries for Full Professors at Private Universities, 2020-21 (Average)

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Only 2.9% Of Harvard Faculty Are Conservative

Harvard Crimson, ‘An Endangered Species’: The Scarcity of Harvard’s Conservative Faculty:

It is no surprise that Harvard’s faculty skews heavily toward the left side of the political aisle. Out of 236 members of the FAS who responded to a question on political leanings in The Crimson’s 2021 Faculty Survey, just seven — 3 percent — identified as “somewhat” or “very conservative,” compared to 183 who identified as “somewhat” or “very liberal.”

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A New Feudalism: Selfish Genes, Great Wealth And The Rise Of The Dynastic Family Trust

Eric A. Kades (William & Mary; Google Scholar), A New Feudalism: Selfish Genes, Great Wealth and the Rise of the Dynastic Family Trust:

Today’s record levels of economic inequality are infecting our future as the top 0.01% bequest vast wealth to their descendants. With the death of the Rule Against Perpetuities (RAP), this inequality has the potential to harden social class lines not just for a generation or two but forever. Although it may sound implausible, interviews with estate lawyers serving very high net worth clients reveal that some of the wealthiest tier of testators are already exploiting the RAP’s elimination, along with a tax loophole, to establish dynasty trusts that will financially empower their bloodline as long as it continues. Evolutionary biologists will not be surprised by this finding. Recent work in their field shows a universal and powerful human drive for high status descendants — a drive for “quality” progeny so powerful that it appears to trump the usual desire to maximize quantity of offspring. Coupled with the long history of dynastic family wealth in England, this science suggests that today’s wealthiest testators will utilize powerful modern legal institutions (e.g. well-developed laws of contract and trust; deep and efficient capital markets) to forge a new sort of trust that I dub a Dynastic Family Trusts (DFT). These DFTs will be larded with innovative provisions leveraging a founder’s wealth to maximize descendants’ status for generation after generation.

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The Future Of Tenure

Chronicle of Higher Education, The Future of Tenure: Rethinking a Beleaguered Institution: 

Tenure in the American university system is a lot of things, and they are not always easy to reconcile. It is a form of job protection, one that differs fundamentally from the protections offered by unionization. It is a safeguard for the freedom of academic inquiry — related to but not identical with a larger and peculiarly American commitment to free speech. (At public universities, tenure is part of the armor protecting faculty members for controversial political speech, even when that speech is unconnected to their teaching or research.) And it is a professional prize, a badge of authority, in the university’s hyper-hierarchical symbolic economy.

It is also disappearing. In 1993-94, more than half, or 56.2 percent of faculty members at institutions with a tenure system had tenure. By 2018-19, that number had fallen to 45.1 percent. These declines are driven in part by declines in the percentage of full-time faculty across the university. In 1970-71, almost 80 percent of faculty members were full-time. By 2018-19, that number was under 55 percent.

To politicians, especially red-state politicians at a time when trust in universities among the public is very low, tenure is an easy target. “What other job in the U.S. has protections like that?” as State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Missouri Republican, put it. “If you looked around, you’d come up short.” Meanwhile, an evaporating academic job market and rising adjunctification have severely diminished the ranks of tenure’s potential stakeholders. As Ed Burmila asked last summer in these pages, “Are there enough academic workers with a stake in the tenure system left to defend it?”

With the help of Carolyn Dever, a professor of English and a former provost at Dartmouth College, and George Justice, a professor of English and former dean of the humanities at Arizona State University, we’ve gathered 12 scholars from across fields to address hard questions about the future of tenure. Besides these 12 new pieces, we’ve also included four previously published essays on tenure and its maladies. Our authors don’t always agree with one another — but no discussion of the future of tenure can afford to ignore them.

• Greg Afinogenov (Georgetown), Tenure Is Not Worth Fighting For
• Scott Carlson, Tenure's Broken Promise
• Marlene Daut (Virginia), Full Professor While Black: My Career Was Threatened By Everyday Racism
• William Deresiewicz, An Immodest Proposal: Academics — All of Them — Should Unionize
• Daniela Garofalo (Oklahoma), Tenure by the Book
• Kimberly Hamlin (Miami University), Why Are There So Few Women Full Professors?
• David Helfand (Columbia), A Radical Experiment: Tenure Does Not Equal Excellence
• Teresa Mangum (Iowa), Counting the Cost of Tenure
• Corey Miles (Morgan State), Are Tenure and Social Justice Compatible?

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Congress — And Biden — Can Raise Taxes Retroactively

Washington Post op-ed:  Congress — and Biden — Can Raise Taxes Retroactively If They Want To, by David Herzig (E&Y):

Tax increases seem to appear on the horizon. Recently, the Biden administration proposed raising the corporate income tax to 28 percent, among other tax increases, to pay for a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. Depending on where the economy is in the fall, President Biden and the Democratic-controlled House and Senate may advance an agenda heavy on other policy initiatives, such as addressing climate change and reforming the Affordable Care Act. These plans are also likely to be paid for with increased taxes. In recent interviews, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Mark Mazur, a tax policy official, said that Treasury should be thinking broadly about revenue-raising policies to pay for Biden’s campaign proposals.

As lawmakers consider the magnitude of tax increases, taxpayers may wonder whether those increases will be retroactive not only to the date of the bill’s introduction, but to the beginning of 2021. This is an important and interesting question: Can tax legislative increases be retroactive?

Under conventional wisdom, the answer is no. Taxpayers should be able to rely on the existing rules; otherwise, the government’s pursuit of short-term revenue could create a sense of unfairness and animosity toward the system.

In reality, however, the answer is yes. Tax increases can be retroactive, and not just to the current year.

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Alstott Delivers Pugh Lecture Today At San Diego On Child Care Reform After The Pandemic

Anne Alstott (Yale) delivers the annual Richard Crawford Pugh Lecture on Tax Law & Policy at San Diego today on Child Care Reform After the Pandemic: Towards a Public Option:

This lecture will build on the work that Ganesh Sitaraman (Vanderbilt) and I do in our book, The Public Option: How to Expand Freedom, Increase Opportunity, and Promote Equality (Harvard University Press 2019), to make four points:

First, child care should not be understood as a private responsibility, one to be met by market purchases by individual parents. Instead, we should frame child care as an important public investment – as we do in the case of public education and public utilities.

Second, we should recognize that the economics of child care doom the market model to failure: by treating child care as a consumer product, like Doritos or air freshener, we guarantee the trifecta of high cost, low quality, and poor working conditions. And tax-based subsidies cannot effectively cure these defects.

Third, there are existing models for a public option in child care, and many states, localities, and nonprofits have begun to take measures that we could extend. A public option has been proved to provide affordable care, verifiable quality, and sound working conditions.

Fourth, a public option will help us weather a future pandemic or public emergency, for reasons of high quality and public accountability.

Previous Richard Crawford Pugh Lectures on Tax Law & Policy:

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Halperin: No Basis Step-Up For Marketable Securities With No Tax At Death

Daniel I. Halperin (Harvard), No Basis Step-Up for Marketable Securities With No Tax at Death, 170 Tax Notes Fed. 1709 (Mar. 15, 2021):

In this article, Halperin proposes an innovative way to achieve realization, without any added tax burden at gift, death, or sale: collecting an equivalent tax in present value during the period the asset is held.

The Biden administration has indicated that it would end the egregious step-up in basis at death under section 1014. The step-up, combined with lack of gain recognition on property transferred to charities, allows wealthy households to escape taxation on a substantial percentage of their income. Importantly, measuring effective tax rates, without adding unrealized gains to the denominator, significantly understates the actual effective tax burden on those who hold appreciated assets until death or transfer them to charity to avoid tax on gains. In fact, those who have great wealth may have little or no reason to sell appreciated property. Risk can be mitigated by a charitable gift, a like-kind exchange for real estate, or the creation of an offsetting position that falls short of triggering a constructive sale. It is long past time to eliminate this enormous tax loophole.

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Loneliness In COVID-19, Life, And The Law

Olivia Ash (Indiana) & Peter H. Huang (Colorado), Loneliness in COVID-19, Life, and the Law (111 pages):

This Article analyzes loneliness in the COVID-19 pandemic, life, and the legal profession, especially in legal education. This Article examines: (1) loneliness: what it is, who is lonely, how loneliness affects an individual, and recent evidence about experiences of loneliness in the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) personal, organizational, and societal costs of loneliness; (3) current research about well-being and loneliness in the legal profession and legal education; (4) results from the first loneliness survey of law students; and (5) three evidence-based interventions to mitigate loneliness: mindfulness, talk therapy (cognitive behavioral therapy), and inclusion.

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The Lesson From Johns Hopkins' Reversed Suspension Of Employee Retirement Contributions During COVID-19: Faculty Should Use Forensic Audits To Expose Faux Austerity

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  The Era of Artificial Scarcity, by François Furstenberg (Johns Hopkins University):

Administrators have rushed to embrace austerity measures. The faculty should call their bluff.

When does a $5,000 investment pay off with a $100-million return? No, this is not a tale of Wall Street chicanery or Reddit-inspired investing. Rather, it is a story of rank-and-file university employees mobilizing to defend their vision of university governance — and winning big.

Our story begins a year ago, just a month into the pandemic, when the Johns Hopkins University President Ronald Daniels announced a set of “decisive austerity measures” in the face of anticipated revenue declines. These included layoffs, salary freezes, and a suspension of employee retirement contributions.

In a global pandemic that has killed over half a million Americans and confronted untold numbers with economic catastrophe, the travails of one elite university may not seem of great concern. Indeed, given the hardship the pandemic has wreaked on the sector, the suspension of retirement benefits at Johns Hopkins might appear downright trivial.

But it’s precisely the wealth of Johns Hopkins that turns this story into a parable. When an institution with almost $2 billion in reserves slashes employees’ benefits in the face of economic uncertainty, one begins to wonder if a set of ideological assumptions might not be at work. ...

Rather than bowing to alleged economic necessity, employees mobilized, questioning the leadership’s dogma, demanding independent verification, and pushing back against dubious assertions. As it turned out, we had a powerful weapon at our disposal, as do faculty members nationwide: a forensic audit.

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Paving The Way: The First American Women Law Professors

Herma Hill Kay, Paving the Way: The First American Women Law Professors (Patricia A. Cain (Santa Clara), ed. University of California Press 2021):

The first wave of trailblazing female law professors and the stage they set for American democracy.

When it comes to breaking down barriers for women in the workplace, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s name speaks volumes for itself—but, as she clarifies in the foreword to this long-awaited book, there are too many trailblazing names we do not know. Herma Hill Kay, former Dean of UC Berkeley School of Law and Ginsburg’s closest professional colleague, wrote Paving the Way to tell the stories of the first fourteen female law professors at ABA- and AALS-accredited law schools in the United States. Kay, who became the fifteenth such professor, labored over the stories of these women in order to provide an essential history of their path for the more than 2,000 women working as law professors today and all of their feminist colleagues.

Because Herma Hill Kay, who died in 2017, was able to obtain so much first-hand information about the fourteen women who preceded her, Paving the Way is filled with details, quiet and loud, of each of their lives and careers from their own perspectives. Kay wraps each story in rich historical context, lest we forget the extraordinarily difficult times in which these women lived. Paving the Way is not just a collection of individual stories of remarkable women but also a well-crafted interweaving of law and society during a historical period when women’s voices were often not heard and sometimes actively muted. The final chapter connects these first fourteen women to the “second wave” of women law professors who achieved tenure-track appointments in the 1960s and 1970s, carrying on the torch and analogous challenges. This is a decidedly feminist project, one that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg advocated for tirelessly and admired publicly in the years before her death.

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Lesson From The Tax Court: The Incoherence Of §6751(b)

Two recent Tax Court cases show us that while the §6751(b) supervisory approval requirement does apply to a tax penalty mechanically applied by a human employee it does not apply to the same penalty mechanically applied by a computer.  As a result, two similarly situated taxpayers get treated differently.  One gets penalized and the other does not.  It is an understandable result, but not a sensible one.  To me, it shows the incoherence of the statute.

In Andrew Mitchell Berry and Sara Berry v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo, 2021-42 (Apr. 7, 2021), Judge Marvell holds that a §6662(b)(2) understatement penalty is invalid without proper supervisory approval when proposed as a matter of routine in a 30-day letter issued by a Revenue Agent.  In contrast, Anna Elise Walton v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2021-40 (Mar. 30, 2021) (Judge Urda) explains why supervisory approval is not required for the very same penalty if it is first proposed in a computer-generated CP2000 notice, issued without any human involvement.  Both the 30-day letter and the CP2000 notice serve the same function, to encourage the taxpayer to engage with the IRS to ensure the accuracy of their returns.  Yet the penalty proposed in one requires 2 humans to approve and the penalty proposed in the other requires no human approval.

These cases are straightforward applications of the statute.  They are unremarkable in their conclusions that human-proposed penalties need human review but computer-proposed penalties do not.  That is what the statute indeed says.  However, what makes them worth your time is that they demonstrate the strange interaction of penalty statutes and tax administration.  Here we have two equally culpable (or innocent, take your pick!) taxpayers, but only one gets hit with the same mechanically-computed penalty and that solely because of the difference in how the penalties are first proposed.  The difference is between what is routine and what is automatic.  It’s a difference created by how the IRS operates, the language of the statute, and the Tax Court’s interpretation of that statute.  And it’s a difference that makes little sense, at least to me.   I think there is a better distinction to be made.

If you are already a tax penalty jock and know how incoherent the system is, you do not need this lesson.  Otherwise, I invite you to dive into the details below the fold. 

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The Multistate Bar Exam Is Not A Valid Measure Of Attorney Competence

Steven Foster (Oklahoma City), Does the Multistate Bar Exam Validly Measure Attorney Competence?, 82 Ohio St. L.J. ___ (2021):

2020 brought many challenges, which included administering the bar exam. States jumped through numerous obstacles to continue administering the current form of the exam. However, the current bar exam has never been proven to be a valid measure of attorney competence. This article offers evidence the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), is invalid. The exam, in other words, does not measure the knowledge and skills that lawyers use in practice. On the contrary, it is an artificial barrier to practice—one that harms the public by failing to screen for the knowledge and skills that clients need from their attorneys.

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Jones Day Nabs NINE U.S. Supreme Court Law Clerks From October Term 2019-20 With $400,000 Bonuses
• 7th Annual Parris Awards At Pepperdine Caruso Law
• Dorothy Brown: College Exacerbates The Racial Wealth Gap
• U.S. Department Of Education Terminates Florida Coastal Law School's Eligibility For Federal Student Loans; ABA Demands Teach-Out Plan

Sunday:

• 8th Circuit: University Of Iowa Administrators Are Personally Liable For Deregistering Christian Student Group After It Denied Leadership Role To Gay Student
• David French: 'Legal Cannonball' Lawsuit By Dozens Of LGBTQ Christian College Students Has 'No Real Chance Of Success'
• He's A Famous Evangelical Preacher, But His Kids Wish He’d Pipe Down
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

8th Circuit: University Of Iowa Administrators Are Personally Liable For Deregistering Christian Student Group After It Denied Leadership Role To Gay Student

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  Inside Higher Ed, Appeals Court Says Iowa Administrators Are Personally Liable in Lawsuit Brought by Christian Student Group:

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that University of Iowa administrators can be held personally liable and sued for damages due to their actions deregistering a Christian student group that denied a leadership position to a gay student. [Business Leaders in Christ v. University of Iowa, No. 19-1696 (8th Cir. Mar. 22, 2021)].

The case involves a student group called Business Leaders in Christ, whose members believe that same-sex relationships are “outside of God’s design.” After the group denied an executive leadership position to a gay student in 2017 on the stated grounds that the student “disagreed with, and would not agree to live by [BLinC’s] religious beliefs,” the university began a process that ultimately led to the revocation of the group’s status.

BLinC sued and, in a 2019 decision that alarmed advocates for LGBTQ+ students, a district court judge held that the university selectively enforced its Human Rights Policy and violated BLinC members’ constitutional rights to free speech, free association and free exercise of religion. The university did not appeal the judge's holding that it infringed on the BLinC members' First Amendment rights.

Rather, at issue in the appeal was whether the three individual Iowa administrators named as defendants could be personally liable and sued for damages, or whether they are shielded by qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that grants government officials immunity from civil lawsuits except in cases where their conduct violates “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”

In a decision that hinged on an assessment of whether the rights at issue were “clearly established,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit partially reversed the ruling of the district court, which had granted the administrators qualified immunity [Business Leaders in Christ v. University of Iowa, No. 19-1696 (8th Cir. Mar. 22, 2021)]. The appeals court held that the administrators can be held personally liable in relation to the students’ free expression and expressive association claims, but not in relation to claims related to free exercise of religion.

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David French: 'Legal Cannonball' Lawsuit By Dozens Of LGBTQ Christian College Students Has 'No Real Chance Of Success'

Washington Post, Dozens of LGBTQ Students at Christian Colleges Sue the U.S. Education Dept., Hoping to Pressure Equality Act Negotiations:

Elizabeth Hunter says she became suicidal after Bob Jones University administrators grilled the former student about her sexuality for tweeting “happy Pride” and writing a book with lesbian characters. She was fined, sent to anti-gay counseling and removed from her job at the campus TV station. Veronica Penales says she’s told officials at Baylor University, where she is a sophomore, that people leave anti-gay notes on her door, but they don’t investigate. Lucas Wilson said he graduated from Liberty University with “a profound sense of shame” after being encouraged to go to conversion therapy.

The three are among 33 current and past students at federally funded Christian colleges and universities cited in a federal lawsuit filed Monday against the U.S. Department of Education. The suit says the religious exemption the schools are given that allow them to have discriminatory policies is unconstitutional because they receive government funding. The class-action suit, filed by the nonprofit Religious Exemption Accountability Project, references 25 schools across the country.

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He's A Famous Evangelical Preacher, But His Kids Wish He’d Pipe Down

New York Times op-ed:  He’s a Famous Evangelical Preacher, but His Kids Wish He’d Pipe Down, by Nicholas Kristof:

The Rev. Rick Joyner is a famous evangelical leader who has called on Christians to arm themselves for an inevitable civil war against liberals, whom he suggests are allies of the devil.

But this is the awkward part: His five children would be on the other side of that civil war, as he and his kids all acknowledge. Just as America is torn asunder by politics and polarization, so is the Joyner family. The Joyners love each other, are there for each other — and despair for each other.

“He talks about Democrats being evil, forgetting that all five of his kids vote Democratic,” said his eldest, Anna Jane Joyner, 36, a climate change activist and podcast host (her father has suggested that climate change is a Communist conspiracy). “Who is he asking his followers to take up arms against? Liberal activists? That’s me.”

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

There is quite a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with new papers debuting on the list at #4 and #5. The #1 paper is #231 among 15,897 tax papers in all-time downloads:

1. [1,412 Downloads]  The Impact of Public Perceptions on General Consumption Taxes, by Rita de la Feria (University of Leeds; Google Scholar) & Michael Walpole (University of New South Wales; Google Scholar)
2. [306 Downloads]  A Wealth of Sovereign Choices: Tax Implications of McGirt v. Oklahoma and the Promise of Tribal Economic Development, by Stacy Leeds (Arizona State; Google Scholar) & Lonnie Beard (Arkansas)
3. [240 Downloads]  Coca-Cola: A Decisive IRS Transfer Pricing Victory, At Last, by Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) & Gianluca Mazzoni (S.J.D. (International Tax) 2020, Michigan)
4. [205 Downloads]  Redistribution For Realists, by Zachary Liscow (Yale; Google Scholar)
5. [169 Downloads]  Tax Treaty Entitlement and Fiscally Transparent Entities: Improvements or Unnecessary Complications?, by Leopoldo Parada (University of Leeds; Google Scholar)

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Inside Higher Ed, A ‘Bank Run’ At Notre Dame Law School
2. Amanda Runyon (Pennsylvania), Leslie Street (William & Mary), & Amanda Watson (Houston), U.S. News Ranking Metrics Stifle Law Libraries, Tie Hands of Law Schools
3. Bloomberg Law, Bar Exams May Soon Be Easier To Pass, As States Eye Changes
4. Karen Sloan (Law.com), Law Student Climate Change Activists Target Gibson Dunn Law Firm
5. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: S Corp Payments To Sole Shareholder Were Wages
6. Columbia Daily Tribune, University Of Missouri Faculty Upset About Use Of Data In Promotion And Tenure
7. Wall Street Journal op-ed, Income Inequality In America Is Lower Than It Was 50 Years Ago
8. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Passport Revocation Act Differs From Codification
9. U.S. News, 2022 Omnibus Specialty Rankings
10. U.S. News, 2022 Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Jones Day Nabs NINE U.S. Supreme Court Law Clerks From October Term 2019-20 With $400,000 Bonuses

Jones Day Adds Nine U.S. Supreme Court Clerks From October Term 2019:

The global law firm Jones Day has announced that nine former U.S. Supreme Court clerks from October Term 2019 have joined the Firm as associates in the Firm's Issues & Appeals Practice. Jones Day has recruited 64 U.S. Supreme Court clerks since October Term 2011.

"As we continue to be a leading destination for lawyers who want to work on important, cutting-edge legal issues from the earliest stages of litigation through appeal, we welcome this year's class of clerks, who join five different Jones Day offices," said Traci L. Lovitt, leader of Jones Day's Issues & Appeals Practice. "These talented lawyers have a terrific understanding of case law, and their analytical skills and deep insights into the latest legal developments will be of great value to clients."

The new arrivals, office locations, the Justices for whom they clerked, their law schools [Chicago (2), Duke, Harvard (3), Michigan, Notre Dame, Yale], and prior clerkships are as follows: ...

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7th Annual Parris Awards At Pepperdine Caruso Law

Congratulations to our student, staff, and faculty winners at Thursday's 7th Annual Parris Awards at Pepperdine Caruso Law:

Student Awards

Evan T. Carthen 1L Award
Section A: Tyler Lisea
Section B: Tyra Jenkins
Section C: Susan Posluszny

Excellence in Service
Brynn Barton

Excellence in Professionalism
Gage Eller

Excellence in Peacemaking
Zino Osehobo

Excellence in Courage
Roxanne Swedelson
Sophie Sarchet

Excellence in Leadership
Zachary Carstens
Amy Jicha

Excellence in Character
Alexandra Boutelle

Pepperdine Award
Kelly Shea Delvac

Preceptor Award
Awards are also presented to alumni preceptors, who are paired with first-year students as mentors during their first year of law school

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Dorothy Brown: College Exacerbates The Racial Wealth Gap

Washington Post op-ed:  College Isn’t the Solution for the Racial Wealth Gap. It’s Part of the Problem, by Dorothy Brown (Emory):

Higher education is supposedly the ticket to a better future, and it usually translates to a larger salary regardless of race, according to a 2011 study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. But college does not pay off for Black students the way it does for White students. At virtually every step — from taking out loans to facing a racist job market to dealing with repayment plans — Black students and their families have disadvantages. As a result, the Black-White wealth gap widens.

Black college graduates have higher debt loads, on average, than White college graduates. Black debt rises over time, White debt diminishes. Upon graduation, the average Black graduate owes $23,400 vs. the White graduate’s $16,000, according to the Brookings Institution. Four years later, the gap triples. Even at the top end of the income spec­trum, Black students have higher student loans ($4,643, on average) than White students ($3,835), and Black parents take out larger loans to help pay for college ($3,303 vs. $1,903).

What accounts for that difference? First, it’s the schools students attend. Wealthier colleges, which can afford to award financial aid and scholarships, disproportionately admit White students: White students are almost five times as likely to go to a selective university than Black students, even when controlling for income. Meanwhile, a higher share (12 percent) of Black students attend for-profit colleges than very selective universities (9 percent), because online and part-time features allow them to work while getting their degrees. These schools usually do not award any financial aid and are in effect extremely expensive, given their low graduation rates

Another factor is the wealth disparity between Black and White families. Black college students are less likely than their White peers to receive tax-free gifts from their parents and grandparents. ...

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U.S. Department Of Education Terminates Florida Coastal Law School's Eligibility For Federal Student Loans; ABA Demands Teach-Out Plan

Statement of William E. Adams, Jr., Managing Director, ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Regarding Florida Coastal School of Law:

On April 2, 2021, the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar was informed of the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to end access to federal student financial aid for Florida Coastal School of Law effective April 1, 2021. While the Department of Education's action could have a bearing on the law school's ability to operate in compliance with the ABA Standards, Florida Coastal School of Law remains an ABA-approved law school. Under the ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools, formal Council action is required to withdraw a law school’s approval. The process for the law school to qualify for and maintain its access to federal student financial aid is a U.S. Department of Education process.

In the wake of the Department of Education’s decision, the ABA has directed Florida Coastal School of Law to file a teach-out plan.

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Eyal-Cohen Reviews Measuring And Valuing Wealth For Federal Wealth Tax Reform

This week, Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama; Google Scholar) reviews David Gamage (Indiana; Google Scholar), Ari Glogower (Ohio State; Google Scholar) and Kitty Richards (Independent), How to Measure and Value Wealth for a Federal Wealth Tax Reform, Roosevelt Inst. Issue Brief (2021):   

One of the most debated topic in the last decade is wealth inequality and the unequal distribution of assets among individuals in the U.S.. Wealth distribution becomes even more skewed when race and ethnicity are involved with (not surprisingly) a staggering racial wealth gap.

Recent proposals to reduce the wealth gap (such as those proposed by Senators Warren and Sanders) encountered the hurdle that fails to succeed any tax reform—overcoming valuation issues.  Our current income tax system is cash realization–based and thus mostly takes a deferral-based approach to valuation of wealth accumulation, which makes valuation of wealth rather challenging. If we truly want to make a progress on narrowing the income inequality gap and tax income and wealth of the highest income taxpayers in our society, we have to find efficient ways to overcome assessment difficulties, namely how to measure and value taxpayers’ wealth. This report—published under the auspices of the Roosevelt Institute, a think tank of experts on the American economy—is a practical attempt by Gamage, Glogower, and Richards to do just that.  

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Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

• Barron’s, Odds Improve for Global Deal on Corporate Tax as Yellen Signals Her Agreement on Principle
• Bloomberg, Millions Are Tumbling Out of the Global Middle Class in an Historic Setback
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Corporate Rate Increase Would Make Taxes Fairer, Help Fund Equitable Recovery
• CNN, Raising This Tax Would Make the Ultra-Rich Pay Their Fair Share
• The Guardian, ‘Raise My Taxes – Now!’: The Millionaires Who Want to Give It All Away
• The Hill, Biden's Bet on Taxes

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, As Florida Coastal tries to get student loan funds reinstated, ABA seeks teach-out plan
• Bloomberg Law, Bar Exams May Soon Be Easier to Pass, as States Eye Changes
• Vivia Chen (Bloomberg Law), Why U.S. News & World Report Failed Diversity 101
• Michael Thomas Colatrella Jr. (McGeorge), What I Learned about Teaching Law by Being an Art Student
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), The Many Problems of the U.S. News Law School Rankings. Is it time to end them?
• Steven K. Homer (New Mexico), Hierarchies of Elitism and Gender: The Bluebook and The ALWD Guide

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Next Week's Virtual Tax Workshops

Monday, April 12: Anne Alstott (Yale) will deliver the annual Richard Crawford Pugh Lecture on Tax Law & Policy at San Diego on Child Care Reform After the Pandemic: Towards a Public Option. If you would like to attend, please contact San Diego Law Events.

Thursday, April 15: Allison Christians (McGill; Google Scholar) will present The Case for a Sustainable Excess Profits Tax (with Tarcisio Diniz Magalhaes (Antwerp)) virtually at Indiana as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series. If you would like to attend, please contact Leandra Lederman.

Thursday, April 15: Daniel Hemel (Chicago; Google Scholar) will present Law and the New Dynamic Public Finance virtually at Duke as part of its Tax Policy Workshop Series. If you would like to attend, please contact  Richard Schmalbeck or Lawrence Zelenak.

Friday, April 16: Ronald J. Gilson (Columbia; Google Scholar) will present Value Creation by Business Lawyers: Legal Skills and Asset Pricing (with Michael S. Knoll (Penn) commentating) virtually at the Oxford-Virginia Legal Dialogs: Tax Meets Non-Tax Series. If you would like to attend, please contact Tsilly Dagan or Ruth Mason.

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2022 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Following up on yesterday's post, 2022 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings:

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most exceeds their overall U.S. News Ranking:

	School	Specialty Rank	Overall Rank	Difference
1	American	22	81	+59
2	Suffolk	75	129	+54
2	UIC-John Marshall	93	147	+54
4	Seattle	74	126	+52
5	Rutgers	46	91	+45
6	Denver	34	78	+44
7	Pace	97	139	+42
8	Pacific	100	141	+41
8	Santa Clara	85	126	+41
10	Mitchell-Hamline	107	147	+40
11	Loyola-New Orleans	105	144	+39
12	Hofstra	81	119	+38
13	Baltimore	94	129	+35
14	Brooklyn	49	81	+32
14	UC-Hastings	18	50	+32
16	San Diego	57	86	+29
17	Loyola-Chicago	50	78	+28
18	Houston	33	60	+27
18	Loyola-L.A.	45	72	+27
20	Chicago-Kent	66	91	+25
20	Miami	47	72	+25
22	New York Law School	95	119	+24
22	San Francisco	123	147	+24
24	Georgia State	55	78	+23
24	Howard	68	91	+23
24	Indiana (McKinney)	88	111	+23
27	Syracuse	80	102	+22
28	DePaul	90	111	+21
28	Ohio State	19	40	+21
28	South Texas	126	147	+21
28	UC-Irvine	14	35	+21
32	Widener (DE)	127	147	+20
33	Stetson	92	111	+19
33	Tulane	41	60	+19
33	Vermont	128	147	+19
33	Univ. of Washington	26	45	+19
37	George Washington	9	27	+18
38	Temple	36	53	+17
39	Southwestern	131	147	+16
40	Case Western	58	72	+14
40	Fordham	21	35	+14
40	Georgetown	1	15	+14
40	South Carolina	82	96	+14
44	Willamette	135	147	+12
45	Golden Gate	136	147	+11
45	Gonzaga	118	129	+11
45	Maryland	39	50	+11
48	Quinnipiac	119	129	+10
49	Widener (PA)	138	147	+9
50	UNLV	52	60	+8

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most trails their overall U.S. News Ranking:

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24th Annual Critical Tax Theory Conference At UC-Irvine

UC-Irvine hosts the 24th Annual Critical Tax Theory Conference (program):

The Critical Tax Theory Conference has a long history of fostering the work of both established and emerging scholars whose research challenges and enriches the tax law and policy literature. Critical tax scholars question assumptions of objectivity in tax, as their work explores how tax law and policy impact historically marginalized groups. At a time when tax policy is once again at the forefront of politics and public discourse, the work of these and other critical tax scholars supports a more robust discussion of the role for tax law in current and future social and economic policy.

Panel #1: 

• Leslie Book (Villanova), Keith Fogg (Harvard) & Nina E. Olson (Center for Taxpayer Rights), Administrative Burdens, Sludge, and Individual Taxpayer Rights
• Michelle Layser (Illinois), Subsidizing Gentrification: A Spatial Analysis Of Place-Based Tax Incentives
• Nancy Shurtz (Oregon) & Esther Sherman, When We Breathe: Reinventing the EITC for a More Just and Caring World
• Moderator:  Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama) 
• Commentators:   Joshua Blank (UC-Irvine) & Christine Kim (Utah) 

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LSAC: Law School Policies And Practices — Justice-Impacted Individuals

Elizabeth Bodamer & Debra Langer (LSAC), Justice-Impacted Individuals in the Pipeline: A National Exploration of Law School Policies and Practices:

Approximately one in three adults in the United States has some form of criminal record—similar to the ratio of adults with 4-year college degrees in the U.S. (Friedman, 2015). The wide reach of the criminal justice system, including police contacts, arrests, and incarcerations, is heavily concentrated in poor communities and communities of color. Therefore, it is important to examine barriers specific to justice-impacted individuals throughout the application, enrollment, and educational experience in order to ensure that policies and practices do not unintentionally serve as mechanisms of exclusion that disproportionally impact applicants of color and low-income applicants.

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC), in collaboration with the National Justice Impact Bar Association (NJIBA), developed and administered the 2020 Justice Impact Law School Survey to explore policies and procedures that specifically affect law schools' justice-impacted applicants and students, focusing on policies, practices, and services during the 2019-2020 academic year. Eighty-five schools from across all geographic regions of the U.S. completed some or all of the survey. The results from the survey provide an overview of current law school practices related to (a) recruitment and admission; (b) applicants, admission, and enrollment; (c) application review procedures; (d) student information and services, (e) employees and training; and (f) policies. The purpose of this report is to initiate a conversation about justice-impacted individuals as part of LSAC’s mission to promote equity in access to legal education and to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

Key Survey Results

• Only 2 of 85 responding schools reported intentionally recruiting students who were justice-impacted.
• The majority of schools indicated that they require applicants to disclose felony convictions, misdemeanor convictions, felony charges, misdemeanor charges, arrests, juvenile convictions, juvenile charges, and juvenile arrests.mm

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Gender Equality, Taxation, And The COVID-19 Recovery

Yvette Lind (Copenhagen Business School; Google Scholar) & Åsa Gunnarsson (University of Umea), Gender Equality, Taxation, and the COVID-19 Recovery: A Study of Sweden and Denmark, 101 Tax Notes Int'l 581 (Feb. 1, 2021):

The impact of COVID-19 is at the moment undeniably extensive as the world faces the most severe recession in nearly a century. Economic emergency programs, the design and implementation of COVID-19 tax policies and subsequent state aid actions have been launched in many countries to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. Women have, in comparison to men, also reduced their hours of work to care for, and home school, children. Aggregating already existing problems associated to both the loss of paid work hours and to the gender-segregated allocation of unpaid hours for household work and caring. The sudden closure of childcare programs and schools in many countries has had a crucial impact for women whose labour force participation depends on these institutions. The possibility of several waves of the virus that could trigger additional childcare closures make it extremely likely that married women (in general when considering the current norm of heterosexual couples) in particular may be slower to re-enter the work force in the hope of protecting the (single-breadwinner) family income.

The ambition with this paper is to tackle the complexity of both new and old societal challenges for the realization of gender equality obligations through tax provisions and tax policies at the national level.

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Things They Don't Teach You In Dean School

I was ending a meeting with an alum in my yard and the development officer was taking our photo. We heard a rattle and thought it was the sprinklers coming on. Wrong:

 

Biden's Made In America Tax Plan

Treasury Department, The Made in America Tax Plan

• Bloomberg, Biden Tax Plan Seen Hitting Tech, Pharmaceutical Companies
• Bloomberg, Biden Tax Plan Targets Fossil Fuel Subsidies Worth $35 Billion
• New York Times, Biden and Democrats Detail Plans to Raise Taxes on Multinational Firms
• New York Times, Biden Can Go Bigger and Not ‘Pay for It’ the Old Way
• New York Times, Biden’s Tax Plan Aims to Raise $2.5 Trillion and End Profit-Shifting
• New York Times, Corporate Taxes Are Wealth Taxes
• New York Times, A Tax Change Is Coming, Maybe
• New York Times, What’s in Biden’s Tax Plan?
• New York Times, Yellen Calls For a Global Minimum Corporate Tax Rate.
• Penn Wharton, President Biden's $2.7 Trillion American Jobs Plan: Budgetary and Macroeconomic Effects
• Wall Street Journal, A 28% Tax Rate Will Cost Companies, but Not Equally
• Wall Street Journal, Biden Softens Tax Plan Aimed at Profitable Companies That Pay Little
• Wall Street Journal, How Bidenomics Seeks to Remake the Economic Consensus
• Wall Street Journal, Some Democrats Cool to Biden’s Plan to Boost Corporate Tax Rate
• Wall Street Journal editorial, Anatomy of a Biden Tax Hike
• Wall Street Journal op-ed (Janet Yellen), A Better Corporate Tax for America

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Cain: The Unfairness Of The Marriage Tax Penalty

Pat Cain (Santa Clara), The Unfairness of the Marriage Tax Penalty:

Wisconsin Republican U.S. Representative Glenn Grothman recently criticized the Covid-19 relief bill by pointing to the marriage penalty that is embedded in the earned income tax credit, the EITC. He then inexplicably used the penalty in the Democratic-backed bill to take a swipe at the Black Lives Matter movement, claiming they did not honor the traditional married family. Representative Grothman is just wrong about the BLM point. The group seeks to value all families, and there are many in all of our communities that do not fit the traditional married family model. On the other hand Representative Grothman is absolutely correct about the problem of the marriage penalty in our tax code.

Still, it doesn’t seem fair to lay the blame at the feet of the Democrats or attribute the problem to the Covid-19 relief bill, as though that is the law that created the problem. The marriage penalty has been lurking throughout the Internal Revenue Code for some time. Both Democrat and Republican administrations have contributed to the problem. Both parties have, at times, taken a stab at reducing the problem. But so far no one has succeeded. ...

How to Remedy the Marriage Penalty Problem

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Legal Education Needs A Wellness Reckoning

Bloomberg Law op-ed:  Legal Education Needs a Wellness Reckoning, by Janet Thompson Jackson (Washburn):

No one goes to law school with the expectation that their mental health and overall well-being will be significantly compromised during those three years. But, for a substantial number of law students, it is. It does not have to be this way.

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A ‘Bank Run’ At Notre Dame Law School

Update:  Karen Sloan (Law.com), A 'Thunderdome' Competition? Admitted Students Got Shut Out at This Law School Amid Deposit Frenzy

Inside Higher Ed, A ‘Bank Run’ at Notre Dame Law:

It was a banner year for law school applications. The number of applicants this year was up about 21 percent compared to last year, according to the Law School Admissions Council. Total applications were up 32 percent.

An increase that big can be tricky for an admissions department. Now, at least one law school has overadmitted its incoming class.

Admitted applicants to University of Notre Dame Law School were told upon acceptance that there were no reserved spaces for students. The deadline was April 15, but if the university received its maximum number of $600 deposits, the rest of the admitted students would be waitlisted.

On Tuesday, a few minutes before 11 a.m. Eastern time, Notre Dame sent those admitted students an email. Two-thirds of the seats had been claimed by deposits, a benchmark usually reached two to three days before the deadline. The email said Notre Dame would send another note when 80 percent of seats were reserved, and two more emails when 90 and 100 percent of seats were claimed.

Five hours later, 80 percent of spots were taken, Notre Dame told admits. One hour after that, at 5 p.m., Notre Dame told applicants there was no more time.

“We have now reached our target number of deposits,” the email said. “We have turned off our deposit forms to ensure that we do not overenroll.”

The incident, first reported in Above the Law, a website for legal news, has shaken prospective law students. Applicants who were waiting on offers from other schools, who weren’t checking their email or who couldn’t come up with $600 quickly saw their chance to attend Notre Dame Law School vanish, despite the fact that they were admitted. ...

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2022 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings include the rankings for 13 specialty programs at 193 law schools. Here are the Top 100 law schools, determined by giving equal weight to each of the 13 separate specialty rankings:

1. Business/Corporate Law
2. Clinical Law
3. Constitutional Law
4. Contracts/Commercial Law
5. Criminal Law
6. Dispute Resolution 
7. Environmental Law
8. Health Care Law
9. Intellectual Property Law
10. International Law
11. Legal Writing
12. Tax Law
13. Trial Advocacy

	School	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	Avg.
1	Georgetown	12	1	9	11	7	24	7	7	13	5	9	3	15	9.5
2	Stanford	3	15	3	5	4	13	10	7	1	10	114	11	42	18.3
3	NYU	3	4	3	7	1	32	4	45	3	1	68	1	67	18.4
4	Michigan	9	6	13	7	10	32	37	23	15	6	9	8	67	18.6
5	Northwestern	12	9	15	13	13	7	44	37	19	26	25	4	21	18.8
6	Harvard	1	24	1	2	2	1	7	7	19	2	159	8	30	20.2
7	UC-Berkeley	3	9	6	7	2	32	1	45	1	6	121	23	17	21.0
8	UCLA	8	24	9	13	10	32	4	32	19	14	100	8	7	21.5
9	George Washington	22	24	27	26	27	24	10	20	4	6	34	28	54	23.5
10	Duke	12	50	9	13	13	52	16	23	15	10	34	16	67	25.4
11	Virginia	9	56	8	7	4	32	30	41	19	10	80	4	61	27.8
12	Texas	17	40	9	11	17	19	30	29	26	18	68	16	67	28.2
13	Penn	3	32	15	5	7	32	48	20	13	14	68	21	105	29.5
14	UC-Irvine	44	6	20	34	27	24	32	37	19	22	9	6	105	29.6
15	Washington Univ.	25	9	20	23	30	19	48	29	44	22	80	28	19	30.5
16	Columbia	2	22	6	1	7	15	7	45	15	3	159	11	105	30.6
17	Yale	9	4	1	4	4	32	20	15	52	3	154	14	90	30.9
18	UC-Hastings	28	19	33	34	30	8	24	13	30	26	121	16	21	31.0
19	Ohio State	44	56	27	18	13	2	65	18	44	49	25	34	54	34.5
20	Boston Univ.	19	40	24	26	23	63	57	4	12	32	68	16	67	34.7
21	Fordham	18	19	33	23	18	17	65	77	19	18	100	39	8	34.9
22	American	70	3	52	56	23	63	37	11	8	6	61	53	12	35.0
23	Arizona State	48	56	35	45	30	13	20	16	71	32	3	28	67	35.7
24	Minnesota	19	32	27	18	18	48	24	20	38	29	46	25	124	36.0
25	Vanderbilt	12	40	17	17	13	32	15	32	26	22	121	39	105	37.8
26	Univ. of Washington	48	32	46	26	36	19	34	41	15	39	41	34	105	39.7
27	Boston College	36	24	35	34	50	41	24	41	33	35	46	14	105	39.8
28	North Carolina	28	50	20	18	18	77	37	37	52	58	9	25	90	39.9
29	Chicago	7	40	3	2	10	63	73	45	38	18	159	6	79	41.8
30	Cornell	16	50	13	13	22	45	65	77	38	13	61	28	105	42.0
31	William & Mary	36	74	18	26	18	52	57	66	52	29	46	53	42	43.8
32	UC-Davis	22	90	18	26	23	24	24	57	44	26	132	27	61	44.2
33	Houston	52	90	67	45	61	52	20	5	8	43	46	53	42	44.9
34	Denver	64	9	71	56	36	41	24	83	63	58	9	60	12	45.1
35	Emory	22	107	24	22	40	112	48	23	38	32	46	34	42	45.4
36	Temple	52	74	60	53	61	63	90	18	63	16	7	39	1	45.9
37	Georgia	28	24	35	41	40	87	82	41	75	18	68	39	30	46.8
38	Florida	28	90	46	34	50	24	20	57	52	49	121	2	42	47.3
39	Maryland	52	9	41	56	50	15	16	7	97	68	114	73	30	48.3
40	USC	19	79	27	23	40	24	65	45	63	49	68	23	105	48.5
41	Tulane	36	32	46	34	50	52	18	71	63	39	80	47	67	48.8
42	Arizona	52	64	35	56	40	77	32	45	75	35	21	60	67	50.7
43	Indiana (Maurer)	25	79	52	26	40	77	37	57	26	35	68	16	124	50.9
44	Wisconsin	36	56	27	26	30	41	42	45	85	35	100	53	90	51.2
45	Loyola-L.A.	52	99	60	62	36	48	90	57	30	92	46	11	4	52.8
46	Rutgers	64	15	52	68	60	52	73	37	85	49	9	85	42	53.2
47	Miami	48	24	46	56	50	102	48	77	63	29	80	28	42	53.3
48	Colorado	44	79	46	45	36	77	10	66	33	62	80	39	79	53.5
49	Brooklyn	36	24	41	34	27	87	121	71	75	49	34	60	42	53.9
50	Loyola-Chicago	60	74	67	79	81	45	111	3	44	68	25	47	15	55.3
51	Notre Dame	28	74	24	41	66	112	48	83	33	22	100	47	42	55.4
52	UNLV	73	40	67	45	66	5	73	32	71	110	1	60	79	55.5
53	Texas A&M	64	32	76	62	97	8	34	83	7	68	25	73	124	57.9
54	Wake Forest	52	107	52	41	30	112	48	27	102	86	5	68	28	58.3
55	Georgia State	60	40	46	68	66	95	82	1	63	92	100	39	24	59.7
56	Utah	44	64	60	53	30	112	10	32	33	58	80	60	142	59.8
57	San Diego	28	135	20	45	40	112	65	57	19	43	144	21	54	60.2
58	Case Western	78	56	52	74	77	77	57	11	52	16	80	95	67	60.9
59	Cardozo	64	40	41	45	23	8	127	83	10	49	132	68	105	61.2
60	Northeastern	89	22	83	109	50	63	90	5	38	78	25	114	42	62.2
61	Washington & Lee	36	64	60	34	50	52	90	45	85	39	100	34	124	62.5
62	Illinois	28	107	35	18	40	95	82	71	38	62	100	53	90	63.0
63	Alabama	60	50	27	26	40	87	65	71	114	78	132	39	36	63.5
64	Florida State	52	135	41	45	40	77	18	83	75	43	132	28	61	63.8
65	Iowa	28	90	35	41	40	112	121	66	52	43	46	47	124	65.0
66	Chicago-Kent	78	120	52	68	81	63	90	57	10	92	46	85	4	65.1
67	SMU	60	64	76	68	50	102	90	45	44	49	138	53	42	67.8
68	Howard	73	32	52	62	50	95	104	110	52	86	41	95	30	67.8
69	BYU	36	120	60	56	72	95	57	108	44	62	80	47	67	69.5
70	Seton Hall	78	56	71	79	77	87	82	13	90	78	61	60	90	70.9
71	Pittsburgh	78	99	71	62	61	112	90	29	44	43	68	47	124	71.4
72	Richmond	52	129	52	68	50	77	57	77	44	68	68	68	124	71.8
73	St. John's	78	90	67	87	61	24	136	71	75	68	46	114	30	72.8
74	Seattle	73	24	89	87	97	112	48	110	63	86	7	95	90	75.5
75	Suffolk	125	15	121	109	108	32	104	45	52	104	4	141	24	75.7
76	Villanova	70	64	76	68	91	112	90	110	52	92	41	34	90	76.2
77	Connecticut	64	90	60	62	66	102	73	45	90	58	80	68	142	76.9
78	Pepperdine Caruso	64	64	60	74	113	3	136	136	97	49	132	39	36	77.2
79	Tennessee	25	19	83	53	72	112	111	83	114	110	41	77	105	77.3
80	Syracuse	96	90	76	94	81	102	90	83	75	68	61	95	11	78.6
81	Hofstra	89	74	83	101	72	63	127	96	90	86	46	82	21	79.2
82	South Carolina	78	50	110	87	72	112	44	71	121	104	100	53	30	79.4
83	Oregon	78	120	76	62	81	12	10	182	121	68	1	60	162	79.5
84	Drexel	78	64	89	94	108	52	147	32	97	110	21	129	12	79.5
85	Santa Clara	89	107	89	79	81	77	111	123	4	39	100	68	90	81.3
86	Lewis & Clark	111	90	89	101	97	52	1	123	75	68	21	114	124	82.0
87	Michigan State	70	79	71	79	81	87	100	123	52	78	121	82	54	82.8
88	Indiana (McKinney)	89	129	89	79	97	112	82	16	102	68	16	77	124	83.1
89	St. Louis	96	56	83	74	97	112	136	2	90	100	80	77	90	84.1
90	DePaul	89	107	103	109	91	110	151	23	30	100	41	82	61	84.4
91	George Mason	36	129	41	45	81	100	136	108	26	78	159	73	90	84.8
92	Stetson	117	107	103	94	81	24	73	143	151	121	5	95	2	85.8
93	UIC-John Marshall	135	50	143	109	127	41	147	96	33	78	16	129	24	86.8
94	Baltimore	125	15	83	131	66	48	104	123	97	78	46	85	162	89.5
95	New York Law School	105	64	89	131	81	63	127	123	85	68	46	108	79	89.9
96	CUNY	117	1	103	109	61	77	57	104	137	104	46	187	67	90.0
97	Pace	125	79	121	131	113	63	1	83	137	78	144	77	24	90.5
97	SUNY-Buffalo	89	79	89	101	72	112	82	96	102	92	100	108	54	90.5
99	Penn State-Dickinson	96	79	103	94	97	87	82	66	109	62	80	108	124	91.3
100	Pacific	117	135	131	109	127	48	57	143	109	43	21	141	8	91.5

If anyone at a law school outside the Top 100 would like the data for their school's rank, email me.

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AI For Tax Analogies And Code Renumbering

Andrew Blair-Stanek (Maryland; Google Scholar) & Benjamin Van Durme (Johns Hopkins; Google Scholar), AI for Tax Analogies and Code Renumbering, 170 Tax Notes Fed. 1997 (Mar. 29, 2021):

Blair-Stanek and Van Durme present an artificial intelligence tool that can complete analogies in tax law and provide evidence-based guidance on how Congress can renumber IRC sections in future tax reform efforts.

Conclusion
We have described two limited applications of AI in tax law, but we and other researchers are pursuing many others. New models with millions of mathematical neurons approximating the neurons in the human brain promise much more power than the model we used here. Moreover, all AI models rely on data; having more data and higher-quality data is always better. The full Tax Analysts Federal Research Library, just released under an agreement between Tax Analysts and Deloitte Tax LLP, contains extensive, very high-quality tax law text. This combination of more powerful models with more and better data is reason for optimism that AI will result in many more tools to aid tax practitioners and policymakers.

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COVID-19 Blew Up The Bar Exam. Even Bigger Changes Are Coming.

Karen Sloan (National Law Journal), COVID-19 Blew Up the Bar Exam. Even Bigger Changes Are Coming.:

The first indication that COVID-19 would upend the bar exam status quo arrived March 22, 2020, in the form of a working paper penned by 11 legal academics and educational policy experts [The Bar Exam And The COVID-19 Pandemic: The Need For Immediate Action].

The paper argued that it would be unsafe—if not impossible—to administer the upcoming July bar exam in convention halls with hundreds of law graduates packed together. Instead, the academics urged bar exam authorities to rethink the exam and paths to attorney licensure and swiftly announce alternatives.

Their words proved prescient. One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the bar exam looks wildly different in most of the country. Examinees log into the exam from their bedrooms, kitchens or wherever they can find some peace and quiet and a strong Internet connection. Facial recognition technology scans their pictures to ensure they are who they claim to be. And their computer cameras and microphones track and record them to ward off cheating.

The sudden shift to online bar exams—more than 30,000 people took the first-ever national remote bar exam in October—is the single biggest shakeup in the history of the attorney licensing test. But it won’t be the last. As bar examiners struggled over the past year to find safe ways to test law graduates, the national organization that designs the test was also finalizing a long-gestating overhaul of the exam’s content and format. If all goes according to plan, the National Conference of Bar Examiners will roll out a vastly different test in 2025 that better integrates the evaluation of legal knowledge with the skills new lawyers need to succeed.

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Dorothy Brown: ‘The System For Wealth Building Is Designed To Build White Wealth’

New York Magazine, Dorothy Brown: ‘The System for Wealth Building Is Designed to Build White Wealth’:

How often do you think about your taxes? Once a year, maybe, when it’s time to file, or when you got married, or when you bought a home? If you’re white, taxes are often an inconvenience at worst. The tax code may even benefit you when you get married and start filing a joint return. If you’re Black, says Emory University law professor Dorothy Brown, your story is likely different: The joint return is less likely to reward a marriage with a tax cut when two spouses of equal income work outside the home, something that’s more likely to be true of Black couples. That’s not an accident, she argues in her new book, The Whiteness of Wealth. Well-off, mostly white Americans litigated and lobbied their way into making sure the tax code protects their wealth. Black Americans, who typically lack family wealth, were left out and deliberately held back. They can’t catch up, and that’s the point. The system is working as designed for whom it was designed: white Americans.

In The Whiteness of Wealth, Brown brings the American tax code to life. Hands shape it and wield it like a shield in the defense of the most powerful among us. The tax code tells a story about American priorities. The news isn’t good, Brown writes, but there’s still time to change the future.

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Hemel Presents Regulation And Redistribution With Lives In The Balance Virtually Today At Toronto

Daniel Hemel (Chicago; Google Scholar) presents Regulation and Redistribution with Lives in the Balance, 88 U. Chi. L. Rev. ___ (2021), virtually at Toronto today as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series:

A central question in law and economics is whether non-tax legal rules should be designed solely to maximize efficiency or whether they also should account for concerns about the distribution of income. This question takes on particular importance in the context of cost-benefit analysis. Federal agencies apply cost-benefit analysis when writing regulations that generate multibillion dollar impacts on the US economy and profound effects on millions of Americans’ lives. In the past, agency cost-benefit analyses typically have ignored the income-distributive consequences of those regulations. That may soon change: On his first day in office, President Biden instructed his Office of Management and Budget to propose procedures for incorporating distributive considerations into cost-benefit analysis, thus bringing renewed relevance to a long-running law-and-economics debate.

This article explores what it might mean in practice for agencies to incorporate distributive considerations into cost-benefit analysis.

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Shay Presents Applying Section 265 To Address An Opaque Foreign Income Subsidy Virtually Today At Boston College

Stephen Shay (Boston College; Google Scholar) presents Applying Section 265 to Address an Opaque Foreign Income Subsidy virtually at Boston College today as part of its Tax Policy Workshop Series hosted by Shu-Yi Oei, Jim Repetti, and Diane Ring:

This article considers whether gross income offset by deductions whose sole object is to exempt foreign income from U.S. tax (exemptive deductions), is a class of income wholly exempt from taxes for purposes of the deduction disallowance rule of Section 265(a)(1). The better analysis of the statute and regulation is that deductions (other than an exemptive deduction) allocable to income offset by an exemptive deduction are subject to disallowance under existing Code Section 265(a)(1). Allowing a U.S. shareholder deductions for expenses allocable to foreign income offset by an exemptive deduction would be an opaque subsidy for foreign investment. If permitted, the subsidy would advantage multinational over domestic businesses, shareholders over workers, and high income and foreign investors over other taxpayers.

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Law Student Climate Change Activists Target Gibson Dunn Law Firm

Karen Sloan (Law.com), Law Student Climate Change Activists Target Gibson Dunn:

Law Students for Climate Accountability on Wednesday launched its #DoneWithDunn campaign, sending a letter to the firm denouncing its representation of clients in the fossil fuel industry and demanding that it adopt standards governing what cases and clients it will forgo.

“We call on Gibson Dunn to commit to a publicly available ethical standard that articulates its protocol for representation of the fossil fuel industry,” the letter reads. “Diversity programs, pro bono, and in-office sustainability are all welcome but are insufficient as long as Gibson Dunn continues to perpetrate immense harm through its work for paying clients. There must be a line that Gibson Dunn will not cross.”

Gibson Dunn is now the second major law firm to be targeted by law students concerned with the role the legal industry plays in climate change. In late 2019 and early 2020, law students at Harvard, Yale, New York University and several other law campuses staged protests at recruiting receptions held by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind & Wharton, demanding that the firm stop representing ExxonMobil in a series of climate change lawsuits. Hundreds of law students signed a pledge that they would not work for the firm as long as ExxonMobil remains on its client roster. (At the time, Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp stood by the firm’s work for the oil and gas giant, saying it’s “committed to the principle that we represent our clients and safeguard the rule of law zealously and to the best of our abilities.”)

The #DropExxon campaign galvanized law students across the country and led to the formation of Law Students for Climate Accountability, which now boasts members from more than 50 law schools. That group made a splash in October, when it unveiled the first-ever Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard.

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2022 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings include the trial advocacy programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 56% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.4	Temple
2	4.2	Baylor
2	4.2	Stetson
4	3.9	Chicago-Kent
4	3.9	Loyola-L.A.
4	3.9	South Texas
7	3.8	UCLA
8	3.7	Fordham
8	3.7	Pacific
8	3.7	Samford
11	3.6	Syracuse
12	3.5	American
12	3.5	Denver
12	3.5	Drexel
15	3.4	Georgetown
15	3.4	Loyola-Chicago
17	3.3	St. Mary's
17	3.3	UC-Berkeley
19	3.2	Campbell
19	3.2	Washington Univ.
21	3.1	Hofstra
21	3.1	Northwestern
21	3.1	UC-Hastings
24	3.0	Georgia State
24	3.0	Pace
24	3.0	Suffolk
24	3.0	UIC-John Marshall
28	2.9	Akron
28	2.9	Wake Forest
30	2.8	Georgia
30	2.8	Harvard
30	2.8	Howard
30	2.8	Maryland
30	2.8	South Carolina
30	2.8	St. John's
36	2.7	Alabama
36	2.7	Golden Gate
36	2.7	Mitchell-Hamline
36	2.7	Nova SE
36	2.7	Ohio Northern
36	2.7	Pepperdine Caruso
42	2.6	Brooklyn
42	2.6	Emory
42	2.6	Florida
42	2.6	Houston
42	2.6	Miami
42	2.6	Northeastern
42	2.6	Notre Dame
42	2.6	Quinnipiac
42	2.6	Rutgers
42	2.6	SMU
42	2.6	Stanford
42	2.6	William & Mary

2021 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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