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Sanders, William

English

The Racist Assumptions of Section 2 Dilution Claims andAggregation of Minority Groups

Conrad, Mark

A New First Amendment Goal Line Defense – Stopping the Rightof Publicity Offense

Shulman, Douglas H.

Ohio Northern University Law Review 
Volume 41 Issue 3 Article 5 
Global Trends and the Tax System 
Douglas H. Shulman 
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Iss. 3, Article 5. 
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671 
Ohio Northern University  
Law Review 
 
Woodworth Memorial Lecture  
Global Trends and the Tax System 
DOUGLAS H. SHULMAN* 
Thank you very much for having me here today.  It is an honor to be 
asked to give these remarks honoring Laurence Woodworth. 
Today I want to speak with you about some global trends, particularly 
technological trends, that I believe will transform the way that tax 
administrations around the world will operate in the years to come.  Before 
serving as IRS Commissioner, I was involved in capital markets and capital 
markets regulation as Vice Chairman of FINRA, the Financial Industry 
Regulatory Authority.  Technology has transformed the way capital markets 
operate and the way that regulators need to think about their job.  Similarly, 
technology continues to be a major force in the functioning of tax 
administrations.  During my time as IRS Commissioner, I worked hard to 
transform the agency in some important ways that took advantage of trends 
in technology.  I also served as the Chairman of the OECD Forum on Tax 
Administration during much of my term, and was exposed to major trends 
affecting tax authorities on a global basis. 
Since leaving the IRS, I have had the opportunity to engage in 
conversations with both foreign governments and financial services 
institutions about how to take advantage of trends in technology and data.  
Today, I would like to talk about what trends I think will most affect global 
tax administrators over the coming years, largely based on my global travels 
before, during and after my term as Commissioner. 
 
* Senior Advisor with McKinsey & Co., Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-
Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Former Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.  
This Article is a product of the Laurence Neal Woodworth Memorial Lecture in Federal Tax Law and 
Policy, presented at the ABA Tax Section meeting in Washington, D.C. on May 8, 2014.  The Article 
was originally published in Tax Notes, May 19, 2014, p. 835.  These remarks are solely the author’s and 
made on his own behalf. 
1
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Before getting into the trends, let me just say that the collection of taxes 
is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of any government. 
Government revenue—in the form of individual and corporate income 
taxes, payroll taxes and value-added taxes—provides funding for education, 
health care, national defense and other critical public services. Tax 
administrations, therefore, play a central role in in the health and well-being 
of nations. 
Today, tax administration leaders globally face a dual challenge: in light 
of diminished government budgets, they are under pressure to 
simultaneously improve performance and keep costs down. A crucial part of 
the solution to this challenge will be found in technological innovation.  
Properly allocated and managed technology investments can produce great 
yields for tax administrations in the long run. When I think about where 
savvy leaders are hoping to invest in the tax world, they cluster around four 
key trends that I would like to discuss: the mobile Internet, the emergence 
of big data and advanced analytics, “cash-light” societies and digital 
enablement of business processes.1 
Of course, there are other economic and social trends that will affect 
how tax administrations operate over the long-term. Demographic shifts and 
the globalization of capital, for instance, are two large-scale forces that have 
implications for tax administrations. Competition for talent, as tax 
administrations need specialized skills and have to compete against other 
private sector and public employers, is another.  However, the trends that I 
will talk about today are having huge impact in the world around us and 
could transform tax administrations in the years to come. 
MOBILE INTERNET 
The first trend is the mobile internet.  Today, more than a billion people 
have access to a mobile device, and this number is rapidly rising. 
Smartphone and tablet sales increased six-fold between 2007 and 2013.2 
For tax administrations, mobile devices can serve as a low-cost channel 
to receive information and feedback from users, deliver automated services 
to taxpayers and provide payment and balance-due notifications. Mobile 
channels are particularly important for engaging younger taxpayers, who 
use their smartphones for almost all digital interactions. In emerging 
markets, the mobile Internet helps the government connect with citizens 
previously excluded from the formal tax system. 
 
 1. These trends are based on my observations, as well as work and research that I have 
conducted with my colleagues at McKinsey & Company. 
 2. James Manyika et al., Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, 
and the global economy, McKinsey Global Institute, May 2013. 
2
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Innovative tax administrations have been offering mobile services for a 
number of years. Sweden, for example, has been sending most taxpayers a 
prepopulated income-tax return that they can then confirm via phone or 
SMS. Estonia provides citizens with a wide range of mobile services 
including the ability to make tax payments.3 In the United States, we 
launched the mobile app IRS2Go, which allows users to check the status of 
their tax filing and provides tax tips and access to the IRS’s Twitter news 
feed.  This year over half of all visitors to the Where’s My Refund page 
on IRS.gov were mobile users.4 
Government agencies, including tax administrations, will continue to 
make the shift from desktop and laptop Web-based to mobile interactions. A 
robust, visually appealing and user-friendly website designed for a 
computer screen will not automatically translate into a seamless, convenient 
mobile experience. Online services must be deliberately optimized for the 
mobile channel—and, as the use of mobile devices continues its seemingly 
unstoppable upward trajectory, it will be a trend that will demand 
management attention. 
This will continue to evolve beyond simply offering information and 
sending reminders via mobile channels; consumers will increasingly expect 
to be able to conduct their financial transactions on smartphones. In the 
general economy, mobile payment volumes doubled between 2011 and 
2012 and are expected to grow nine-fold between 2012 and 2015.5 In 
developed countries, banks now offer full mobile banking services. 
Meanwhile, in several emerging markets, mobile payments are serving as a 
gateway to broader financial inclusion. In Kenya, mobile payment service 
M-Pesa is now used by nearly 90 percent of the population, not only to 
make peer-to-peer payments but also as a broader “branchless banking” 
platform. 
In the United States, a handful of pioneering state governments—
including Arkansas and Kansas—now accept mobile payments of property 
taxes. Over the next several years, the trend toward mobile will only 
accelerate. 
BIG DATA AND ADVANCED ANALYTICS 
The second trend I would like to discuss is big data and advanced 
analytics.  The emergence of big data and advanced analytics has and will 
continue to affect every industry—and government is no exception. Data 
 
 3. Elana Berkowitz and Blaise Warren, “How Estonia became E-stonia,” mckinsey.com, 
October 2012. 
 4. http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS2Go-40-Smartphone-App-Downloads-Surpass-23-
Million 
 5. “Pathways to growth in mobile payments,” McKinsey on Payments, June 2012. 
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volumes from websites, social media and mobile devices are doubling every 
20 months6 while the costs of data storage are steadily decreasing.  
Organizations in both the private and public sectors are becoming more 
adept at using advanced analytics to create new opportunities, generate new 
insights, and inform important decisions. 
For tax administrations, the implications are obvious.  Tax 
administrators sit on very large amounts of data, and traditionally try to use 
that data to understand if there are individual or groups of taxpayers who are 
at risk of non-compliance.  They then try to focus their resources on those 
taxpayers, and not bother compliant taxpayers. 
While many tax administrations already analyze data extensively, the 
more sophisticated tax administrations are applying cutting-edge analytical 
tools to help improve their performance.  Concepts such a “clustering,” 
where computers can identify clusters of similar behavior and potentially 
ferret out fraud rings is an example of a newer technique that could be used 
extensively to combat refund fraud.  In the collection area, technologically 
savvy tax administrations create a micro-level segmentation of taxpayers—
taking into account taxpayer characteristics (including industry, geography 
and compliance history), debt characteristics (such as value, source and age 
of debt), and other criteria—and tailor their collection approaches to each 
segment. 
Let me give you a specific example from Australia.  As part of a big-
data effort, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) analyzed the income-tax 
returns and business activity statements of more than 1 million small and 
medium-size enterprises (SMEs) to develop industry-specific benchmarks 
for key ratios, such as net profit margin. These benchmarks allowed the 
ATO to identify taxpayers that were outliers—for instance, restaurants or 
gas stations that may not be reporting all their income. A year after the ATO 
notified 30,000 businesses of their outlier status, 17 percent of those 
businesses adjusted their tax returns and reported a 68 percent average 
increase in taxable income.7 
While there are clear revenue benefits to advanced analytics and big 
data, I am equally excited about the reduced burden on hardworking 
taxpayers that comes from more accurate, targeted compliance programs.  
As tax administrations get more sophisticated with their analytical 
approaches, they will more often select cases that are in fact problematic 
and require follow-up, and reduce the number of “false positives” where 
 
 6. Jacques Bughin, Michael Chui, and James Manyika, Ten IT-enabled business trends for the 
decade head, McKinsey Global Institute, May 2013. 
 7. Annual Report 2012-2013, Australian Tax Office, 2013. 
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2015] GLOBAL TRENDS AND THE TAX SYSTEM 675 
 
taxpayers have to interact with tax administrations but ultimately have no 
issue. 
LESS CASH AND MORE ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS 
The next trend I would like to cover is the trend toward less cash and 
more electronic payments, sometimes referred to as the trend to “cash-light” 
societies.  Financial institutions worldwide, including central banks and 
retail banks, are increasingly steering customers away from cash 
transactions—which are costly to process, risky for the end user and 
difficult to track—and toward electronic forms of payment, from wire 
transfers to credit cards to NFC chips in smartphones.  In the U.S., the IRS 
has made great strides in driving up electronic filing.  In fact, in 2013 
approximately 83 percent of individual tax returns were filed electronically. 
Other governments are embarking on efforts to significantly reduce 
cash in the payment system. According to research by McKinsey & 
Company’s global payments practice, the number of financial transactions 
per capita worldwide is expected to increase 33 percent in just 5 years, from 
671 in 2012 to 894 in 2017. The proportion of cash payments has been 
steadily falling, particularly in emerging markets. 
Several countries have launched programs to increase the use of non-
cash payments. For example, South Korea once offered tax deductions to 
consumers whose credit card spending amounts to at least 25 percent of 
their annual income. 
The increasing prevalence of electronic payments should improve the 
ability of tax administrations to track the flow of taxable income and 
perform analytics on compliance. Since 2011, U.S. law has required banks 
and merchant services to report to the IRS all payments processed by credit 
or debit card providers or third-party networks (such as PayPal). The law 
should help increase compliance rates for taxpayers. 
And of course, tax administrations should strive to become “cash-light” 
themselves, shifting taxpayers away from payment forms that are costly to 
process (such as checks or in-person cash payments at tax offices) and 
toward electronic forms of payment.  Globally, there is room for 
improvement in this area: according to a 2013 OECD report, there are only 
12 countries in which electronic payment methods account for the majority 
of tax payments.8 
 
 8. Tax Administration 2013: Comparative Information on OECD and Other Advanced and 
Emerging economies, OECD Publishing, 2013. 
5
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DIGITAL ENABLEMENT OF BUSINESS PROCESSES 
The last trend I would like to discuss is the digital enablement of 
business processes.  Computing costs are decreasing significantly: a $400 
iPhone today has more computing power than a $5 million super-computer 
in 1975. The cost of data storage is steadily dropping as well, thereby 
creating a range of opportunities for tax administrations to operate with 
greater speed, flexibility and agility. 
Large corporations have taken advantage of these trends, and digitized 
their supply chain interactions and developed new innovations, such as just-
in-time inventory. 
Tax administrations, once awash in paper forms, today have largely 
transitioned to electronic submissions-processing operations. In countries 
where tax administrations receive third-party data on critical income and 
deduction categories, several tax administrations are prepopulating tax 
returns, resulting in an “all digital” filing process.  As of 2011, the tax 
administrations of seven countries fully prepopulated personal income-tax 
returns for the majority of their taxpayers.9 Singapore receives salary 
information directly from employers and was able to prepopulate tax returns 
for over 1 million taxpayers (58 percent of Singapore’s tax base) in 2012.10  
I think this is a very interesting global trend, but like most things related to 
taxes – everything is local.  For example, when I was IRS Commissioner I 
never advocated a movement to pre-filled returns because I recognized that 
the policy framework in the U.S. does not lend itself to pre-filled returns.  
There was never any consensus on whether to change that, and in that 
environment it didn’t make sense for us to devote scarce resources to it. 
Digital enablement also has the potential to streamline existing 
processes.  For instance, the potential of having all digital platforms for 
some examination and collection case adjudication is something to think 
about for the future.  It has the potential to reduce transaction costs and 
taxpayers’ waiting time. 
When it comes to digital enablement, lessons learned from the private 
sector could benefit tax administrations as well. For instance, companies are 
integrating data and systems from their external partners, yielding 
significant gains in efficiency and customer satisfaction. Retailers, for 
example, are collaborating more closely with suppliers. Similarly, you could 
imagine tax administrations could pursue real-time digital interaction with 
third-party tax software providers. Tax administrations routinely validate 
and reject a portion of electronically filed tax returns for a variety of 
reasons, including ID number mismatches or missing information. These 
 
 9. Ibid. 
 10. Annual Report 2012-2013, Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, 2013. 
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2015] GLOBAL TRENDS AND THE TAX SYSTEM 677 
 
rejections can result in delays, inconvenience for the taxpayer and 
potentially costly customer-service interactions. Digital integration with 
third-party software providers would allow tax administrations to flag errors 
as tax returns are being prepared, resulting in fewer rejections and less 
rework.  This is one aspect of the vision “real-time” tax administration that I 
discussed when I was IRS Commissioner.  Digital enablement should allow 
for stepwise improvements in the compliance process, and move more 
activities of tax administrations further up in the filing process. 
CONCLUSION 
These trends are by no means exhaustive. There will certainly be other 
economic, social or technological trends with important ramifications for 
tax administrations. Tax administrations will also need to grapple with the 
major issues that come with technological innovation—issues such as cyber 
security, concerns about privacy and fierce competition for technology 
skills and talent. 
I want to be clear that when I lay out these trends, I am not talking 
specifically about the IRS or any other tax agency.  When it comes to the 
IRS, I think Commissioner Koskinen is an extremely capable leader and is 
doing a great job.  I will leave it to him to decide the strategic priorities for 
the IRS, as he is in the best position to understand what the IRS needs to do 
today given the pressures, demands and opportunities facing the agency.  
Rather, these are important trends that everyone should pay attention to, as 
they will affect the way businesses and governments operate in the years to 
come. 
Thank you for having me here, and I’d be happy to answer any 
questions. 
7
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Global Trends and the Tax System

Beaty, Taylor A.

Life on the Mississippi: Reducing the Harmful Effects ofAgricultural Runoff in the Mississippi River Basin

Imoukhuede, Areto A.

The Real Homeland Security Gaps

Bales, Rick

Ohio Northern University Law Review 
Volume 42 Issue 3 Article 8 
Requiem for Michael Lewis 
Rick Bales 
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Available at: https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/onu_law_review/vol42/iss3/8 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the ONU Journals and Publications at 
DigitalCommons@ONU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ohio Northern University Law Review by an 
authorized editor of DigitalCommons@ONU. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@onu.edu. 
 
871 
Requiem for Michael Lewis 
RICK BALES* 
When I was growing up, the highest compliment one could say about 
someone was that he or she was “good people.”  This had nothing to do 
with having a particular skill, or with a particular performance, or with the 
person having an agreeable temperament.  It was a statement of character, 
reserved only for the handful of people one might run across in an entire 
lifetime who could be trusted absolutely, under any circumstances—
someone who always thought first of, and saw the best in, others.  Mike 
Lewis was good people. 
Before entering law school, Mike graduated first in his class from Top 
Gun school and proudly served his country with a distinguished career as a 
Navy pilot.  He was a Radar Intercept Officer in an embarked F-14 
squadron on the USS Independence, flying in Desert Shield and enforcing 
no-fly zones over Iraq.  Professor Nancy Armstrong’s remembrance 
provides a much more detailed biography of Mike,1 but I wanted to start 
with Mike’s military record because it was such an important part of Mike’s 
character. 
At the College of Law, Mike was a star—he did everything well.  To his 
students, he was a teacher, mentor, and role model of all role models.  He 
won teaching awards and knew his students by name.  They came to him for 
academic advice, career advice, life advice, and just to talk futbol.  Though I 
offered him a lighter teaching load as his illness intensified, Mike would 
have none of that.  He wasn’t just teaching law; he was touching lives. 
Mike likewise was a star to his faculty colleagues, and to me.  He was a 
friend to all, and a mentor and role model to other faculty.  Even as a 
relatively junior member of the faculty he took on some of the most difficult 
and thankless work—often work requiring faculty consensus (a herculean 
task under the best of circumstances)—and always did it well.  He was a 
prolific scholar and speaker, taking the name of Ohio Northern to readers 
and listeners throughout the United States and the world, but always 
graciously giving of his time to speak at a faculty or student forum here at 
home. 
 
* Dean of the Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law.  Thanks to Daniel Kimmons for his 
research assistance, and to Steve Veltri for reviewing drafts. 
 1. See Nancy A. Armstrong, A Tribute to Mike Lewis, 42 OHIO N.U. L. REV. 855, 855-56 
(2016). 
1
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Mike’s scholarship and speaking focused on national security law.  He 
often took a provocative and, in the academic world, unpopular position on 
hot-button items such as the use of drones in modern warfare.  Though 
others can speak much more eloquently than I about the depth and quality of 
Mike’s scholarship,2 my focus is on what Mike’s scholarship said about the 
depth and quality of his character.  Many people in the academic 
community disagreed—often vehemently—with Mike on law and policy 
matters.  To a person, however, they all have described how even fervent 
disagreement never dented the respect and dignity that Mike gave to their 
arguments, or to the personal warmth and friendship that he showed them 
both privately and publically. 
Most importantly, Mike Lewis was a wonderful husband, father, and 
friend.  Everyone who knew him knew of his deep love for his family.  His 
daughter Sarah was the light of his life, matched only by the love he showed 
his wife Danya.  Mike was taken from them, and from us, far too early. 
Mike’s view from an F-14 cockpit was one that few of us will ever 
share.  Mike’s view today is better still, so I am certain that he knows that 
he lives on in all of us, and that we miss him profoundly. 
 
 2. See Robert Luther III, The Influence and Example of Professor Michael W. Lewis, 42 OHIO 
N.U. L. REV. 883, 884-85 (2016). 
2
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Requiem for Michael Lewis

Waldron, Ben

State v. Pribble2019-Ohio-4808

Steilen, Matthew

Presidential Whim

Deibler, Katelyn

The Blacklist: Post-Employment Retaliation Under theFalse Claims Act

The Thin Blue Line (TBL) is a symbol defining police as a metaphorical line of protection between order and chaos. This sentiment has been echoed in politics as well as popular media. But in 2014, the TBL became embedded within the American Flag. This flag (TBLF) has been controversial as many have viewed it as a repudiation of Black Lives Matter protests. The debate has largely centered on whether it serves as an expression of respect for police or as a hate symbol

Lutz, Bryan

Babbitt, Carson

Ohio Northern University 
DigitalCommons@ONU 
Critical Questions Institute for Civics and Public Policy 
3-1-2023 
Examining The Thin Blue Line 
Bryan Lutz 
Carson Babbitt 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/critical_questions 
Critical Question # 25 03/1/23
By Bryan Lutz and Carson Babbit
Examining The Thin Blue Line by Professor Bryan Lutz and Carson Babbit
The Thin Blue Line (TBL) is a symbol defining police as a metaphorical line of protection
between order and chaos. This sentiment has been echoed in politics as well as popular media.
But in 2014, the TBL became embedded within the American Flag. This flag (TBLF) has been
controversial as many have viewed it as a repudiation of Black Lives Matter protests. The
debate has largely centered on whether it serves as an expression of respect for police or as a
hate symbol.
What is a “Hate Symbol”?
Hate symbols are a subset of hate speech. Hate speech is speech, writing, or nonverbal
communication that attacks, threatens, or insults marginalized persons or groups generally
based on national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or
disability.
Defining a hate symbol can be difficult because hate symbols can be an appropriation of
religious or cultural symbols. A swastika hanging from a set of bamboo prayer beads is an
adornment symbolizing good luck and fortune in Buddhism, but a swastika embedded in a white
and red flag indisputably symbolizes the Nazi Party. Symbols, like languages, derive their
meanings from context, and context involves variables such as time, place, and location, along
with connections to other symbols, language, and acts.
Two prominent databases exist classifying hate speech and hate groups in the US. The
Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Fighting Hate campaign keeps a database of
long-tenured hate groups like the Klu Klux Klan as well as newly emergent extremist groups like
the Oath Keepers. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) classifies hate groups and keeps a
database of hate symbols entitled Hate on Display™ for use by scholars, activists, and law
enforcement.
Hate symbols like the Nazi emblem are widely accepted, but classifying new hate symbols can
stir controversy. The ADL drew criticism when they classified the “Okay” hand gesture as a hate
symbol. This gesture is used for the benign purpose of signaling a temperate mood, but the ADL
determined that the sign too often collocates with other known white supremacists slogans and
phrases within online spheres such as 4Chan and Reddit. This does not mean that any random
use of the Okay Sign constitutes hate speech. However, when the image collocates with other
acts of speech, writing, or nonverbal communication associated with hate speech and hate
groups, the likelihood of its nefarious meaning is significant.
What is the Thin Blue Line and The Thin Blue Line Flag?
In the book Law Talk, Clapp, Thornburg, Galanter, and Shapiro show how the TBL in the US
began as a European import from the Crimean War, where the “thin red line” of Scottish Infantry
Forces defended the border and handed an unlikely defeat to Russian forces. In 1922, New
York police commissioner Richard Enright changed the color of the phrase from red to blue as
part of a PR campaign to rebrand the police as a line of defense against illegal alcohol use, sex
work, and gambling. Later, the TBL was adopted by US Police in the 1950s by Los Angeles
Police Officer Bill Parker as part of his campaign for police reform.
The TBLF was invented by Andrew Jacob, who then sold the merchandise under an
endorsement of policing. After creating the TBLF, Andrew Jacob would go on to create
ThinBlueLineUSA in 2016, an online retailer of the TBLF and related merchandise. Retailers
across the world now sell variations of the image. No less than 32 such retailers have been
created since 2014. The creation of TBLF coincided with Black Lives Matter protests in
response to the killing of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner. The TBLF would later
appear at the Charlottesville Rally, which involved multiple white supremacist figures and
organizations before being broken up after a white supremacist car attack led to the death of
counter-protester Heather Heyer.
How is the Thin Blue Line Flag Used and What Might it Mean?
There are three ways that the TBL is used.
Tier 1: Police Intended Use
First, some use the TBL as a symbol of mourning for fallen police officers. As of 2018, the Mesa,
Arizona's Police Department specifies a blue or black line across the shield in its mourning
protocols; Seattle's Police Department's mourning protocols also require either black or blue
bands as of 2020. But use of the TBL is not prolific. Many police departments specify a black
band only, such as police forces in Columbus and Cleveland, OH, or the Lexington, KY Police
Force, or the El Cerrito Police Department in California. The non-profit Officer Down Memorial
page, a non-profit dedicated to data gathering on police deaths in the US, states that a black
band is appropriate for mourning, but the blue band is not.
Tier 2: Retailer Use
Second, The TBL has become big business. Andrew Jacob runs the retailer ThinBlueLineUSA
which sells TBLF and related merchandise. No less than 32 such retailers have been created
since 2014 spanning more general e-commerce retailers such as Etsy and proprietary retailers
with names like Thin Blue Line Shop and Blue Line Beats. This merchandise is highly politicized
and its popularity directly correlates with the BLM movement and the Trump presidency. While
not inherently harmful, the proliferation of the TBLF makes the symbol available for unintended
uses.
Tier 3: Hate Group Use
Third, where TBLF exists in retail spaces, it sometimes collocates with other symbols used by
hate groups. For example, The SPLC has chronicled how the extremist group The Oath
Keepers founded “Spartan Training programs” for the purpose of violent intervention against
politically left groups that have no documented history of violence. Several journalists have
photographed Oath Keepers wearing spartan helmets and armor, spartan helmet-adorned gun
straps, spartan-head flags, and spartan-head tee shirts. While the creators of the TBLF assert
that “The flag has no association with racism, hatred, bigotry,” The Thin Blue Line USA sells
Spartan-themed merchandise alongside the TBLF as part of its catalog of products.
Conclusion
The TBL and the TBLF should be understood in context. It can represent mourning and respect,
but the TBLF also collocates with divisive symbols used by hate groups. Journalists work largely
from inference by collecting conflicting testimonies about the TBLF. Whether the TBLF is a hate
symbol in itself, or an appropriation of a symbol for the purpose of hate, is a possibility worthy of
scholarly inquiry. It is worth examining how the TBLF is sold and used in ways that may
compromise public trust in police.
Assistant Professor Dr. Bryan Lutz and Political Science student Carson Babbit have cataloged
32 websites like Jacob’s ThinBlueLineUSA. All websites were created between 2012 and 2020
and continue to sell TBLFs and related merchandise. Lutz and Babbit hope to look at the time,
place, and location of this image as well as the other images that collocate around the TBLF.
Lutz and Babbitt collected and cataloged over 1,200 images in order to establish the meaning of
the TBLF, and consulted the SPLC’s Fighting Hate and The ADL’s Hate on Display™ databases
to explore potential similarities between known hate symbols and the products found on TBLF
retailers.


Examining The Thin Blue Line

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