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Trump Immigration Policy Has Plunged Migrants into a Purgatory in Mexico: \u27It\u27s As If They Killed You\u27
No full textStudent Protests and Academic Freedom in an Age of #blacklivesmatter
No full textStudent activism for racial equity and inclusion is on a historic rise on college and university campuses across the country. Students are reminding us that Black lives matter. They are bringing attention to the ways in which the normal operation of the legal system creates racial and other inequalities. They are critiquing the ways in which their experiences and perspectives are pushed to the margins in classrooms, on campuses, and in society.In urging for university policies that allow for such activism to be moments of teaching and learning for all involved, I argue in this Article that student academic freedom to protest — conceived as a right to learn — should be seriously considered by institutional decision-makers when they are creating rules and policies governing on-campus student dissent. Otherwise, student voices will be deemed irrelevant and protests will be unfairly reduced to unjustifiable outbursts by young people craving attention — something to be either tolerated as mere annoyances or extinguished as threats to order. But if administrators and professors take the time to listen to what students are saying and explore the issues underlying their grievances, much can be gained. I argue that colleges and universities move away from the question, “how do we stop our student activists,” toward the question, “what are students learning from their activism and what, in turn, can the institutions learn from it?”As I have posited in this Article, one way to start the process of learning from what student activists have to say is to include students’ rights in a balancing test when speech is disputed — e.g., in student protests involving invited speaker interruption, unauthorized building and office occupation, and even various forms of disruption in cyberspace. Such a test should be articulated in university policies and made binding through contract law. While student protestors may not always win in the balancing, at least their academic freedom right to learn, and I would argue teach others, will be part of the conversation. My hope is that recognition that student protest has positive value to the university community and is an essential part of academic freedom will begin to shift attention to the substantive issues underlying student grievances. In this way, student activism will truly be an opportunity for all to learn.My article proceeds in four parts. Part I analyzes the historical context of racial exclusion in American higher education and connects it to modern efforts to promote racial justice to illustrate a continuum of students pressing for this type of change. Part II outlines the inadequacies of student academic freedom as articulated by courts defining this freedom in relation to the First Amendment. Part III proposes a new mechanism based on contract law that would incorporate major higher education policy statements on student academic freedom that conceptualize this freedom through a learning principle as legally binding obligations between universities and their students. Finally, Part IV explores how my proposed student academic freedom would balance the tensions between free speech and student demands for racial justice by employing a test that takes both “the marketplace of ideas” and student freedom to learn into account
Holding U.S. Corporations Accountable: The Convergence of U.S. International Tax Policy and Human Rights
No full textInternational human rights litigation underscores the inverse relationship between corporate power and corporate accountability, with recent Supreme Court decisions demonstrating increased judicial protections of corporate rights and decreased corporate accountability. This article explores these recent decisions through a tax justice framework and argues that the convergence of international human rights law and U.S. international tax policy affords alternate methods to hold corporations accountable for violations of international law norms. The article specifically proposes higher scrutiny of foreign tax credits and an anti-deferral regime targeting the international activity of U.S. corporations that use subsidiaries to shelter income and decrease taxation while simultaneously shielding corporate parents from responsibility for violations of international law. Moreover, it is largely anticipated that the Trump administration, together with Republican control of both houses of Congress, will amplify the recent trend of Supreme Court jurisprudence and heighten the need for alternative methods to encourage fiscal and social responsibility by corporations. Ultimately, without organized public resistance and calls for improved corporate accountability, the political climate favoring corporations at the expense of individual human rights is likely to expand to unconscionable levels
Sanctuary, Temporary Protected Status, and Catholic Social Teaching
No full textThe concept of sanctuary has deep roots in many religious traditions, including the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, during the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, many Roman Catholic congregations in the United States provided physical sanctuary to Central American refugees fleeing the brutal wars in their countries. In more recent times, Roman Catholic Churches have participated in the “New Sanctuary Movement,” providing not only physical sanctuary to undocumented immigrants and refugees facing detention and removal by federal immigration authorities, but engaging in advocacy and activism on some of the larger questions surrounding immigration policy in the 21st century. Since initiating his campaign in 2015, the current President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, has consistently expressed his desire to punish those who provide sanctuary to vulnerable immigrants1 in danger of apprehension by immigration authorities. While the main focus of Mr. Trump’s crusade against sanctuary has been so-called “Sanctuary Cities,” the fact remains that sanctuary takes many different forms—both private and public—and that the policies enacted by Mr. Trump and his executive agencies since he assumed office in January 2017 have arguably created a greater need for the provision of sanctuary than at any other time since the 1980s. One of the most devastating actions taken by Mr. Trump was the Department of Homeland Security’s (“DHS”) decision in late 2017 to revoke Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) from the citizens of Nicaragua and Haiti currently residing in the United States after devastating natural disasters struck those countries. The decision to send thousands of vulnerable Nicaraguans and Haitians back to their countries of origin reflects an arbitrary and often cruel policy decision to return people who have enjoyed legal protections and who have been building lives in the United States—sometimes for decades—without any recognition of the contributions they have made, and without any opportunity to remain.
In Part I of this Article, I discuss the treatment (or lack of) the concept of sanctuary in Catholic Social Teaching and what obligations members of the Roman Catholic Church have to provide sanctuary to those in need. In Part II, I segue into a discussion of how Catholic Social Teaching is instructive for responding to the revocation of TPS from Nicaraguan and Haitian citizens. In Part III, I analyze how the concept of sanctuary can be employed by individuals, communities, and organizations to protect these vulnerable people in their time of crisis as a response to the communities affected by the termination of their TPS. Finally, I conclude with a discussion about the future of TPS and those whose TPS has been revoked. may avail themselves of the ability to lawfully remain in the United States in the future
