Updated 2024 Tax Prof Rankings: Google Scholar H-Index All

Below are the updated Google Scholar H-Index All rankings of the Top 114 U.S. tax professors with Google Scholar pages (data collected on September 3). If you are a full-time law school tax professor with a Google Scholar page and we missed including you, please contact me.

Rank	Name	School	Google Scholar H-Index (All)
1	Joel Slemrod	Michigan	99
2	Alan Auerbach	UC-Berkeley	96
3	James Hines	Michigan	66
4	Reuven Avi-Yonah	Michigan	39
5	David Weisbach	Chicago	38
6	Dan Shaviro	NYU	35
7	Dhammika Dharmapala	UC-Berkeley	33
8	Edward McCaffery	USC	31
9	Kimberly Clausing	UCLA	30
10	Brian Galle	Georgetown	28
10	Eric Zolt	UCLA	28
12	Kristin Hickman	Minnesota	27
12	Kyle Logue	Michigan	27
12	Lawrence Zelenak	Duke	27
15	Jacob Goldin	Chicago	26
15	Chris Sanchirico	Penn	26
15	Robert Sitkoff	Harvard	26
18	Daniel Hemel	NYU	25
18	Nancy Knauer	Temple	25
20	Steven Bank	UCLA	23
20	Leandra Lederman	Indiana (Maurer)	23
22	Dorothy Brown	Georgetown	21
22	Diane Ring	Boston College	21
24	Richard Kaplan	Illinois	20
24	Nancy McLaughlin	Utah	20
24	David Walker	Boston Univ.	20
27	Yariv Brauner	Florida	19
28	Ellen Aprill	Loyola-L.A.	18
28	Bridget Crawford	Pace	18
28	Clifton Fleming	BYU	18
28	David Gamage	Missouri (Columbia)	18
28	Ruth Mason	Virginia	18
33	Paul Caron	Pepperdine	17
33	Anthony Infanti	Pittsburgh	17
33	Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer	Notre Dame	17
33	Richard Pomp	Connecticut	17
33	Darien Shanske	UC-Davis	17
33	Jay Soled	Rutgers	17
39	Hugh Ault	Boston College	16
39	John Coverdale	Seton Hall	16
39	Victor Fleischer	UC-Irvine	16
39	Ajay Mehrotra	Northwestern	16
39	Shu-Yi Oei	Duke	16
39	Gregg Polsky	Georgia	16
39	James Repetti	Boston College	16
46	Jacob Cogan	Cincinnati	15
46	Sarah Lawsky	Northwestern	15
46	Zachary Liscow	Yale	15
46	Omri Marian	UC-Irvine	15
46	Kyle Rozema	Washington Univ.	15
46	Stephen Shay	Boston College	15
46	Linda Sugin	Fordham	15
53	Joshua Blank	UC-Irvine	14
53	Bradley Borden	Brooklyn	14
53	Andrew Hayashi	Virginia	14
53	Christine Hurt	SMU	14
53	Linda Jellum	Idaho	14
53	Henry Ordower	St. Louis	14
53	Michael Simkovic	USC	14

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ABA Tax Section Releases 24th Annual Law Student Tax Challenge Problem

The ABA Tax Section has released the J.D. Problem (rules) and LL.M. Problem (rules) for the 24th Annual Law Student Tax Challenge:

An alternative to traditional moot court competitions, the Law Student Tax Challenge (LSTC) is organized by the Section’s Young Lawyers Forum. The LSTC asks two-person teams of students to solve a complex business problem that might arise in everyday tax practice. Teams are initially evaluated on two criteria: a memorandum to a senior partner and a letter to a client explaining the result. Based on the written work product, six teams from the J.D. Division and four teams from the LL.M. Division receive a free trip to the Tax Section’s Midyear Meeting, where each team presents its submission before a panel of judges consisting of the country’s top tax practitioners and government officials, including tax court judges. The competition is a great way for law students to showcase their knowledge in a real-world setting and gain valuable exposure to the tax law community. 

2024-2025 Law Student Tax Challenge: Important Dates

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Minority Enrollment Holds Steady At Top U.S. Law Schools

Reuters, Minority Enrollment Holds Steady at Top U.S. Law Schools, Early Data Indicates:

Early data from a handful of top U.S. law schools shows the percentage of nonwhite students enrolling this year has remained mostly unchanged following the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring colleges and universities from considering race in admissions.

Six of the top 20 U.S. law schools—as ranked by U.S. News & World Report—have disclosed some racial diversity data on their websites or provided it directly to Reuters as of Sept. 5. Of those, five reported that the percentage of first-year students of color this fall increased or remained steady this year. One said that figure declined.

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The Moores Lost Their Claim And Moore

Lily Batchelder (NYU), Ari Glogower (Northwestern; Google Scholar), Chye-Ching Huang (NYU), David Kamin (NYU), Rebecca Kysar (Fordham; Google Scholar), Kelsey Merrick (NYU), Darien Shanske (UC-Davis; Google Scholar) & Thalia Spinrad (NYU), The Moores Lost Their Claim and Moore, 184 Tax Notes Fed. 1509 (Aug. 19, 2024): 

In this article, the authors analyze the logic of Moore and argue that in many important ways, the decision undercuts attempts to sharply limit Congress’s taxing power.

Conclusion
The Moores’ counsel and some of their amici are urging that the opinion be read to tacitly rule out wealth taxes, mark-to-market taxes, and perhaps even impose a constitutional realization requirement, despite the fact the opinion explicitly disclaims doing any of those things. After all, that would turn their loss into a win. But the Court expressly declined to decide these questions.

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• Remembering Frederick Schauer (Virginia) (1946-2024)
• William Baude (Chicago)
• Michael Dorf (Cornell)
• Brian Leiter (Chicago)
• Richard Re (Virginia)
• Larry Solum (Virginia)
• University of Virginia
• ABA Journal, 5th Circuit Becomes ‘Proving Ground’ For Aggressive Arguments By Conservatives
• ABA Journal, Did You Read The Small Print? ‘Infinite’ Arbitration Clauses Are On The Rise
• ABA Journal, White Male Law Student Settles Suit Against Chicago Bears Over ‘Legal Diversity Fellow’ Position
• Above the Law, Law School Offers Class On Trump & The Constitution, Gets Attacked With Scare Quotes

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Florida And Massachusetts Seek To Hire Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Profs

University of Florida Law, Faculty Posting

University of Florida Levin College of Law seeks to hire several professors, across a variety of fields, as part of the College’s pursuit of excellence in legal education and scholarship. The University of Florida, located in Gainesville, FL, is among the nation’s leading public research institutions and the flagship university of the third largest state. The Levin College of Law seeks highly qualified candidates for tenure-track positions.

The Appointments Committee welcomes applications from entry-level and pre-tenure lateral candidates writing in all areas of law. Successful candidates will have publication records, strong scholarly potential, commitment to excellence in teaching, and enthusiasm for creating a welcoming environment for all students. Candidates must also have a JD or equivalent academic degree. In reviewing applications, the Appointments Committee will consider long-term teaching needs in required and large enrollment classes, including but not limited to antitrust law, civil procedure, environmental law, health law, taxation (corporate, partnership, and/or international), torts, and voting rights.

To apply for a position or to request further information, applicants should contact the Appointments Committee’s co-chairs Jane Bambauer or Yariv Brauner.

University of Massachusetts Law, Assistant/Associate Professor of Law: 

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Chronicle: Conservatives Are Rare In Academe. Does It Matter?

Chronicle of Higher Education, The Professoriate's Political Problem:

Conservatives Are Rare in Academe. Does It Matter?

In a recent essay in The Chronicle [Why Are There So Few Conservative Professors?], the Johns Hopkins political scientist Steven Teles asserted that “the public’s impression that American higher education has grown increasingly closed-minded is undeniably correct.” He pointed to the declining presence of conservatives on academic faculties and in graduate cohorts, arguing that it poses an acute problem for how academe functions and is a serious drag on how higher education is perceived.

Teles’s essay tapped into a long-brewing debate about political diversity and the professoriate. It also elicited a large and varied response from readers. To continue this complicated and contentious discussion, we asked a group of academics to weigh in. Among the questions we posed:

• What has led to the underrepresentation of conservatives in academe?
• What, if any, concrete steps ought to be taken by colleges to redress the imbalance of political representation?
• What role, if any, should non-conservatives play in the defense and preservation of conservative viewpoints in academe?

Here’s what they told us. ...

Brian Leiter (Chicago), Scholarship, Not Partisanship:

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Morriss: The Impact Of International Financial Centers

Andrew P. Morriss (Texas A&M; Google Scholar), The Impact of International Financial Centers (Aug. 27, 2024), in Defending Globalization: Economics (Cato Institute):

Just as there is a global market for cell phones and wheat, there is also a global market for law. That may seem strange to many people, since they don’t think about buying law the same way they think about buying goods and other types of services, but law is as much the subject of a global market as those are. Indeed, many things we do in day-to-day life include laws from outside the communities where we live and work. If you have a credit card, you’ve likely agreed that the law of a state other than the one you live in governs any disputes that you have with the bank that issued it (often South Dakota). If you own stock in a Fortune 500 company, your rights as a shareholder are likely governed by Delaware law, where most large US public companies are incorporated. If your 401(k) plan includes a fund that invests in corporate bonds, the fund’s rights (and so yours) are likely governed by New York law.

Foreign legal systems probably affect your life as well. Many hospitals in the United States are insured through insurance companies incorporated in the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean that is better known to most people for its beaches and scuba diving than for providing insurance to health care providers. The extended warranty you bought on an appliance could be funded through a Turks & Caicos Islands company, another British Overseas Territory. And any insurance policy you buy from a US insurer is likely reinsured through a Bermuda-based (yet another British Overseas Territory!) reinsurer.

All of these are examples of the results of jurisdictional competition, which is the competition among jurisdictions to persuade people to bring legal business to them. The international version of this competition is little different from the domestic American version. In our federal system, states compete for economic activities by offering legal and business environments to attract entrepreneurs. Attractions include business courts (to speed resolution of disputes), business entities laws that cut the transaction costs of creating new businesses, low taxes, better infrastructure, and dozens more features of a business climate that are calculated to appeal to entrepreneurs. The main difference between the international competition for business and the domestic one is that in the former case, jurisdictions are primarily competing through their legal systems for the legal residence of businesses, while in the latter, states are trying to secure a physical presence of employers.

Many of the jurisdictions that are internationally successful in this the law market are small ones with some affiliation (past or present) with the United Kingdom. These jurisdictions are variously called “tax havens” (a term that was originally meant to conjure up a refuge from taxes, but became a slur intended to suggest they were cheating other places out of tax revenue); “offshore financial centers” (since many are islands); and, now, “international financial centers.” Depending on how you count, there are two to four dozen successful IFCs around the world, including independent countries such as the Bahamas, Liechtenstein, Malta, and Mauritius; territories affiliated with Britain, such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Jersey, and the Isle of Man; and the Cook Islands, which are in free association with New Zealand. As this partial list suggests, IFCs are present around the globe. What exactly do they do?

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Rethinking Legal Education: Demystifying Neurodiversity And Building An Inclusive Future

Jennifer Kindred Mitchell (Baltimore; Google Scholar) & Charlie Amiot (Baltimore; Google Scholar), Rethinking Legal Education: Demystifying Neurodiversity and Building an Inclusive Future:

Neurodiverse (ND) students comprise approximately 1/4 of the law school population, yet traditional legal education often fails to meet their needs. This paper critically examines the prevailing challenges faced by ND students within legal education by identifying the inherent limitations of conventional teaching methods. We first examine ND students' early educational experiences, including detrimental deficit-based messaging and pressures to conform. This context illuminates why many ND law students hide their authentic selves and remain reluctant to disclose needs. We then demystify neurodiversity and common ND cognitive traits to reveal how diverse minds process information and perceive environments. Finally, the paper outlines specific strategies to build inclusion at institutional and instructional levels. Law schools can leverage strengths-based frameworks, universal design in curricula/spaces, neurodiversity informed pedagogy, and DEI efforts. Faculty can employ techniques like teaching in knowledge chunks, incorporating professional identity formation across courses, and designing authentic learning activities.

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• Temple And Tulsa Seek To Hire Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Profs
• If You Want To Be Dean, You Probably Won’t Be Good At It
• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Sunday:

• The Top Five New Tax Papers
• Should You Have Kids In Law School?
• The Unbearable Lightness Of Choosing Children
• It Is Not Best For Man To Eat Alone
• WaPo Op-Ed: Living For The Unremarkable Moments

WaPo Op-Ed: Living For The Unremarkable Moments

Washington Post Op-Ed:  Living for the Unremarkable Moments, by Anne Lamott (Author, Somehow: Thoughts on Love (2024)):

Age grants us permission to be curious about every ordinary day.

In the year since I began writing these little columns on getting older, I’ve seen death up close a few times. One man I know has the same devastating, angry variety of Alzheimer’s that my mom had. A dear old girlfriend has the gentle, spaced-out version, as if dementia had freed the tender prisoner all locked up since childhood. When her mind grew soft, we saw the prison bars of a lifetime collapse.

I would like to put in an order, while they’re still available, for the latter.

But we have no choice in the matter. These days, all I can bank on is love. Much of the rest departs. Even our bodies shrink smaller and then smaller. Carl Sagan said about all of us, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” This is doubly true for the elderly.

Love emerges flagrantly as the real coin of the realm. The people I’ve spent significant time with at the end of their lives do not talk about their degrees, promotions or having successfully kept their weight down. They talk about the times and places of love. Loving memories are the fields in which we walk with them near the end. ...

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It Is Not Best For Man To Eat Alone

Christianity Today op-ed: It Is Not Best for Man to Eat Alone, by Anna Broadway (Author, Solo Planet: How Singles Help the Church Recover Our Calling (2024)):

When the waiter brought out my long-awaited high tea that day, I didn’t expect I’d still be grieving it decades later.

I was 21 and enjoying my first “real” spring break during a debt-building week away in London. After years of devouring chaste romances set in England, I’d learned that Harrods was the best place to experience the glories of scones, clotted cream, and tiny sandwiches, all served on tiers of gleaming china and, of course, washed down with hot tea. So on my inaugural trip across the sea, it seemed only right to indulge my credit card’s largesse on a high tea at Harrods. Alone.

As I looked around the room that day, I knew I’d made a grave mistake. Not even the tender scones and decadent clotted cream could balance the bitter taste of regret. They worsened it. With each new delight, I felt more keenly the lack of someone to share my enjoyment with.

When I was doing fieldwork for my book on singleness, someone told me it might be worse to eat alone than sleep alone. Eating alone is certainly a problem for people who live by themselves. But with 21st-century work schedules, sports practices, and other structural realities, even those with seemingly “built-in” meal companions in spouses or children or roommates often dine solo too. When we do share supper, allergies and dietary restrictions can create other divides. This shift has even changed apartment and home designs as dining rooms fall out of fashion.

Sometimes, the solitude of a meal alone feels welcome. Perhaps an introvert drained by a day of meetings wants nothing more than time alone to decompress. And for some harried parents, a quiet cup of coffee—a reward for getting up before the rest of the household—might feel like a rare and precious solace.

But for Christians, the question of how and with whom we eat involves more than our own preferences. What is God’s design for our meals?

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The Unbearable Lightness Of Choosing Children

Dispatch Faith, The Unbearable Lightness of Choosing Children, by Michael Reneau (The Dispatch) & Hannah Anderson (Author, Life Under the Sun: The Unexpectedly Good News of Ecclesiastes (2023)):

Pronatalist arguments—that in order to be a well functioning society we need to be having more babies—are nothing new. But the resurfacing of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance’s 2021 “childless cat lady” remarks has added a new, overtly partisan dynamic to the conversation.

Few religious Americans would argue that having more children won’t have positive effects for society as a whole, but today Hannah Anderson argues that our reasons for having children matter: Do we think having children is good because they help us right what we might regard as a wayward societal ship? Or is having children good because … it’s good to have children?

Anderson’s argument is a bit more substantive than that, and the words “grace and hope” factor prominently. On that point: Before my wife and I said “I do,” folks told us being married would reveal to us our own selfishness in spades. That was true, but in that regard, being a parent has eclipsed marriage (which before we had kids felt more like an 24/7 honeymoon with jobs thrown in). My own mistakes in parenting my four kids have underscored my often errant understanding of God. At times I am unloving or unkind to my children because in my folly I take him to be unloving or unkind. Other times I am too removed or uninvolved because I fail to see how much he cares for his people.

That’s why I appreciate what Anderson writes about bringing tiny people into this world and caring for them as best you can: It must be shot through with grace and hope, not agendas and culture-warring.

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Should You Have Kids In Law School?

Update:  The Unbearable Lightness Of Choosing Children

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed: Should You Have Kids … In Grad School, by Anastasia Berg (UC-Irvine) & Rachel Wiseman (Managing Editor, The Point):

The role of children and family in private and public life has become a flashpoint in the public discourse. The musician Charli XCX mused about whether she should have a baby on her summer-defining album Brat. JD Vance’s comments on “childless cat ladies” dominated several news cycles and caused an unexpected public-relations crisis for the Trump campaign. The question has become so heated, and so unavoidable, that some have begun to wonder aloud: “Why is 2024 suddenly about kids?” Not content to leave such questions to the pundits, public intellectuals including Becca Rothfeld, Melinda Cooper, Mary Gaitskill, Ross Douthat, and Tyler Harper Austin have entered the fray.

The topic has hit a nerve — perhaps above all among those in the progressive and liberal chattering classes, for whom the question of whether to have kids has always been fraught: How could people, especially women, reconcile children with intellectual and creative ambition? With feminist commitments? With the grueling professional demands of academe?

In our recent book, What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice, we discuss the forces animating this public anxiety. Recently we sat down to talk about how scholarly environments can exacerbate these tensions and whether academics can move beyond ambivalence when it comes to children.

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

There is a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new paper debuting on the list at #2.

1. [1470 Downloads]  Of Losing Citizenship, Tropes, and Missed Opportunity, by Laura Snyder (Association of Americans Resident Overseas)
2. [325 Downloads]  Non-(Fully) Harmonised Excise Taxes and Irrebuttable Presumptions, by Rita de la Feria (Leeds; Google Scholar) 
3. [295 Downloads]  Tax Regulations After Loper Bright, by Andy Grewal (Iowa; Google Scholar)
4. [267 Downloads]  International Tax Scholarship and International Tax Activism, by Wolfgang Schön (Max Planck) (reviewed by Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo; Google Scholar) here)
5. [240 Downloads]  Flow-Through Entities and the OECD Pillar Two, by Leopoldo Parada (Kings College; Google Scholar)

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. Patrick Lynch (Law & Liberty), Yale Law School's Keith Whittington: ‘A Conservative Free-Speech Rock Star’
2. ABA Journal, St. Thomas College of Law Reinstates Fired Tenured Professor, Will Start Termination Hearings
3. Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed (Noah Feldman, Harvard), Radical Legal Academics May Regret Their Attacks On The Constitution 
4. Steven Chung (Tax Attorney, Los Angeles), Closing Of Golden Gate Law School Leaves Students And Alumni In A Bind
5. Alabama Symposium, Legal Education — Our History, Our Future
6. Nikita Aggarwal (Miami), Survey Of Law Fellowships And VAPs (2022-23 & 2023-24)
7. Law360, Chicago Bears Settle Hiring Bias Suit From White Male Law Student 
8. Washington University Symposium, Advancing DEI In Legal Education And The Legal Profession
9. ABA Journal, Moneybor Lawyers: Should ‘Relative Performance Measure’ Replace Billed Hours In Determining Attorney Productivity?
10. NCBE, July Multistate Bar Exam Mean Score Is Highest Since 2013 

Tax:

1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Form Trumps Substance On Phantom S Corp Income 
2. Tax Prof Jobs
   • George Washington
   • Illinois
   • Louisville 
   • Memphis
   • Minnesota
   • New England
   • North Carolina 
   • Ohio State
   • Rutgers
   • Temple
   • St. Thomas-FL
   • Tulsa
3. Stephanie Hoffer (Indiana-McKinney), Disaster! Tax Legislation In Crises
4. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
5. Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo), Presentation Of Algorithmic Tax Ownership At Vanderbilt
6. Steven Bank (UCLA), Presentation Of The Golden Age Of Tax Dodging: Celebrities, Hollywood, And The Publicity Effect Today At Temple
7. Michael Simkovic (USC) & Meirav Furth-Matzkin (Tel-Aviv University), Taxing Contractual Complexity
8. Call For Tax Papers And Panels, Law & Society Annual Meeting
9. Society Of Legal Scholars, Tax Presentations At The Annual Conference
10. Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, Conference On Reimagining Global Tax Governance

Faith:

1. Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk’s Walk With Jesus 
2. Washington Post Op-Ed (Allison Raskin), Why Don't I Have Any Close Friends? I Live In Los Angeles.
3. New York Times Op-Ed (Matthew Schmitz), Catholic Converts Like JD Vance Are Reshaping Republican Politics
4. Christianity Today, The Olympics’ Most Iconic Photo Has A Christian Message
5. Zach Rausch (NYU), Religious Teens Are Happier Than Their Secular Peers — Dramatically So For Religious Conservatives

If You Want To Be Dean, You Probably Won’t Be Good At It

Harvard Gazette, You Want to be Boss. You Probably Won’t Be Good At It.:

One of the paper’s most surprising findings is that people who self-nominate to be managers perform worse than those randomly assigned. Why is that?

In the study, we randomly assign the role of manager. That was half of the experiment. In the other half, we asked people which role they wanted, and we assigned the role of manager to the people with the greatest preferences for being in charge.

We found that people with the greatest preference for being in charge are, on average, worse than randomly assigned managers. It’s hard to know exactly why because there are a lot of factors in play, but we show evidence in the paper that they are overconfident in their own capabilities, and they think they understand other people better than they do. We all know people like that.

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Temple And Tulsa Seek To Hire Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Profs

Temple Law, Faculty Posting: 

Temple University Beasley School of Law seeks to fill several faculty positions beginning in Fall 2025. We welcome applications from both entry-level and lateral candidates, and we will consider applicants in all subject areas. Areas of particular interest include: legal writing, health law, tax, trust & estates, labor/employment law, torts, and business law. Candidates should submit materials at https://law.temple.edu/engage/prospective-faculty-application and may also direct inquiries to Tom Lin, Chair of the Faculty Selection Committee.

Tulsa Law, Faculty Posting: 

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Narotzki Reviews Escajeda's Bad Tax Policy Breeds Bad Blood Between Songwriters And Poets

This week, Doron Narotzki (Akron; Google Scholar) reviews an article by Hilary G. Escajeda (Mississippi College; Google Scholar), Bad Tax Policy Breeds Bad Blood Between Songwriters and Poets 183 Tax Notes Fed. 1625 (May 27, 2024).

Escajeda offers a compelling and thought-provoking critique of the U.S. tax system's treatment of artists, an area that is not often discussed. With a lively and accessible writing style, Escajeda highlights an important but often overlooked disparity in how tax policy favors songwriters over poets. Using popular cultural references, such as Taylor Swift’s music, the article skillfully engages readers while discussing the more technical aspects of tax law which makes the topic relatable and easier to digest.

Escajeda’s main argument is clear and very persuasive: current U.S. tax laws offer preferential capital gains treatment to songwriters but at the same time subject poets and other non-musical artists to ordinary income tax rates. 

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, St. Thomas College Of Law Reinstates Fired Tenured Professor, Will Start Termination Hearings
• ABA Legal Rebels Podcast, Tests Into And Out Of Law Schools—What’s Changing And Why
• Sara Berman (USC) & Chance Meyer (New England), Major Reform With Minor Risk: Implementation Of Change Initiatives As A Learning Challenge
• Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed (Noah Feldman, Harvard),  Radical Legal Academics May Regret Their Attacks On The Constitution
• Steven Chung (Tax Attorney, Los Angeles), The Announcement Of Golden Gate School Of Law's Closing Puts Its Students And Graduates In A Bind
• Diverse: Issues In Higher Education, Compounding Inequities In Law School Are Not Insurmountable
• G. Patrick Lynch (Law & Liberty), Yale Law School's Keith Whittington: ‘A Conservative Free-Speech Rock Star’

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Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

• Bloomberg, Harris to Expand Small Business Tax Relief to Boost Startups
• Bloomberg, Harris Pushes 28% Capital Gains Tax Rate on $1 Million Earners
• Bloomberg, Trump Vows 15% Corporate Tax
• Inequality.org, If We Want Better Care, We Need a Better Tax Code
• New York Times, Can Democrats Stop the ‘Tax Doom Loop’?
• New York Times, Harris, Proposing a Tax Break, Makes a Play for Small-Business Owners

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Next Week’s Tax Workshop

Tuesday, September 10: Ellora Derenoncourt (Princeton; Google Scholar) will present Wealth of Two Nations: The US Racial Wealth Gap, 1860-2020 (online appendix) (with Chi Hyun Kim (University of Bonn), Moritz Kuhn (University of Mannheim; Google Scholar) & Moritz Schularick (Kiel Institute, Sciences Po Paris; Google Scholar)) as part of the NYU Tax Policy and Public Finance Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact Daniel Shaviro. 

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Satterthwaite Presents Taxing Nannies Today At Florida

Emily Satterthwaite (Georgetown; Google Scholar) presents Taxing Nannies (with Ariel Jurow Kleiman (USC; Google Scholar) & Shayak Sarkar (UC-Davis; Google Scholar)) (reviewed by Michelle Layser (San Diego; Google Scholar) here and by Susan Morse (Texas; Google Scholar) here) at Florida today as part of its Tax Colloquium hosted by Yariv Brauner:

Nannies in the U.S. work long hours for low wages and risk retaliation if they complain. Informal, or “off the books,” work exacerbates their precarity, keeping it secret from state and federal tax agencies, as well as employment and labor agencies. Yet we have little understanding of how nannies navigate the tax reporting that renders them formal or informal.

This Article investigates nannies’ preferences for or against formal employment and tax reporting, the reasons behind such preferences, and how such preferences inform nannies’ relationships with their employers and legal institutions more broadly. The Article employs a multi-method research approach that includes an original and innovative survey of nannies and an analysis of nannies’ tax-related posts on the online forum Reddit. To supplement this research, the Article also discusses interviews with fifteen subject-matter experts regarding industry norms, common challenges nannies face, and policy reforms.

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Oxford Hosts Conference Today On Reimagining Global Tax Governance

The Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation hosts a conference on Reimagining Global Tax Governance today: 

Session #1: Goals of Global Tax Organisations 

• John Vella (Oxford) (chair)
• Mindy Herzfeld (Florida), Global Tax Governance: Models for International Tax Coordination
• Alice Pirlot (Geneva Graduate Institute), International Organisations & Tax Law Making
• Ivan Ozai (York University; Google Scholar) (discussant)

Session #2: Decision Making in Global Tax Organization

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Tax Presentations At Society Of Legal Scholars Annual Conference

U.S. Tax Prof presentations at the Society of Legal Scholars' Annual Conference at the University of Bristol:

Alex Zhang (Emory; Google Scholar), Fiscal Autonomy and the Legacy of Imperialism:

Within the United States, two subnational governments have distinctive powers to tax: Native tribes and U.S. territories. Native tribes can tax their own members and the commercial activities of non-Indian actors on reservations. The Supreme Court has grounded this power in both tribal sovereignty and the federal objective of fostering tribal self-governance. But its jurisprudence—in the form of preemption, plenary power, and tax doctrine—has hollowed out the Native tax base, forcing tribes to compete fiercely with Congress, states, and localities for revenue. By contrast, the U.S. territories face no tax competition. Their residents are generally exempt from federal income and estate taxes, and Congress has even delegated to some territories the authority to deviate from federal income-tax rules. Pursuant to this delegation, Puerto Rico has enacted a host of tax incentives to attract the ultra-wealthy to migrate from the mainland, fueling accusations of tax shelter and settler colonialism. The divergent tax treatment of Native and territorial communities paradoxically rests on the same rationale: fiscal autonomy.

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Compounding Inequities In Law School Are Not Insurmountable

Diverse: Issues In Higher Education, Compounding Inequities in Law School Are Not Insurmountable:

Newly released data reveals that, although students of color are steadily making up a higher percentage of those receiving law degrees, racial diversity in law school admissions, and attendance remains relatively stagnant. Some measures of academic success also declined for law students of color in 2023.

AccessLex Institute, a nonprofit organization that advocates access to legal education, released its biannual summary of demographic, financial, and academic data about U.S. law students and applicants. AccessLex found that in 2023, the proportion of law degrees awarded to students of color was the highest recorded — 31% of degree recipients were non-white.

However, the percentage of first-year law students who were people of color — 35% — barely changed between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years. Additionally, in the 2022-23 school year, Black and Hispanic students made up a significantly higher proportion of first-year law school attrition than they did the prior year. In 2022-23, 15% of students who withdrew from law school after their first year were Black, and 19% were Hispanic, up from 8.7% and 13% the previous school year.

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Rutgers And St. Thomas Seek To Hire Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Profs

Rutgers Law, Assistant/Associate Professor: 

The Camden location seeks qualified candidates for the position of Assistant or Associate Professor across a broad curricular spectrum, with particular emphasis on candidates who can teach Tax, Business Organization’s, Constitutional Law and Contracts. Other areas of interest include Legal, Analysis, Writing and Research. All applicants should have a distinguished academic background and either demonstrate great promise or a record of excellence in scholarship and teaching. The position involves responsibilities for teaching, scholarship, and service.  All candidates must have a doctorate (JD or PhD) in law or equivalent. ...

Questions and references can be addressed to: Ellen Goodman, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee. 

St. Thomas University Law, Faculty Posting: 

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Wash U Symposium: Advancing DEI In Legal Education And The Legal Profession

Symposium, Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Legal Education and the Legal Profession, 73 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 1-342 (2024): 

• Karen Tokarz (Washington University), Introduction, 73 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 1 (2024)
• Hon. Willie J. Epps, Jr. (Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge, Western District of Missouri) & Katalin M. Minkler (Law Clerk, Judge Bough), Let's Get One Thing Straight, They're Not the Appointment of the First Openly Gay Federal Judges, 73 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 6 (2024)
• Jennifer Fernandez (CUNY), The Time Is Now: ABA Standard 303(c) as the Impetus for a Truly Inclusive 1L Classroom, 73 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 78 (2024)
• Deborah Merritt (Ohio State; Google Scholar), Eileen Kaufman (Touro) & Andrea Anne Curcio (Georgia State), Enhancing the Validity and Fairness of Lawyer Licensing: Empirical Evidence Supporting Innovative Pathways, 73 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 96 (2024)
• Mable Martin-Scott (Cooley) & Kimberly O'Leary (Cooley), When the Students Teach the Professors: Lessons Learned from Teaching an Elective Seminar in Multicultural Lawyering, 73 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 163 (2024)

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ABA Tax Section Accepting Nominations for 2025-2027 Public Service Fellowships

The ABA Tax Section is accepting applications for Christine A. Brunswick Public Service Fellowships for 2025-2027:

The application period for the 2025-2027 class of Christine A. Brunswick Public Service Fellows is now open. The deadline for applications is Friday, November 8, 2024.

The ABA Tax Section has operated this fellowship since 2008 with impressive impact on communities throughout the country. In addition to representing low-income taxpayers and completing a public service project, prior fellows have gone on to careers in public interest tax, clerkships, private tax practice, academia, and government and have held leadership positions throughout the Tax Section. The fellowship provides two years of funding to practice public interest tax law at a qualifying host organization and free travel, lodging, and registration to the main Tax Section meetings. To learn more about the opportunity and to access the application materials please see the ABA Tax Section website here.

The ABA Tax Section will be hosting two virtual information sessions regarding this fellowship and the application process:

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Major Reform Of Legal Education With Minor Risk

Sara Berman (USC) & Chance Meyer (New England), Major Reform With Minor Risk: Implementation of Change Initiatives as a Learning Challenge, 22 U.N.H. L. Rev. 151 (2024):

The call for change in legal education has been loud and clear for more than a century. Despite some resistance among powerholders who benefit from status quo, faculty and administrators across the country work earnestly to solve problems, improve learning, and promote equity. Yet time and again, initiatives are logjammed, shot down as unworkable, misimplemented, or abandoned prematurely when they do not meet unrealistically high expectations for immediate, dramatic results. This article builds on the premises that (1) change is needed, (2) a wide range of sound change ideas for reform and progress are available, and (3) effective implementation of those ideas involves learnable knowledge and skills grounded in proven disciplines of evidence-based practice and change management. Written in two voices, one describing implementation strategies (the how-to) and the other surveying current change ideas (the what and why), this article provides polyphonic guidance and inspiration for law schools to make change happen. 

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Bank Presents The Golden Age Of Tax Dodging: Celebrities, Hollywood, And The Publicity Effect Today At Temple

Steven A. Bank (UCLA) presents The Golden Age of Tax Dodging: Celebrities, Hollywood, and the Publicity Effect at Temple today as part of its Faculty Colloquium Series:

In the 1950s, as one columnist recently pointed out, “the wealthiest people in the U.S. were not corporate executives or baseball players. . . . Rather, they were entertainers.” At a time when Roger Blough, the head of U.S. Steel, was making approximately $300,000, Frank Sinatra made nearly $4 million. Celebrities were income, rather than asset, rich, though, making them vulnerable to the sky-high marginal tax rates of the time, which exceeded 90 percent. Since they were already surrounded by teams of financial and tax advisors, it should not be surprising that when it came to tax dodging during this period, entertainers were on the cutting edge. Indeed, it is not a stretch to say that members of the entertainment industry either developed or were early adopters of many of the most common tax minimization techniques of the 20th century. Perhaps more significantly, celebrities helped to drive the demand for them by publicizing and normalizing them through the force of their celebrity status. 

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ABA Legal Rebels Podcast: Tests Into And Out Of Law Schools

ABA Legal Rebels Podcast, Tests Into and Out Of Law Schools—What’s Changing and Why:

Not much can strike more terror into the hearts of aspiring lawyers than the LSAT and the bar exam. Right now, these tests are having a moment.

The LSAT is facing competition from the JD-Next exam, and many states are reconsidering their licensing methods as the bar exam as we’ve known it sunsets in 2028.

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North Carolina And Ohio State Seek To Hire Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Profs

North Carolina Law, Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor of Law: 

The University of North Carolina School of Law invites applications for full-time faculty positions beginning Fall 2025. The school may fill up to four tenured or tenure-track positions this year. The school intends to hire up to three positions with expertise in tax, business, Civil Procedure, or Constitutional Law and one faculty member in any area of law. Beginning and experienced teachers may apply to all positions. ... 

Confidential inquiries are welcome. Inquiries from lateral candidates should be sent to Carissa Byrne Hessick by email and inquiries from entry level candidates should be sent to Bill Marshall by email.

Ohio State Law, Faculty Posting: 

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Call For Tax Papers And Panels: Law & Society Annual Meeting

Neil Buchanan has issued his annual call for tax papers and panels for next year's annual meeting of the Law & Society Association in Chicago, Illinois (May 22 - 25, 2025):

The Law & Society Association (LSA) will host its next annual meeting from May 22 - 25, 2025, in Chicago, Illinois.  For the 21st year in a row (so we're now of legal drinking age in the US), I am organizing sessions for the "Law, Society, and Taxation" group (Collaborative Research Network 31).  And for what is now the ninth year in a row, I am delighted to be working with Professors Jennifer Bird-Pollan and Mirit Eyal-Cohen as co-organizers of our conference-within-a-conference.

Under our signatures below, I've copied the Call for Papers email that LSA sent earlier this week.  Note that all sessions in Chicago will again be entirely live.

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Minnesota And New England Seek To Hire Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Profs

Minnesota Law, Law Professor / Associate Professor: 

The University of Minnesota Law School plans to fill several tenure-track or tenured faculty positions, to begin in the 2025-26 academic year. Applicants should hold a J.D. or degree of equivalent rank and should demonstrate outstanding accomplishment and/or potential in scholarship and teaching. We encourage applicants who work in any area of law, as we have a range of curricular needs. These include: civil procedure; criminal procedure/policing; health law; immigration; international law; Native American law; race & law; and tax. ...

Direct applications should include a cover letter and CV. The cover letter should mention 3-4 courses that the applicant would be interested in teaching. Please send questions to the Appointments Committee.

New England, Assistant Professor: 

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Yale Law School's Keith Whittington: ‘A Conservative Free-Speech Rock Star’

G. Patrick Lynch (Law & Liberty), A Conservative Free-Speech Rock Star:

Shortly before I called Keith Whittington to begin our interview he was slightly surprised when I told him we’d do it over Zoom to help me transcribe the conversation. When we got together later that day I found out why: he had been wearing a Pink Floyd tee shirt and wanted to change to look professional. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that America’s foremost conservative defender of free speech is a fan of psychedelic rock and heavy metal—Black Sabbath specifically. When he first arrived at Princeton as a young, untenured faculty member, the graduate students started a rumor that he was in a heavy metal band, based on the frequency with which he played the music in his office late into the night while working.

No matter what you think of heavy metal, it worked for Whittington. Now with an endowed chair in politics at Princeton and a soon-to-be-occupied chair on the faculty at the Yale Law School this fall, his wide-ranging research interests in constitutional law and his prodigious work ethic have catapulted him to the forefront of academia and the campus free speech movement. Who better to talk to if you want to get a sense of the challenges and nuances of the campus free-speech debate? ...

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Maynard Presents Penalizing Precarity Today At UC-San Francisco

Goldburn P. Maynard, Jr. (Indiana-Kelley; Google Scholar) presents Penalizing Precarity, 123 Mich. L. Rev __ (2024) (with Clinton Wallace (South Carolina; Google Scholar)), at UC-San Francisco today as part of its Tax Speaker Series hosted by Heather Field:

Retirement policy in America is oriented around 401(k) plans and other employer-sponsored savings plans, which together will receive a whopping $1.5 trillion in tax subsidies over the next decade. This Article uncovers a harmful flaw in the policy governing withdrawals made prior to reaching retirement age: an unnoticed gap between the rules governing plan distributions and the rules imposing penalties on employees in certain situations. Employees are generally required to seek approval from their plan administrator to receive a “hardship distribution.” These requests are granted for employees who face an “immediate and heavy financial need,” such as eviction or an unexpected medical expense. However, even with this approval, these distributions are frequently subject to an “early withdrawal penalty,” under a separate regime that is not coordinated with the hardship distribution rules.

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, Interest In Law School Is Up, LSAC Tallies Show
• ABA Journal, Last-Minute Election Lawsuits May Serve Political Goals, Law Prof Says
• ABA Journal, Scores Are In For July 2024 MBE; How Did Test-Takers Fare?
• ABA Journal, To Address Lawyer Shortage, Indiana Could Fund Scholarships, Approve Allied Professionals, Commission Says
• Daily Wire, Columbia Law School Grad Threatens Daily Wire Reporter’s Family, Dog
• Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville University Opens a New Era For Its Law School in Historic Downtown Building
• Harvard Crimson, Former Penn President Liz Magill Appointed Harvard Law School Visiting Fellow
• Jacksonville Today, Jacksonville University Law School Opens at New Downtown Site

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Louisville And Memphis Seek To Hire Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Profs

University of Louisville Law, Faculty Posting: 

The University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law invites applications for tenure-track full-time faculty positions at the Assistant/Associate level position to commence on July 1, 2025. Specific curricular needs are for estate planning and tax. Academic rank and salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. ...

Applicants: Applicants for this position should have distinguished academic credentials, a record of scholarship, and a strong commitment to scholarship, teaching, service, professional ethics, and collegiality. The School of Law values the diversity of its faculty and encourages applications from persons who will contribute to that diversity. ... 

Submit to: [email protected]. 

Memphis Law, Assistant Professor

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Feldman: Radical Legal Academics May Regret Their Attacks On The Constitution

Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed:  Law Professors’ Supreme Squabble, by Noah Feldman (Harvard):

Courting Catastrophe: Radical Legal Academics Have Turned on the Constitution. They May Regret.

Every scholar — maybe every person — should have an intellectual opposite number: someone you agree with about the most basic facts but who nevertheless interprets those facts so radically differently that you end up disagreeing about almost everything. Within the field of U.S. constitutional history, my opposite number is Aziz Rana [Boston College], who this past spring released his second tome, an 800-page history-cum-polemic entitled The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them. Covering roughly 1887 to 1980, the book’s target is a form of constitutional discourse that Rana calls “creedal constitutionalism” and associates with President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated suggestion that the Constitution “had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law” and “promised people liberty and justice and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.”

Rana makes no bones about his condemnation of Obama-style constitutional discourse, with its “belief in the national narrative of unfolding equality and liberty.” This belief rests, he says, on “three ideological pillars: an anti-totalitarian account of individual liberty in market capitalism; embrace of American checks and balances, with the Supreme Court at the forefront; and a commitment to U.S. global leadership and primacy.” This, Rana suggests, is what Obama “defends as the essence of American liberal nationalism.”

Rana treats Obama’s attractive version of liberal constitutional discourse as though it were a naïve account of our constitutional history, rather than a carefully calibrated, self-conscious effort to reclaim the Constitution as a basis for moderate, progressive liberal egalitarianism. “The call to remain true to [James] Madison,” Rana suggests, is a kind of benighted ancestor worship, one that ironically “amounts to an invitation to hold firm to the very arrangements that have facilitated [an] authoritarian brand of politics that someone like Obama condemns as un-American.” Even the musical Hamilton, so obviously a witting rewriting of history, comes in for criticism as “mythmaking and hagiography.”

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Lesson From The Tax Court: Form Trumps Substance On Phantom S Corp Income

This past June, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in Moore v. United States, 144 S.Ct. 1680 (June 20, 2024).  There, the taxpayers were shareholders of an American-controlled foreign corporation called KisanKraft and were being taxed on a portion of the corporation’s income that had been earned long ago and far away but never actually passed on to them substantively.  The unhappy taxpayers protested that Congress could not constitutionally tax them on income they had not realized through actual receipt.  To them it was phantom income.  Form could not, constitutionally, trump substance.

In explaining why the taxpayers were wrong, Justice Kavanaugh reviewed how Congress has historically chosen to make the owners of certain business entities responsible for paying tax on the entity’s income, regardless of what the entity actually does with that income.  He also reviewed how courts have routinely upheld that Congressional choice.

Today’s lesson is an example of that routine application of Congressional choice.  It also carries a cautionary lesson for taxpayers: choose your business partners carefully!  You do not want to go into business with Gru and Dru.  In James J. Maggard and Szu-Yi Chang v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2024-77 (Aug. 7, 2021) (Judge Holmes), Mr. Maggard was a 40% shareholder of an S Corporation controlled by two other shareholders who, over the course of several years “made unauthorized distributions to themselves in excess of their proportionate ownership shares.” Op. at 1.  Judge Holmes translates this into plain English: they looted the corporation.  While the looting gave the taxpayer an argument to avoid taxation, it was not a winning argument.

Sad details below the fold.

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Chicago Bears Settle Hiring Bias Suit From White Male Law Student

Update:  ABA Journal, White Male Law Student Settles Suit Against Chicago Bears Over 'Legal Diversity Fellow' Position

Following up on my previous post, White Male DePaul 1L Sues Chicago Bears For Gender And Racial Discrimination In Hiring For 'Legal Diversity Fellow' Position:   Law360. Chicago Bears Settle Hiring Bias Suit From White Law Student:

The Chicago Bears have quietly settled a discrimination lawsuit brought by a DePaul University law student who accused the team of discrimination when it declined to hire him as a "legal diversity fellow" because he is a white male.

A brief notice filed in Illinois federal court Wednesday explained that the Bears had struck a deal to end the suit brought by Jonathan Bresser Jr. after a settlement conference held a day earlier. ...

Bresser's suit alleged that he applied for the diversity fellow position in November, during his first year of law school, but was rejected. The job posting indicated that the Bears were seeking applicants who were a "person of color and/or female law student." The team also said it was seeking applicants with an ability to "maintain confidentiality," research and writing skills, and the ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects.

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TaxProf Blog Holiday Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• July Multistate Bar Exam Mean Score Is Highest Since 2013
• Hoffer: Disaster! Tax Legislation In Crises

Sunday:

• Jesus And The Powers: Christian Political Witness In 2024
• NY Times Op-Ed: Catholic Converts Like JD Vance Are Reshaping Republican Politics
• Fall 2024 Pepperdine Law & Religion Workshop Series
• St. Thomas College of Law Reinstates Fired Tenured Professor, Will Start Termination Hearings
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

Labor Day:

• Closing Of Golden Gate Law School Leaves Students And Alumni In A Bind
• IRS: The Tax Consequences Of Online Crowdfunding
• George Washington And Illinois Seek To Hire Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Profs

Closing Of Golden Gate Law School Leaves Students And Alumni In A Bind

Steven Chung (Tax Attorney, Los Angeles), The Announcement Of Golden Gate School Of Law's Closing Puts Its Students And Graduates In A Bind:

I have been following Golden Gate University School of Law’s (GGU) closure since they announced it last November. ...

GGU claims that their decision to close was based on declining enrollments and failing to meet the ABA’s current bar passage standards. ...

[F]rom a student and young alumni’s perspective, the closure announcement is premature and frightening. Since a law school’s reputation is important for finding that first job after graduation, it can have irreparable consequences. The news would be more palatable to everyone if it came after all of their students graduated, were admitted to the bar and secured jobs. Whether this is feasible and why law schools make closure announcements so soon is a topic for a later column.

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IRS: The Tax Consequences Of Online Crowdfunding

FS-2024-28 (Aug. 2024), IRS Reminds Taxpayers of Important Tax Guidelines Involving Contributions and Distributions from Online Crowdfunding:

Crowdfunding distributions may be includible in the gross income of the person receiving them depending on the facts and circumstances. The crowdfunding website or its payment processor may be required to report distributions of money raised if the amount distributed meets certain reporting thresholds.

Here are some important basics to keep in mind.

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George Washington And Illinois Seek To Hire Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Profs

George Washington Law, Associate Professor or Professor of Law: 

The George Washington University Law School invites applications for multiple tenure-track or tenured faculty appointments, at the rank of Associate Professor or Professor, beginning as early as Fall 2025. The school may hire in any area based on a candidate’s overall strength. Areas of particular interest include 1L classes (torts, contracts, criminal law, civil procedure, property, legislation & regulation, and constitutional law); business and finance, including corporate governance, tax, and bankruptcy; civil rights law; cybersecurity; environmental law; government contracts; health law; international law; intellectual property; labor law; privacy and technology; and trusts and estates. ...

Please email questions to [email protected]. Review of applications will begin August15, 2024 and continue until the positions are filled. Only complete applications submitted either through GW’s online system or email will be considered.

University of Illinois Law, Tenure/Tenure Track Professor of Law: 

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Jesus And The Powers: Christian Political Witness In 2024

Christianity Today Book Review:  T. Wright: What Jesus Would Say to the ‘Empire’ Today (reviewing N.T. Wright (University of St Andrews) & Michael F. Bird (Ridley College), Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (2024):

In a year seeing over 50 countries at the polls—half of which could shift geopolitical dynamics—the timing of Jesus and the Powers’ release was no accident.

A few years ago, N. T. Wright (author of Surprised by Hope) and Michael F. Bird (Jesus Among the Gods)—who had collaborated on The New Testament in Its World—realized there was a lack of biblical guidance on how Christians should engage with politics, and they decided to do something about it.

“We both had the sense that most Christians today have not really been taught very much about a Christian view of politics,” Wright said. “Until the 18th century, there was a lot of Christian political thought, which we’ve kind of ignored the last 200–300 years—and it’s time to get back to it.”

The “gateway” to political theology, Wright believes, is the idea that, until Christ’s return, “God wants humans to be in charge.” And while all political powers have in some sense been “ordained by God” according to Scripture, he says, Christians are called to “take the lead” in holding them accountable.

“The church is designed to be the small working model of new creation, to hold up before the world a symbol—an effective sign of what God has promised to do for the world. Hence, to encourage the rest of the world to say, ‘Oh, that’s what human community ought to look like. That’s how it’s done.’”

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NY Times Op-Ed: Catholic Converts Like JD Vance Are Reshaping Republican Politics

New York Times Op-Ed:  Catholic Converts Like JD Vance Are Reshaping Republican Politics, by Matthew Schmitz (Founder & Editor, Compact):

Despite institutional decline and internal conflict, Catholicism retains a surprising resonance in American life — especially in certain elite circles. It has emerged as the largest and perhaps the most vibrant religious group at many top universities. It claims six of the nine Supreme Court justices as adherents. It continues to win high-profile converts, and its social teaching exerts an influence (often unacknowledged) on public debates, inspiring political thinkers who seek to challenge both the cultural left and the laissez-faire right.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism after attending Yale Law School, exemplifies this phenomenon. When he was baptized into the church in 2019, he joined an influential group of conservative converts, including the legal scholars Erika Bachiochi and Adrian Vermeule, the political scientist Darel Paul, the Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat, the theologian R.R. Reno and the writer and editor Sohrab Ahmari, one of my colleagues at the online magazine Compact. (I am also a convert to Catholicism, and I work or have worked with many of these figures.)

Such thinkers disagree, sometimes sharply, on important matters, not least the value of populism and the merits of Donald Trump. But all share a combination of social conservatism and a willingness to question many of the free-market orthodoxies of the pre-Trump Republican Party. In doing so, they can claim justification from Catholic social teaching, a body of thought that insists on a traditional understanding of the family while embracing a living wage and trade unions as means of promoting “the common good.” See, for example, Mr. Vance in 2019: “My views on public policy and what the optimal state should look like are pretty aligned with Catholic social teaching.”

This group’s economic thinking distinguishes its members from an earlier cohort of conservative Catholic intellectuals such as William F. Buckley Jr. and Michael Novak. Those men laid a stress on free markets, in part because the threat of Soviet Communism had led Catholic thinkers to emphasize the relative virtues of a liberal and capitalist system that had long been subject to Catholic critique.

By contrast, for Mr. Vance and others like him, Catholicism seems to be a resource for pushing back against the excesses of cultural and economic liberalism. As for so many converts before them, the church represents an alternative to the dominant ethos of the age. ... Many of today’s converts look to resist the left-right fusion of libertarian cultural attitudes and free-market economics that has reshaped Western society over the past three or four decades. But rather than precipitating a radical overhaul of society, as some fear and others hope, they have exerted a subtler influence that is nonetheless significant: altering how the Republican Party approaches policy, and in some cases helping build a new consensus across party lines. ...

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