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The Tax Law of Charities and Other Exempt Organizations, 4th Edition
No full textThis publication is an excellent text for both the novice and the experienced professor. The book is designed to be useful in a wide variety of law or business school courses, including a doctrinal course, seminar, graduate law or MBA course, or as a helpful desk reference for nonprofit professionals.https://commons.law.famu.edu/faculty-books/1054/thumbnail.jp
, The American Constitution in the Cycle of Kali Yuga: Eastern Philosophy Greets Western Democracy
Full text linkThis paper will explore the above-mentioned questions while taking into consideration the intent and overarching tenets of the Constitution in relation to the precepts of Kali Yuga. The hope is to generate discourse on some of the trappings of the Constitution and constitutional democracy in an ever changing and increasingly diverse and segmented society-a nation with a multiplicity of cultures with distinctive beliefs and moral systems. Emphatically stated, the intent is not to examine every article or amendment of the Constitution; this would be presumptuous. The intent is to foster an examination of the Constitution as the overall architectural framework of foundational principles that hold the U.S. together
Caniglia v. Strom: Brief of Professor Leroy Pernell and the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys in support of Petitioner
Full text linkMaking America A Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration
No full textIn 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 21 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of a book project that will recommend not only federal actions, but also actions by state and local governments, the private sector, and civil society. In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, this Article is intended to contribute to a robust public discussion about how to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society and make America a better place for all
The Battle of Brandy Creek: How One Black Community Fought Annexation, Tax Revaluation, and Displacement
Full text linkThe Brandy Creek community is a working class, Black neighborhood located just east of I-95, south of Weldon, North Carolina.\u27 In 2005, this rural neighborhood and its surrounding land were legislatively annexed into the city of Roanoke Rapids as part of a planned economic development project. The decision to pursue legislative annexation allowed city officials to bypass the statutory notice and municipal service requirements of a city-initiated, involuntary annexation. Residents were never informed of Roanoke Rapids\u27 intent to annex the community and had no opportunity to voice their opinions on the issue to town officials. In fact, the community first learned of the annexation several days after it occurred. As one resident said, We went to bed in Weldon one night and woke up the next day in Roanoke Rapids. The city proceeded with the implementation of its planned redevelopment, which included rezoning all residential properties to commercial, without regard for the residents living there. When community members first raised concerns about preserving their neighborhood and quality of life, the city responded that the residents would see huge profits when selling their now commercially zoned property to developers. That residents might want to stay in their homes or preserve their neighborhood was never considered by city or county officials. Within a few years, the redevelopment plan was a failure; the only property owner who cashed in was the neighborhood\u27s largest (and absentee) landlord, and the sale of her property resulted in almost half of the community\u27s residents being evicted. Meanwhile, annexation brought significantly new city property taxes for residents-a financial burden for many families. Residents began paying these taxes despite lacking many of the basic public services provided to other residents of the city (particularly sewer, paved roads, and regular police patrols). In addition to the imposition of city property taxes, an additional tax burden was imposed on the community. Because of the countywide property tax revaluation, the neighborhood was reassessed pursuant to its new commercial zoning designation. As a result, property valuations and taxes in the Brandy Creek neighborhood rose an average of over 800% and as high as 1,400%, an intense hardship that further devastated the community. Residents struggled to make these inflated payments; many had their wages garnished to pay the taxes, and several were unable to stay in their homes. But residents refused to be pushed out. They were determined to fight against racial discrimination and for what remained of their neighborhood. Together, residents organized first to demand municipal services and then to demand deannexation, tax equity, and ultimately refunds for the illegally inflated property taxes they were forced to pay. Against the backdrop of the city\u27s ill-conceived and costly redevelopment plan, the plight of Brandy Creek stands out as an example of the disparate impacts of ostensibly race-neutral tax policies on Black communities. This Article explores the experience of the Brandy Creek community as a case study of how property taxes, tax policy, and annexation (or the refusal to annex) has been manipulated by local governments to control, displace, and exclude African-American neighborhoods and to maintain and entrench the continuing legacy of residential segregation and discrimination based on race and place. Part II focuses on the city\u27s plan to redevelop the area and the related displacement of the Brandy Creek community. Part III examines how the community organized to resist those efforts. And Part IV looks at some of the broader legal issues related property taxes, annexation, and residential racial exclusion
Bridging Race + IP: The Challenges and Potential of Utilizing Transdisciplinary Methods to Undo the Unbearable Whiteness of Intellectual Property
Full text linkThis chapter is part of Approaches and Methodologies in Intellectual Property Research edited by Irene Calboli and Maria Lilla.https://commons.law.famu.edu/faculty-books/1038/thumbnail.jp
Raising the Impact Factor of the Library: Using the U.S. News & World Report’s Upcoming Academic Impact Law School Rankings to Boost the Academic Standing of Law Librarians
Full text linkThis article recommends that law libraries and their librarians use the upcoming U.S. News & World Report’s academic rankings for law schools as an opportunity to enhance academic law libraries’ standing in the legal profession and to elevate law librarians’ statures within law schools
Leviathan Goes to Washington: How to Assert the Separation of Powers in Defense of Future Generations
Full text linkThe separation of powers was originally drawn from the common law of England, vindicated during the American Revolution as a fundamental bulwark against tyranny, and constitutionalized in the first three articles of the U.S. Constitution. It was adopted as an assurance that the present generation would not assert dead-hand control over the future of American society for mere efficiency, vanity, or greed. The separation of powers, therefore, exists to empower future generations to contend for their rights of life, liberty, and property. Both the long history of the separation of powers and the recent, controversial practices of multinational government contractors guide debate on this topic to the origin and ends of the patent and copyright laws in the United States. For the first legitimate intellectual property (IP) law and antitrust law, which was the Case and Statute of Monopolies, was also a nascent defense of the separation of powers. In America, the primary champions of this law were James Otis and Phillis Wheatley. Most living legal academicians and members of the federal bench are unaware of the common law root of the separation of powers. Most do not know what impact James Otis or Phillis Wheatley had on the founding generation. To successfully litigate under the separation of powers, one must ordinarily teach his or her judges of this paramount, constitutionalized, common law. At the same time, it comes to no surprise that those who want to preserve white, male superiority are presently attempting to abandon the separation of powers. For absent a swift and robust unconstitutional contravention of the separation of powers, younger generations of Americans will grow up in a diverse society that is not majority-white and they will not generally appoint misogynistic or racist men to rule the land. This is, therefore, a time of intense fear mongering, lying, greed, and white fragility—usually unleashed as an attempt to preserve or reignite a dying system of racism, misogyny, and injustice in America without the separation of powers. To younger generations: It is my hope that you keep cool, guard your own integrity, and avoid the embarrassments of your elders who are presently in power. It is my wish that you overcome when those entrusted with power are filled with anger, when they act out and embarrass themselves by violating your rights, when they act illegally out of ignorance of the law. My intention is to help you find a way to reassert the separation of powers to rescue the nation for our children who will otherwise suffer in the bed made by the old, dead hand of Boomer vanity, ambition, and greed. I believe in you, and I believe that you can do this