Winning By Losing: The Strategy Of Adverse Private Letter Rulings

Noah Hertz Marks (Duke), Winning by Losing: The Strategy of Adverse Private Letter Rulings, 66 B.C. L. Rev. 659 (2025) (reviewed here by Blaine Saito (Ohio State; Google Scholar)):

Every year, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issues hundreds of Private Letter Rulings (PLRs) responding to formal taxpayer inquiries about how tax law will apply to their proposed situations and transactions(which functionally bind the IRS with respect to the taxpayer). Although the Internal Revenue Code formally forbids relying on PLRs as precedent, taxpayers and practitioners closely monitor and structure their operations and advice around PLRs.

Taxpayers can withdraw a PLR request at any time for any (or no) reason. Furthermore, requesting taxpayers know far in advance whether the PLR will be favorable or adverse.

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More Texas Deans And Faculty Perspectives On ABA Accreditation Of Law Schools

Following up on Monday's post, Texas Deans And Faculty Comments To Texas Supreme Court On ABA Accreditation Of Law Schools:

Josh Blackman (South Texas; Google Scholar), The Texas Law Deans Provide A Weak Defense of the ABA's Accreditation Role:

Last week, I submitted a comment to the Supreme Court of Texas. In short, I argued that SCOTX should discount the opinions of the law school deans, as they do not represent the public interest. I've now reviewed the letter signed by deans from eight law schools, including my own. With respect, I did not find this letter very persuasive. Indeed, if this is the best the law deans can muster, then SCOTX should seriously reconsider what value the ABA provides. By contrast, the letter from University of Texas Dean Bobby Chesney offers a candid and realistic assessment of the costs and benefits of the ABA.

Let's walk through the primary letter, which I suspect was drafted by Dean Leonard Baynes at the University of Houston Law Center. (As a general rule, the lead signature usually belongs to the primary mover.) ...

At bottom, all the Deans have to rely on is portability. They worry that students who do not plan to practice in Texas will not attend their schools. But as I explained in my comment, accommodating the needs of students who wish to leave Texas is not exactly in the best interest of Texas.

I think a far better statement comes from UT Law Dean, Bobby Chesney. (It does not seem the Dean of Texas A&M submitted a letter). Chesney explains how the ABA's standards do not simply set a minimum baseline, but instead try to impose "best practices." ... 

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Soled & Todd: Hiring Biases Fostered Under The Code

Jay A. Soled (Rutgers; Google Scholar) & Timothy M. Todd (Liberty; Google Scholar), Hiring Biases Fostered Under the Code, 187 Tax Notes Fed. 2273 (June 23, 2025):

In this article, Soled and Todd argue that current tax law gives U.S. employers a financial incentive to hire job applicants who have secured certain foreign visa statuses, and they propose three reform options to address the resulting problems.

Conclusion
The vitality of the U.S. economy has traditionally rested on the strength and indefatigable spirit of its workers. Historically, Congress has instituted policies that promote this ethos, enabling the country to prosper. And perhaps even more importantly, the United States has made a collective promise to its workers as they plan their retirements. Yet, for a variety of reasons, the solvency of that promise is at substantial risk.

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More On The Impact Of The New Federal Student Loan Limits On Law Schools

Following up on Monday's post, The Impact Of The One Big Beautiful Bill Act's Federal Student Loan Limits On Law Schools:

Business Insider, A Big Change to Student Loans in Trump's Spending Bill Could Make It Harder to Become a Doctor or Lawyer:

One specific student-loan change in the bill places new caps on the amount of loans students can borrow for graduate school, including medical and law school. Specifically, the bill eliminates the Grad PLUS loan program, which allowed graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their programs.

It also caps borrowing for graduate students at $20,500 a year and $100,000 over a lifetime and for professional students, like those in medical or law school, at $50,000 a year and $200,000 over a lifetime. ...

The average total cost of law school in the latest school year, according to the Education Data Initiative, was just over $217,000. ... Private student loans often require a cosigner, so some students may not qualify, and they may have no options to fully finance and attend graduate school. So there is a possibility that for some students, this will be a barrier to accessing graduate school.

Law.com, Big Beautiful Bill May Not Be Pretty for Prospective Law Students:

A career in the legal profession may soon be out of reach for many prospective law students since the signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last week, which included student loan caps and the elimination of federal graduate and professional Direct PLUS loans. ...

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To Save Themselves, Universities Must Cultivate Civic Friendship

Washington Post Op-Ed:  To Save Themselves, Universities Must Cultivate Civic Friendship, by Robert P. George (Princeton) & Cornel West (Union Theological Seminary):

The war between Washington and our nation’s elite universities continues to heat up. From stripping federal funding from Harvard to targeting the accreditation status of Columbia, the Trump administration is delivering on the campaign it promised to carry out against universities that refuse to meet its demands.

As professors who have taught at institutions including Harvard and Princeton for many years, we have consistently encouraged universities to reject any demands or conditions that would compromise basic principles of academic freedom and freedom of thought, inquiry and speech. Nevertheless, as we have previously argued, elite universities themselves bear much of the responsibility for their current predicament. From fostering (or willfully looking past) campus intellectual climates poisoned by conformism, ideological homogeneity and groupthink to failing to take adequate action against harassment and other activities that undermine their core truth-seeking mission, universities have made themselves legitimate objects of scrutiny — and low-hanging fruit for an administration that is metaphorically out for blood.

We believe a fundamental reason for the decline of the pursuit of truth on campuses is the collapse in acknowledging the importance of civic friendship — which, following Aristotle, we understand to be the bond of mutual respect and willingness to cooperate for the sake of the common good, even across significant disagreements or divisions.

The cultivation and recovery of civic friendship must necessarily undergird any successful effort by universities to regain public legitimacy and the moral high ground. Here, we hope to provide some guidance for restoring campus cultures where faculty and students feel free to speak their minds and explore ideas, no matter how unpopular or controversial on or off campus they happen to be. ...

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Private Equity's Byzantine Tax Stand: An Untold And New Story Of Carried Interest

Domenico Imparato (University of Hamburg, UC-Berkeley), Private Equity's Byzantine Tax Stand: An Untold and New Story of Carried Interest, 7 Brit. Tax Rev. __ (2024):

With the expansion of private equity’s footprint in the global economy has come scrutiny of its unique profit-sharing system, known as “carried interest”, which is perceived to enjoy favourable tax treatment.

The debate over whether to tax carried interest as a capital gain or as ordinary income reflects the tax industry’s complex interplay between finance, leverage, capital distribution, corporate structures and tax strategies. This article contributes to the ongoing discussion by proposing an empirical risk-based approach (ERB Approach) for the optimal taxation of carried interest. 

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Avi-Yonah: Should Harvard And Other Large Nonprofits Be Taxed?

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar), Should Harvard and Other Large Nonprofits Be Taxed?, 187 Tax Notes Fed. 2299 (June 23, 2025):

In this installment of Reflections With Reuven Avi-Yonah, Avi-Yonah examines justifications for exempting Harvard University and other large nonprofits from tax and argues that treating those organizations like large C corporations would not be such a bad thing. ...

Subjecting large tax-exempt organizations to tax is justified even if they have no taxable income for the reasons identified by Dale, Hemel, and Manny [What Are The Real Tax Risks For Harvard?, 187 Tax Notes Fed. 1447 (May 26, 2025) (reviewed here by David Elkins (Netanya; Google Scholar))].

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Merritt: The Case For The ABA's ‘Remarkably Modest’ Proposal To Double The Number Of Required Experiential Learning Credits

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State), Experiential Education:

The ABA Council has proposed expanding the number of required experiential credits at ABA-accredited law schools from six to twelve credits. This is a remarkably modest requirement, representing less than 15% of a student’s JD work. The Council’s memo lays out the extensive research supporting this requirement. For decades, empirical scholars, employers, and law graduates have agreed that newly licensed lawyers lack essential competencies needed to serve clients. Law schools must strengthen the education they provide to prepare students for counseling clients effectively, negotiating intelligently, exploring the full context of client matters, and solving complex problems thoughtfully. Claiming that employers will offer that education abdicates our role as educators and puts clients at risk. ...

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NY Times: Conservatives Are Prisoners Of Their Own Tax Cuts

New York Times:  Conservatives Are Prisoners of Their Own Tax Cuts, by Ross Douthat:

Aside from hype artists and White House spokespeople, it’s hard to find true enthusiasm for the sweeping new policy law, even among Republicans who voted for its passage. But because almost all Republicans did vote for it, with even the supposed deficit hard-liners mostly falling into line, the strongest remaining critiques are coming from the center and the left, with a special focus on the legislation’s cuts to Medicaid. ... [T]o highlight the law’s failure to address some of America’s most important problems, I want to imagine a different set of critiques, more associated with forms of conservatism than with liberalism or the left.

First (in the voice of a defense hawk), the law doesn’t do nearly enough for defense. ...

Second (in the voice of a social conservative), the law doesn’t do enough for family and fertility. ...

Finally (in the voice of Paul Ryan), the law doesn’t touch the entitlement programs that are actually bankrupting America. ...

In a healthier conservatism, all these critiques would have played a larger role in the megabill’s debate. And the American policy environment depends on conservatives engaging in these arguments, because they reflect a set of concerns that are more natural to the right than to the left. ...

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NY Times: Wokeness Will Always Be With Us—From Both The Left And The Right

New York Times Op-Ed:  Wokeness Will Always Be With Us, by John McWhorter (Columbia; Google Scholar; Author, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America):

Pundits these days often declare that wokeness has had its moment, that 2020 and 2021 were its peak and it’s now an increasingly distant memory. This is shortsighted. Wokeness is still with us, as livid as ever, and I suspect it always will be. The only question is where it will strike next?

By wokeness, I refer not to its original meaning of being informed about larger societal structures that preserve power for a certain (white) elite. Awareness of what is often called structural racism is one thing. Something else is the strain of wokeness so many would like to eulogize — call it High Woke — with its three distinguishing traits. One is the idea that dismantling structures that favor whiteness and its power must be society’s primary focus, a North Star, rather than one of many. The second is the commitment to punishing those insufficiently devoted to the program. The third is resistance to fact and logic when they are inconvenient.

High Woke was around before 2020. I encountered it in academia occasionally in the 1990s, when it troubled enough people to inspire claims that universities were being taken over by “tenured radicals.” But it hadn’t achieved anything like the purchase it would in the late 2010s. ...

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Partner At 300+ Lawyer Firm Overcame Poor Fall 1L Grades, Thanks To Her UNC Property Professor

ABA Journal, For This Lawyer, a Blip at Law School Didn't Translate to a Failed Career:

Katie McConnell had always been an excellent student. But when she started law school, her days of straight A’s immediately appeared to be out of reach.

At the University of North Carolina School of Law, McConnell did what she had been trained to do as an undergrad at the same college: study hard, read all the books and put in the work. She thought that she did well on her exams—only to discover that she was at the bottom of her class.

“That’s not a great position to be in after your first semester because you’re starting to interview, and it really sets you up for what the rest of your career will look like,” McConnell says. “I was at a loss—what do I do?”

So she did what she had been trained to do her entire life—she worked harder. Yet she struggled. She couldn’t figure out what she was doing wrong. McConnell enrolled in a property law class in her second semester of that awful first year, and that’s when she found a mentor.

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NY Times: Why Did Republicans Pass A Bill That Is Both Politically Self-Destructive And Ruinous For The Country?

New York Times Op-Ed:  What Are Republicans Thinking With Such a Reckless Bill? Maybe This., by Noah Millman (Gideon's Substack):

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, the legislation’s permanent tax cuts combined with spending increases on defense and border security and large cuts to Medicaid and other social spending would add more than $3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, with more red ink in the years and decades after. ...

[W]hy are [Republicans] behaving in a way that appears to be both politically self-destructive and potentially ruinous for the country?

The answer may be that Republicans aren’t focused on solving a fiscal problem. They’re focused on solving a political problem, one that extends beyond the midterm elections. In doing so, they may be borrowing a page from the playbook of the Reagan-era G.O.P.

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Wallace Reviews Taxation, Citizenship And Democracy In The 21st Century

Clint Wallace (South Carolina; Google Scholar), Book Review, 8 British Tax Rev. 296 (2025) (reviewing Taxation, Citizenship and Democracy in the 21st Century (Yvette Lind (BI Norwegian Business School; Google Scholar) & Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) eds. 2024)):

The editors of this volume diplomatically challenge the “conservative amount of communication” between scholars focusing on taxation, citizenship and democracy. In this helpful compendium of research, they seek to bring some coherence to these notably disparate fields. The need for this effort is, frankly, acute. Tax regimes in democracies around the world are regularly described as unfair, inefficient and in-administrable. Taxpayers have, in just the last decade, repeatedly led angry demonstrations against the existing and proposed tax laws. Similar complaints have echoed across modern and pre-modern times, sometimes escalating into protests and uprisings. Yvette Lind starts the book with a reference to the democratic innovation in Magna Carta, which limited the sovereign’s authority to impose taxes unilaterally, noting that it was echoed in the Boston Tea Party half a millennium later in calls for “no taxation without representation”. As she observes, we do, indeed, “find this battle cry throughout history”: again and again, tax has motivated uprisings to reset policy or even overthrow governments, from France’s uprising against les fermiers generaux three centuries ago, to the Zulu rebellion in South Africa in the early 1900s, property tax revolts in the US in late 1970s, to the poll tax revolt in England, and many times and places in between and since. 

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, Harvard Law School Names New Dean, A Leader Who ‘Cares Deeply About The Legal Profession’
• Above the Law, Law Schools Where Starting Salaries For Graduates Exceed Their Student Debt (2025)
• Above the Law, This Law School Has Quite A Bit Of Influence On The Supreme Court
• Nick Allard (Dean, Jacksonville), Celebrate America’s Judges on Independence Day
• Harvard Crimson, John Goldberg To Stay On as Harvard Law School Dean
• Insight Into Academia, ABA’s Law School Diversity Requirement Remains on Hold
• Insight Into Academia, The Changing Face of Ivy League Law School Admissions

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Lesson From The Tax Court: The New Regulation On Supervisory Approval Of Penalties

Section 6751(b) requires supervisory approval before the IRS can assess certain penalties.  The statute is untouched by the recently enacted BBBA.  In late December Treasury published these final rules on how the IRS must comply with the statute.  Professor Caleb Smith shared some good thoughts on them on this Procedurally Taxing post.  This Lesson is an opportunity to see how they will work.

In one sense it is too early for the Tax Court to teach us a lesson on the new regulations because the regulations only apply to penalties assessed on or after December 23, 2024.  Treas. Reg. 301.6751(b)-1(f).

But in Ivey Branch Holdings LLC v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2025-63 (June 9, 2025), Judge Lauber gives us an opportunity to see how the new regulations will work in Tax Court, both as to issues about the timing of supervisory approval, and as to how the approval process works when the taxpayer is examined by a team of IRS employees and not just a single IRS employee.

The timing lesson is useful because the regulations adopt what I call the horse-and-barn rule and reject what I call the Tax Court’s consequential moment rule.  Four Circuit Courts of Appeals have also adopted the horse-and-barn rule including the Circuit to which this taxpayer would take an appeal.  So Judge Lauber evaluates the IRS compliance with §6751(b) under what will become the governing rule per the regulations.

The teams lesson is also useful to learn because the stereotype of a single gimlet-eyed auditor acting alone is a myth.  The reality is that IRS employees will often seek advice and support from other employees on matters, especially now, as the IRS copes with incessant budget cuts by pooling resources.  For example, an RA may seek support from other IRS employees who are designated to provide subject matter support on a particular issue...such as penalty application!  Or the RA may seek support and direction from supervisors  Or different RA’s may be assigned to work different issues on the same examination.  The various back-and-forth communications between all these employees can sometimes make it difficult to see which “individual” IRS employee makes the “initial determination” that must then be approved.  The new regulations deal with that problem and so does Judge Lauber in today’s case, giving us a lesson on how both the Tax Court and the regulations evaluate compliance with 6751(b) when the examination is conducted by a team.

Details below the fold.

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The Impact Of The One Big Beautiful Bill Act's Federal Student Loan Limits On Law Schools

Following up on my previous post, Law Schools Are Unprepared For A Likely Coming Cap On Federal Student Loans:  Steven Chung (Tax Attorney, Los Angeles), The Big Beautiful Bill Will Limit Federal Student Loans, Hoping To Fix A Big Ugly $1.7T Mess:

[The One Big Beautiful Bill Act caps] annual federal loan borrowing to $20,500 per year. For professional schools (including law schools), the annual amount is increased to $50,000. Also, the total amount of loans will be capped at $100,000 for master’s degrees and $200,000 for professional degrees. Under the current plan, borrowers can pay the full cost of attendance through GRAD PLUS loans.

Law schools will need to limit their total cost of attendance to $66,666 per year so their students will be able to fully finance their education through federal loans. Many law schools will not meet this requirement due to local housing costs. At some law schools tuition alone exceeds this amount.

Students will be responsible for covering any shortfalls. Some may have savings or family assistance. But some won’t have these resources and may have to consider not attending.

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Texas Deans And Faculty Comments To Texas Supreme Court On ABA Accreditation Of Law Schools

Following up on my previous posts:

• University of Texas Civitas Institute Symposium, Texas and the Future of Legal Education
• Barry Currier (Former Managing Director, ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar), Comments on Texas and Florida Courts Studying Continued Reliance on the ABA Law School Accreditation Process

Comments of the Undersigned Texas Law School Deans on the Texas Supreme Court’s Consideration of ABA Accreditation:

We appreciate the Court’s commitment to high-quality, cost-effective legal education, and to expanding access to legal services for Texans. We share those goals and offer our collective perspective as educators, administrators, and stakeholders deeply invested in the success of Texas’s legal system, Texas’s law schools, and its future lawyers.

ABA Accreditation, While Imperfect, Provides a Proven Standard of Quality
We strongly support continued reliance on ABA accreditation for Texas law schools and licensure eligibility. ABA accreditation provides a nationally recognized framework for quality assurance and transparency; portability of licensure through recognition of ABA accreditation by all 50 states, which is critical for graduates' career flexibility; consumer protections and public accountability through disclosure standards; and a baseline of educational quality that correlates with higher bar passage rates and better employment outcomes. Abandonment of ABA accreditation would require the Court, or a designee, to define its own standards and review process for Texas’s ten law schools, as there is no single regional accreditor under which all ten schools operate. ...

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NY Times: How Bad Is Trump's Big Beautiful Bill? The Answer In 10 Charts

New York Times Op-Ed:  How Bad Is This Bill? The Answer in 10 Charts., by Steven Rattner:

With unusual speed, and despite an armada of controversial provisions, Congress has birthed a sprawling, nearly 900-page policy bill stuffed with hundreds of changes that will bestow trillions of dollars in tax cuts on the rich and special interests while slicing deeply into social programs relied on by millions of Americans.

Much like President Trump’s 2017 tax bill, it will add substantially to the deficit and the debt without providing any meaningful impetus to economic growth. But this time, it will be much worse. This legislation will pile about $3 trillion onto the deficit over the next 10 years, double the amount its predecessor was expected to generate. And it lacks provisions that could significantly boost economic growth.

Its signature and most expensive components make a slew of individual tax cuts — cuts instituted in 2017 that primarily benefit wealthy Americans — permanent. To help pay for them, the bill makes student loans more expensive, slashes incentives for clean energy and reduces funding for and access to Medicaid. Missing yet again, despite Mr. Trump’s promises, is any effort to raise the tax rate on carried interest earnings, a major win for private equity. But the bill does deliver on one of his campaign promises: serving up tax deductions (albeit not permanently) for overtime pay, tips, car loan interest and for seniors. ...

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TaxProf Blog Holiday Weekend Roundup

July 4th:

• Weekly Legal Education Roundup
• Tax Policy In The Trump Administration
• Florida Appeals Court Upholds Katherine Magbanua's Conviction In Dan Markel’s Murder; Donna Adelson's Trial Begins August 19
• The Case For Fixing The Unprincipled Residence Tax Exemption

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• University Of Florida Law Student Who Wrote A Paper With White Nationalist Views Has Jewish Ancestry
• Currier Submits Comments On Whether Texas And Florida Should Continue To Require That Bar Applicants Graduate From An ABA-Approved Law School
• What Conservative New York Times Columnists Think Of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill

Sunday:

• The Declaration Of Independence, Faith, And Idolatry
• The Declaration Of Independence, Faith, And Antisemitism
• The Biblical Case Against The American Revolution
• Texas Supreme Court Upholds United Methodist Church's Right To Sue SMU For Severing Ties After Church Strengthened Ban On Gay Marriage And LGBTQ Clergy
• Notre Dame Honors Michael McConnell (Stanford) And Russell Hittinger (Catholic) For Their Religious Liberty Work
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

The Declaration Of Independence, Faith, And Idolatry

Dispatch Faith:  A Declaration Against Idolatry, by Kevin D. Williamson:

Abraham Lincoln ... leaned into the Declaration when confronted with slave-holding Southerners who believed that the time had come when it was “necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.” What Lincoln derived from the Declaration was not a writ for secession but a mandate for the fundamental principles, then as now imperfectly realized, of the American Revolution itself.

As Union soldiers marching into battle to the tune of “We Are Coming, Father Abra’am” surely appreciated, the 16th president, with his presagious Hebrew name, was a kind of patriarch (he dreamed of visiting Jerusalem in his retirement), and the Declaration of Independence that he took as his political scripture presents the American proposition as a theological statement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

We modern rationalists find much in those words that our secular sensibility can digest easily: legal equality, unalienable rights, consent. But those were not radical or revolutionary ideas: They were, at most, extensions of principles of English government that went back at least as far as the Magna Carta.

But the Declaration of Independence complicates and enriches—inestimably—those old English notions of equality, fundamental rights, and consent by associating them with its most radical claim, which is a matter of supernatural rather than natural law: that we must enjoy the dignity of citizens, rather than endure the servility of subjects, because we are “endowed by our Creator” with the capacity for higher things.

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The Declaration Of Independence, Faith, And Antisemitism

Dispatch Faith:  Is Antisemitism Un-American?, by Jack Miller (Founder, Jack Miller Center) & Wilfred M. McClay (Hillsdale; Author, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story):

[Are] antisemitic attacks un-American? We should be very careful in using the word “un-American.” It has a history of being misused, and sometimes used in dishonest ways. As Americans, we rightfully prize our freedom, and being a free society means that we give a wide berth to all sorts of opinions and differences.

But our freedom does presuppose something important: a shared respect for the fundamental values that are basic to the American way of life. Those are the values and the vision conveyed in our Declaration of Independence, the belief that all men are created equal and have a natural right to their life, their liberty, and their pursuit of happiness.

It is vital to recognize the deep Jewish roots of those ideas. Go to any church in America, sit down and pick up the Bible, and what is the first book that you come to? The first book, of course, is Genesis, followed by Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—the first five books of the Jewish Torah, followed by the rest of the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh). These books were part of the Old Testament that the settlers who built America carried with them when they came to our shores, the texts from which our Founders drew their inspiration for the principles behind our political tradition. As one of us has previously written with Pete Peterson [Pepperdine], the Hebrew Bible shaped foundational principles including the separation of powers, our sense of justice, and the exalted vision of human dignity at the heart of our nationhood. ...

[I]t is important to insist that antisemitism is un-American.

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The Biblical Case Against The American Revolution

Christianity Today Book Review:  These Pastors Loved America So Much, They Wanted It to Stay British, by John D. Wilsey (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Author, American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea) (reviewing Gregg L. Frazer (The Master's University), God Against the Revolution: The Loyalist Clergy's Case against the American Revolution):

When a person dies, that person is usually forgotten as time advances. The Book of Exodus opens with the memorable saying: “Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (1:8, ESV). Let’s face it, when most of us are laid low by the sweeping of the dread sickle, the memory of our lives will be swallowed up by oblivion. The psalmist reminds us of this reality: “As for man, his days are like grass. … The wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more” (103:15–16, ESV).

The same can be true for ideas. Many ideas die with those who strove, fought, and suffered for them. This is usually the case for the people and ideas that were on the losing side of some great controversy. If later generations do not forget them outright, they at least tend to remember them as inevitable losers, in part because the victors have reduced them to caricature.

Both dynamics seem to be true of the individuals who remained loyal to the British crown during the American Revolution. The Loyalists and their ideas are unknown to many, if not most Americans. And if they are known, they are too often remembered in simplified and distorted ways.

The living owe something worthier to the dead than forgetfulness or, worse, their misconstruing or mockery. We owe them our empathy and even, as historian Beth Barton Schweiger has recently argued, our love. And loving the dead means laboring to tell the truth about them in all its complexity. In God against the Revolution, historian Gregg L. Frazer considers the Loyalist clergy and their arguments against American rebellion and independence, giving their viewpoint a careful, comprehensive, and fair treatment. ...

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Texas Supreme Court Upholds United Methodist Church's Right To Sue SMU For Severing Ties After Church Strengthened Ban On Gay Marriage And LGBTQ Clergy

Law360, Texas Justices OK Methodist Church's Suit Against SMU:

The Texas Supreme Court found the United Methodist Church has the right to sue Southern Methodist University over its attempted split, but in a Friday opinion drew short of saying the university filed false paperwork as part of the breakup.

Justice Debra Lehrmann, who penned the opinion of the court, said the South Central Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church has the right to sue the school after the latter attempted to rewrite its governing documents to wrestle control from the church. SMU attempted to cut ties with the church in 2019, after the United Methodist Church endorsed a ban on LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex marriages within the church. ...

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Notre Dame Honors Michael McConnell (Stanford) And Russell Hittinger (Catholic) For Their Religious Liberty Work

National Catholic Register, Notre Dame Law School Recognizes Scholars for Religious-Liberty Work:

During its recently concluded fifth annual Religious Liberty Summit, Notre Dame Law School recognized two scholars for their contributions to the promotion and protection of religious liberty around the world.

The Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty, which is awarded to one person each year for his or her achievements in preserving religious liberty, was presented at last week’s summit to former federal judge and constitutional scholar professor Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School:

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

This week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads is the same as last week's list. The #1 paper is #476 among 12,124 tax papers in all-time downloads.

1. [936 Downloads]  Policies to Reduce Federal Budget Deficits by Increasing Economic Growth, by Douglas Elmendorf (Harvard), Glenn Hubbard (Columbia) & Zachary Liscow (Yale)
2. [662 Downloads]  IRS Officials' Stock Holdings and Corporate Tax Outcomes, by Michael Mayberry (Florida; Google Scholar), Eashwar Nagaraj (Florida) & Scott Rane (Florida; Google Scholar)
3. [310 Downloads]  The Global Minimum Tax and Intra Western Tax Competition, by Rifat Azam (Radzyner; Google Scholar)
4. [283 Downloads]  What Went Wrong In The Apple State Aid Case: Part 1 - The Case, by Ruth Mason (Virginia; Google Scholar) & Stephen Daly (King's College London; Google Scholar)
5. [233 Downloads]  The Forgotten Attribution Power, by Alex Zhang (Emory; Google Scholar) (reviewed by Blaine Saito (Ohio State; Google Scholar) here) 

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to tax posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education:

1. Joshua Kastenberg (New Mexico), Will Federal Judge Who Gave Award To Racist Paper As University Of Florida Adjunct Professor Need To Recuse Himself In Certain Future Cases?
2. America First Legal, Terminated Tenured Law Prof Obtains ‘Full Reinstatement And Complete Vindication’ In Settlement With University
3. NACUBO, Private College Tuition Discount Rate Hits All-Time High: 56.3% 
4. Matthew Finkin (Illinois), The Unraveling Of The AAUP
5. Reuters, Deans Oppose ABA's Plan To Double Experiential Learning Credits For Law Students
6. Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Arkansas Claims Commission Revives Law Professor's Appeal Of Award Of Named Professorship With $10,250 Stipend To A Faculty Colleague
7. New York Times, Yale Law School Dean Named President Of Ford Foundation
8. Harvard Crimson, Many Authors Approve Of Harvard Law Review's Use Of Race And Ideology In Article Selection
9. Joseph Kearney (Dean, Marquette), Brian Leiter (Chicago) & Brian Leiter (Chicago), ABA Should Withdraw Proposal To Double The Number Of Required Experiential Learning Credits
10. Sigman Byrd (Colorado), My University Values Football More Than Education

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to legal education posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

Tax:

1. Northwestern Law News, Ajay Mehrotra Receives Prestigious Research Honors To Support His Latest Tax Book Project
2. Pittsburgh Tax Review, New Issue
3. Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan), OBBBA And The Next Tax Reform
4. David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia) & Darien Shanske (UC-Davis), What States Should Do Now, Part I
5. Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan), Is Section 899 A Valid Treaty Override?
6. John Dorocak (Cal State-San Bernardino), The Impact Of Legacy And Donor Admissions On A University's Tax-Exempt Status
7. David Elkins (Netanya), Review Of What Are The Real Tax Risks For Harvard? By Harvey Dale (NYU), Daniel Hemel (NYU) & Jill Manny (NYU)
8. Conor Clarke (Washington University) & Ari Glogower (Northwestern), Apportioned Direct Taxes
9. The Tax Lawyer, New Issue
10. Michael Guttentag (Loyola-L.A.), The New Law And Inequality Scholarship

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Faith:

1. New York Times (Ross Douthat), Peter Thiel And The Antichrist
2. The Atlantic (Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina), What The Fastest-Growing Christian Group Reveals About America
3. New York Times (Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina), Charisma, Christianity, And Trump
4. New York Times (David Brooks), A Surprising Route To The Best Life Possible
5. Chronicle of Higher Education (Len Gutkin), William F. Buckley Jr.: Yale, God, Man, And Anthropology
   New York Times (Peter Wehner), Discovering Christianity: A Guide For The Curious

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a weekly email each Sunday with links to faith posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

University Of Florida Law Student Who Wrote A Paper With White Nationalist Views Has Jewish Ancestry

Following up on my previous posts:

• New York Times, Turmoil At University Of Florida Law School After Adjunct Professor Federal Judge Gives Book Award To White Nationalist Antisemitic Student For His Racist Paper
• Merritt McAlister (Interim Dean, Florida), Response To New York Times Article
• Joshua Kastenberg (New Mexico), Will Federal Judge Who Gave Award To Racist Paper As University Of Florida Adjunct Professor Need To Recuse Himself In Certain Future Cases?

NBC News, The Florida Law Student Who Wrote a Paper With White Nationalist Views Has Jewish Ancestry:

A University of Florida law student went viral online and became a campus pariah after classmates circulated two of his academic papers that argued in favor of white nationalist views — and amid the backlash he shared antisemitic messages on X.

But, as it turns out, the student has some Jewish ancestry.

Preston Damsky stoked outrage on campus — leading to at least two town halls during the spring semester — after penning an academic paper in the fall that argued that the Founding Fathers had conceived of the U.S. as white country and it should remain that way. Damsky questioned the constitutionality of certain amendments like those granting birthright citizenship and barring the government from denying anyone the right to vote based on race.

As students began circulating the paper and expressing outrage, Damsky shared scores of posts on X against Jewish people.

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Currier Submits Comments On Whether Texas And Florida Should Continue To Require That Bar Applicants Graduate From An ABA-Approved Law School

Barry Currier (Former Managing Director), ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar), Comments on Texas and Florida Courts Studying Continued Reliance on the ABA Law School Accreditation Process:

I submitted comments today to the Texas Supreme Court and a Florida Supreme Court Work Group on the question of whether the bar admissions process in those jurisdictions should continue to require graduation from an ABA-approved law school as a condition of eligibility to sit for the bar examination and for admission to practice in the state [Florida comments, Texas comments].

I do not know of other state courts that are considering this question, but one would have to believe that there are or will be others. As I asserted in an earlier post, the argument for some sort of national system is compelling. As I suggested in another post, it is important to have the conversation about the need for reforms in this area, wherever that may lead.

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What Conservative New York Times Columnists Think Of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill

New York Times, This Is What Our Conservative Columnists Really Think of Trump’s Bill:

With President Trump poised to sign his signature policy bill into law, Times Opinion asked seven of our conservative columnists and contributors a simple question: Will it be good for America or bad for America? The group we convened included libertarians, New Right thinkers and traditional conservatives — people from all corners of the conservative universe. Here’s what they thought.

Best Provision ...

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, NextGen UBE 'Blueprint' Welcome, But More Info on New Bar Exams Needed, Sources Say
• America First Legal, VICTORY — America First Legal Secures Settlement, Reinstatement, and Vindication for Law Professor Fired by Ohio Northern University for Objecting to Race-Based Hiring
• American Lawyer, Law Schools Are Quietly Changing DEI Messaging. What Does That Mean for Big Law's Future Talent Pipeline?
• Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Arkansas State Claims Commission Reconsiders Prior Ruling on UALR Law Professor Robert Steinbuch’s Claim
• Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed (Matthew W. Finkin (Illlinois)), The Unraveling of the AAUP
• Cleveland.com, Ohio Legislature Again Rejects Proposal to Allow Donors to Sue Over College Endowments
• Harvard Crimson, A Mass Leak Showed the Harvard Law Review Assessed Articles for DEI Values. Some Authors Say That’s Not a Problem. 

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Tax Policy In The Trump Administration

• Bloomberg, 'Taking From The Poor Giving to the Rich:' Natasha Sarin (Yale) on Tax Bill
• Bloomberg, Global Minimum Tax in Limbo Following Bessent, G7 Agreement
• Bloomberg, A Guide to Trump’s Tax and Policy Bill That Congress Passed
• Bloomberg, IRS Revokes Another 83 Pieces of Tax Guidance as Obsolete
• Bloomberg, The Tax Bill’s Private School Loophole Would Make DOGE Cry
• Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, The Senate OBBBA in Charts
• FactCheck.org, Unraveling the Big Beautiful Bill Spin
• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, The SALT Caucus, Fortunately, Comes Up Short
• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Top 1% to Receive $1 Trillion Tax Cut from Trump Megabill Over the Next Decade
• Ray Madoff (Boston College), A Signature GOP Issue is Omitted from Trump’s ‘Big’ Tax Bill. Weird.

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Florida Appeals Court Upholds Katherine Magbanua's Conviction In Dan Markel’s Murder; Donna Adelson's Trial Begins August 19

Following up on my previous post, Katherine Magbanua Transported To Florida State Prison, Begins Serving Life Sentence In Dan Markel’s Murder:  WTXL, Appellate Court Upholds Katherine Magbanua's Convictions in FSU Law Professor Murder:

The First District Court of Appeal upheld Katherine Magbanua's convictions on Wednesday in the 2014 murder of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel.

Prosecutors said Magbanua acted as the go-between for her then-boyfriend Charlie Adelson and two hitmen, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, in Markel's murder. Markel was shot in July 2014 while sitting in his car in the garage of his Tallahassee home.

Magbanua is currently serving a life sentence after jurors in her second trial found her guilty in 2022 on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation to commit murder. Her first trial ended with a hung jury. ...

In her appeal, Magbanua claimed the trial court made three errors, including "not evaluating the fifth amendment assertions made by Markel's ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, during her deposition." ...

Donna Adelson, the mother of Wendi and Charlie, is scheduled to go to trial in August for her suspected role in the crime.

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The Case For Fixing The Unprincipled Residence Tax Exemption

Samuel Singer (University of Ottawa) & Allison Christians (McGill; Google Scholar), The Case for Fixing the Unprincipled Residence Tax Exemption, 63 Osgoode Hall L.J. __ (2026):

When Canada overhauled its income tax to include capital gains in 1972, lawmakers suddenly had to decide how to deal with personal home sales. After heated debate, they opted to exclude the gains on an individual's principal residence on the grounds that the core purpose of a home is to provide "basic shelter" for its owneroccupants. This tax exemption has since become one of Canada's most significant tax shelters, and now amounts to one of Canada's largest tax subsidies to individuals. Along the way, it has created economic distortions, administrative challenges, and inequitable distributive outcomes. 

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Guttentag: The New Law And Inequality Scholarship

Michael D. Guttentag (Loyola-L.A.), The New Law and Inequality Scholarship, 105 B.U. L. Rev. 897 (2025):

An emerging body of scholarship is challenging the orthodoxy that the tax system rather than the legal system should be used to address inequality. This "New Law and Inequality Scholarship" argues for using law to address inequality for both practical and theoretical reasons and, notably, is grounded in the same kind of rigorous and evidence-based analysis relied on by an earlier generation of law and economics scholars to argue against using legal rules to address inequality. Two of the most exciting thinkers in this new area of research are Ofer Eldar and Rory Van Loo. 

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Arkansas Claims Commission Revives Law Professor's Appeal Of Award Of Named Professorship With $10,250 Stipend To A Faculty Colleague

Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Arkansas State Claims Commission Reconsiders Prior Ruling on UALR Law Professor Robert Steinbuch’s Claim:

The Arkansas State Claims Commission has reconsidered a prior order regarding claims by law professor Robert Steinbuch over a named professorship at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's William H. Bowen School of Law.

During a meeting of the Claims Commission in January 2024, Mindy Pipkin, associate general counsel for the University of Arkansas System, argued on behalf of a motion to dismiss Steinbuch's claims. ... No faculty member has a right to a named professorship, she promulgated then. It's a "discretionary benefit," and Steinbuch was not "entitled" to the Arkansas Bar Foundation named professorship that went to Lindsey Gustafson instead of him. ...

In June 2024, the Claims Commission dismissed Steinbuch's claims against UALR, but Steinbuch -- referred to by the Commission as the "claimant" -- sought reconsideration and received another hearing in February.

"[T]he Commission finds that limited reconsideration of its June 3, 2024, order is warranted regarding claimant's contract claims; as such, the Commission grants claimant's motion as to claimant's contract claims only," the Commission's order issued Monday states. ...

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Avi-Yonah: OBBBA And The Next Tax Reform

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar), OBBBA and The Next Tax Reform:

This paper compares OBBBA to the 1986 tax reform and suggests what a future US tax reform building on OBBBA might look like.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) as passed by the Senate is far from an ideal tax reform. If the ideal is the 1986 tax reform, then a tax reform should be revenue and distributionally neutral, broaden the base, and cut the rates. OBBBA falls short because it (a) is not revenue neutral, (b) is not distributionally neutral, and (c) narrows the tax base (e.g., by maintaining and expanding section 199A) while not reducing tax rates (since both the individual and corporate tax rates stay the same, and the FDII and GILTI rate are raised).

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Deans Oppose ABA's Plan To Double Experiential Learning Credits For Law Students

Reuters, ABA's Plan to Double Hands-On Credits for Law Students Is Rife With Flaws, Deans Say:

An American Bar Association proposal to double the hands-on coursework credits for law students is facing sharp criticism from some legal educators as being too costly, too constraining, and an overreach in controlling curriculum.

Under the proposed change to the ABA’s law school accreditation standards, the number of credits for hands-on classes, known as experiential learning, that students must take would increase to 12 from the current six. Students would need to earn at least three of those credits in a clinic or a field placement. ...

[S]upporters were outnumbered by opponents who warned that the proposal would have unintended negative consequences. Of the 37 public comments the ABA received, 21 opposed the plan or requested a delay, while 12 were in support. Several other commenters took issue with one or more aspects of the proposal but did not oppose it outright. ...

Deans at more than a quarter of all ABA-accredited law schools — 52 — submitted a comment asking the ABA to delay the proposal and take a more incremental approach to increasing experiential credit requirements, citing upheaval in higher education due to federal funding cuts, uncertainty over international student visas brought on by the Trump administration, and other financial constraints.

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Law Schools Are Quietly Changing DEI Messaging

American Lawyer, Law Schools Are Quietly Changing DEI Messaging. What Does That Mean for Big Law's Future Talent Pipeline?:

As federal and state agencies continue to crack down on diversity-focused resources and programs, many law schools are quietly adjusting their recruiting and messaging approach to avoid becoming a target, raising questions over the future of diversity in the legal profession.

While the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard was a catalyst for diversity, equity and inclusion policy reform at most universities, the second Trump administration has been swift to implement further restrictions on diversity programming and resources at institutions.

Dan Tokaji, dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School, said that as a result of the SFFA ruling, the school is “no longer engaging in race-conscious admissions,” he said. “We have seen a decline in admissions among some racial groups,” which, he added, he would expect to ultimately have “an impact on the racial diversity of practicing lawyers as well.” ...

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Institute For Austrian And International Tax Law Conference On The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Tax Law Kicks Off Today

The Institute For Austrian And International Tax Law hosts a conference on The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Tax Law July 3-5 (program): 

This conference will compare different approaches to the governance and use of AI for tax purposes from the point of view of various stakeholders analyzing the unprecedented opportunities and risks inherent in the use of AI tools in tax administration, enforcement and compliance. It aims at examining the legislative framework governing AI, the role of taxes incentivizing or disincentivizing investments in AI, substantive and procedural issues surrounding the use of AI in various fields of taxation and the main trends, uses and challenges of deployment of AI by tax administrations. A major topic that the conference will explore is the limits to the use of AI by tax administrations, in particular, the fundamental rights of taxpayers and data protection rules that are in place in national, international and supranational laws, or should be put in place, to protect taxpayers from the excesses of public authorities when using this potent technology. Finally, it will be discussed how taxpayers may benefit from the use of AI by tax administrations through enhanced taxpayers’ services and compliance assistance as well as the potential future uses of AI for taxation purposes.

Thursday, July 3 

3:30 - 6:00 PM: Doctorate Workshop

Friday, July 4

9:00 - 10:30 AM: Definition and Legislative Framework Governing AI

11:00 - 12:30 PM: Tax Rules and Policies Incentivizing and Disincentivizing the Investment in AI 

2:00 - 3:30 PM: Other Substantive and Procedural Issues Concerning AI and Taxation 

4:00 - 5:30 PM: The Use of AI by Tax Administrations

Saturday, July 5

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The Tax Lawyer Publishes New Issue

The Tax Lawyer has published Vol. 78, No. 2 (Winter 2025): 

• Susannah Camic Tahk (Wisconsin; Google Scholar), The Tax Separation of Powers, 78 Tax Law. 167 (2025) 
• Bret Wells (Houston; Google Scholar), Ruminations on Negative Basis, Rev. Rul. 68-55, and Bigfoot Fallacies, 78 Tax Law. 225 (2025) 

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NY Times: Columbia Settles Class Action Lawsuit Over Submission Of Incorrect Data That Inflated Its U.S. News Ranking; $6 Million To 22,000 Former Students ($273 Each), $3 Million To Lawyers

Following up on my previous post, Former Students Sue Columbia, Say They Were Misled By Misreporting Of Data That Inflated Its U.S. News Ranking:  New York Times, Columbia Will Pay $9 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over U.S. News Ranking:

Columbia University has agreed to pay $9 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by students who claimed they had been overcharged for their educations as a result of incorrect data that they said the school had provided to U.S. News & World Report to artificially inflate its national ranking.

The lawsuit stemmed from a 2022 scandal over how Columbia earned a No. 2 spot in the magazine’s annual “Best Colleges” rankings that year, acing a process that is a powerful driver of prestige and applications for American universities. Believing there were flaws in the data underpinning the university’s score, a Columbia mathematician investigated and published a blog post asserting that several key figures were “inaccurate, dubious or highly misleading.”

The discrepancies caused Columbia to drop to No. 18 in the rankings. The next year, Columbia opted out of the rankings all together.

The proposed settlement, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Monday, did not require Columbia to formally admit wrongdoing. But the university said in a statement on Tuesday that it “deeply regrets deficiencies in prior reporting.”

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Ajay Mehrotra Receives Prestigious Research Honors To Support His Latest Tax Book Project

Northwestern Law News, Professor Ajay Mehrotra Receives Prestigious Research Honors to Advance New Book Project: 

Ajay K. Mehrotra, the Stanford Clinton Sr. and Zylpha Kilbride Clinton Research Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and Affiliated Professor of History also at Northwestern University, has been selected as a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. He also received a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society, which will enable him to travel to archives for research purposes. These distinguished honors will significantly support work on his current book project, currently titled “American Outlier: Economic Inequality and the U.S. Historical Resistance to National Consumption Taxes.” ...

“I am deeply honored to receive these awards, which will enhance my research and allow me to explore the complexities of economic inequality within the historical development of American tax law and fiscal policy,” Mehrotra says. “I look forward to delving into these topics more deeply both individually through the American Philosophical Society’s travel-to-archives grant, and collectively via the Russell Sage Visiting Scholars program.”

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NextGen UBE ‘Blueprint’ Welcome, But More Info On New Bar Exams Needed

ABA Journal, NextGen UBE 'Blueprint' Welcome, But More Info on New Bar Exams Needed, Sources Say:

The National Conference of Bar Examiners’ “blueprint” for the NextGen UBE offers welcome info about how the new test will be different than the current Uniform Bar Exam, legal academics say. But they also say that critical pieces of information, such as a broader variety of sample questions and specific study materials, are still missing—and can’t come soon enough for law schools and bar candidates.

“[The] 2026 bar-takers deserved to have this information in 2023,” Marsha Griggs, an associate professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law and immediate past president of the Association of Academic Support Educators, wrote to the ABA Journal.

The NCBE began planning in 2018 for the new exam, which emphasizes skills new lawyers need over memorization, and its first administration is scheduled for July 2026. At press time, 41 jurisdictions have committed to the test that will cover eight areas of doctrine and evaluate seven foundational lawyering skills. The Uniform Bar Examination and its components—the Multistate Essay Examination, the Multistate Performance Test and the Multistate Bar Examination—will sunset in 2028. ...

Sources contacted by the ABA Journal applaud the NCBE’s steady and thoughtful efforts to launch a new exam.

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Yale Law School Dean Named President Of Ford Foundation

New York Times, Ford Foundation’s New Leader Says She’ll Work to Protect Democracy:

Heather K. Gerken, the dean of Yale Law School, will become the president of the Ford Foundation later this year, the group said Tuesday.

Ms. Gerken, who was seen last year as a contender for the Yale presidency, will take over one of the country’s wealthiest and most influential philanthropies at a time of especially fraught debate about social justice and inequality, two of the foundation’s touchstones.

In a statement on Tuesday, Ms. Gerken said she was looking forward to working at the foundation “to protect democracy and the rule of law and further our mission to create a more just and fair world for everyone.”

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NY Times: Trump And Senate Republicans Mislead On Tax Cuts In ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

New York Times, Trump and Republicans Mislead on Tax Cuts in Policy Bill:

The president and his Senate allies have cited inaccurate claims about their tax and policy bill.

As President Trump sought to pass his tax and domestic policy bill, he and his allies have insisted that the legislation would be a boon for seniors and the middle class.

The Senate narrowly passed its version on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance casting a tiebreaking vote. Now, both chambers of Congress will reconcile differences between their versions.

Still, some of their most repeated talking points — a warning about vast tax increases if the bill did not pass, a purported elimination of taxes on Social Security and boasts about a record tax cut for average Americans — are not accurate.

Here’s a fact-check.

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Pittsburgh Tax Review Publishes New Issue

The Pittsburgh Tax Review has published Vol. 22, No. 2 (2025):

• Darien Shanske (UC-Davis; Google Scholar), Progressive State Tax Policy is Possible and Imperative, 22 Pitt. Tax Rev. 167 (2025)
• Adam B. Thimmesch (Nebraska; Google Scholar), The Dimensions of State Antipoverty Tax, 22 Pitt. Tax Rev. 179 (2025)
• Susannah Camic Tahk (Wisconsin; Google Scholar), A Tale of Two Credits, 22 Pitt. Tax Rev. 199 (2025)
• Jennifer Bird-Pollan (Wayne State; Google Scholar), Cash Transfers: What Pandemic Era School Lunch Programs Can Teach Us About Tax, 22 Pitt. Tax Rev. 239 (2025)

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Terminated Tenured Law Prof Obtains ‘Full Reinstatement And Complete Vindication’ In Settlement With University

VICTORY — America First Legal Secures Settlement, Reinstatement, and Vindication for Law Professor Fired by Ohio Northern University for Objecting to Race-Based Hiring (June 26, 2025):

Today, America First Legal (AFL), in partnership with Ashbrook, Byrne, Kresge & Flowers, announced a decisive legal victory for its client, Dr. Scott Gerber, securing a settlement with Ohio Northern University (ONU) that includes his full reinstatement and complete vindication.

In 2023, ONU terminated Dr. Gerber, a tenured law professor, after he objected to the University’s race-based hiring practices. When he was terminated, ONU sent campus security and armed local police officers into his classroom to forcibly remove him.

Now, after nearly two years of litigation, ONU has agreed to reinstate Dr. Gerber and allow him to retire at his rightful faculty rank, with all his benefits intact. As part of the settlement, ONU formally acknowledged that:

• Dr. Gerber was never a public safety risk to any member of the ONU community.
• He never acted with moral turpitude.
• He provided “outstanding teaching, scholarship, and service” throughout his tenure at ONU.

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Conjuring Markets: Valuation In Comparative International Economic Law

Toni Marzal (University of Glasgow), Conjuring Markets: Valuation in Comparative International Economic Law, 27 J. Int'l Econ. L. 353 (2024):

This article focuses on the neglected relationship between market valuation and international economic law by comparing valuation practices in four subfields: international investment law, the law of the European Convention of Human Rights, international tax law, and World Trade Organization law. The operation of each of these hinges, in some crucial respect, on how the worth of a certain thing is determined by the market (calculating damages awarded to investors, identifying a breach of the right to property due to insufficient compensation, allocating taxable income among sovereigns under transfer pricing rules, and identifying the existence and extent of an actionable subsidy). 

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Duke Law Journal Told Minority Applicants They’d Get Extra Points For Writing About Their Race

Washington Free Beacon (Aaron Sibarium), Duke Law Journal Sent a Secret Memo to Minority Applicants Telling Them They’d Get Extra Points for Writing About Their Race:

At the end of finals period each May, the Duke Law Journal hosts a two-week-long competition to select its next crop of editors. Applicants write a 12-page memo, or casenote, analyzing an appellate court decision, as well as a 500-word essay about what they would "contribute" to the journal.

Students are chosen based on their grades, casenotes, and personal statements. Less than 20 percent of the class makes it onto the law review, which is overseen by Duke Law School and has no legal existence apart from it.

In a packet prepared for the law school’s affinity groups, the journal instructed minority students to highlight their race and gender as part of their personal statements—and revealed that they would earn extra points for doing so.

The packet, obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon, included the rubric used to evaluate the personal statements. Applicants can earn up to 10 points for explaining how their "membership in an underrepresented group" will "lend itself to … promoting diverse voices," and an additional 3-5 points if they "hold a leadership position in an affinity group." ...

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