Public Interest Law

Six Emory Law students will spend this summer getting hands-on experience working in public interest jobs because they received fellowships through the John Paul Stevens Foundation.

Two recent Emory Law graduates have been awarded national public interest fellowships based on proposals for two-year projects they designed to address as yet unmet legal needs.

Congratulations to 2021 John Paul Stevens Fellows Mary Katherine "MK" Karcher 23L, Naomi-Beth McCall 23L, Teddy Randel 22L, and Megan Toomer 23L who received grants to work at public interest organizations across the country.

In an interview with Washington Post financial columnist Michelle Singletary, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown talks about her book, "The Whiteness of Wealth" and says the U.S. tax code has built in advantages for Whites, while it disadvantages Blacks. "Our tax laws were designed with White Americans in mind," Brown writes. "That's why no solution proposed by either the right or left — not better jobs, not increased homeownership, and not more access to higher education — will be effective without significant and fundamental tax reform."

Building wealth is hard, but the racial wealth gap makes just how difficult it is apparent. Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown joined the Washington Post's Michelle Singletary on NPR's 1A to discuss Brown's argument that the tax code is partially to blame.

IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig told a Senate Finance Committee that it's not "outlandish" to believe the U.S. loses $1 trillion annually via owed taxes that aren't collected. Asa Griggs Professor of Law Dorothy Brown told the committee the problem is aggravated by a different tax gap — the favorable treatment the tax code provides wealthy, largely White taxpayers, compared to lower income, largely Black and Latino workers.

During her testimony at a Senate Finance Committee Tuesday on inequality in the U.S. tax code, Asa Griggs Professor of Law Dorothy Brown agreed with GOP assertions that repealing the $10,000 cap on the deduction of state and local taxes would run counter to efforts to close income and wealth gaps. Brown told the panel that tax deductions tend to favor white over Black households, particularly since it is mostly wealthier Americans who still itemize on their returns following changes made in the 2017 tax code. 

In a Q & A with Vox, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown talked about her book "The Whiteness of Wealth," and how to repair the tax code to remove provisions that benefit white citizens and disadvantage Black people. "My ideal tax system ... is one where pretty much all income is taxed under the same progressive rate system; we get rid of these deductions and exclusions that are overwhelmingly benefiting white Americans. And then we would create one deduction — I call it a living allowance — that's based on what you would need to live in the geographical area you're in."

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown spoke on how racism and inequality are reflected in the American tax system. She was joined by Georgia State University Professor Maurice Hobson at a virtual event hosted by Charis Books and More in Decatur.

In her new book "The Whiteness of Wealth," Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown illustrates the way the tax code penalizes Blacks through the lens of Atlanta area homeowner "John," who wanted to raise his sons in a diverse neighborhood. Brown's research finds houses in Black neighborhood don’t appreciate like those in predominantly white neighborhoods. John sold at a loss and moved to a white neighborhood when the gap in property taxes affected the quality of his sons' schools. "This is just one of many ways that the U.S. tax code perpetuates the racial wealth gap," Brown writes for the New York Times. "Collecting tax data by race is a first and necessary step in making our tax laws more equitable."

President Joe Biden says he will increase corporate, estate, and capital gains taxes to fund his Build Back Better plan for infrastructure, green energy and education, among other priorities. Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown has argued capital gains should be taxed on equal footing with income, not just for those making $1 million or more. "If you really want to talk about tax reform that gets at systemic racism, look at the systemic racism that made stock ownership an activity white Americans have engaged in for decades but not Black Americans," she tells Vox.

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown was interviewed at the Bloomberg Equality Summit, "Is the Tax Code Racist”?" about her new book "The Whiteness of Wealth" and how the code is geared to build white wealth. Loopholes and benefits concerning marriage, property and investments work against Blacks, she says. "It doesn’t matter how much income you have, tax law disadvantages Black Americans across the income spectrum."

"The IRS is unusual among federal agencies in never asking about race—the only information it requests is what it's required by law to ask and what it needs to calculate people's tax bills," according to Politico. If the IRS started collecting that data, it would show who benefits from tax breaks. "You would find provision after provision where white taxpayers are more likely to benefit than Black taxpayers," Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown said.

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown is on the cover of the March 15 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek. Her new book, "The Whiteness of Wealth," details her ideas on how to overhaul a tax code geared to increase white wealth and results in Blacks paying more taxes for the same income.

Then presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's proposal to institute a two percent tax on Americans with more than $50 million in assets illuminates the racial wealth gap, Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown told The Nation. "Given the gap, this tax will overwhelmingly hit white wealthy Americans," said Brown, who backs the idea. "Even wealthy black Americans don't reach the heights of a Bezos or Zuckerberg."

Congress' mammoth stimulus bill, the Cares Act, delivered a quick and happy benefit to some energy companies. For pipeline company Antero Midstream, it was a $55 million payment in the form of a tax refund. Congress could have required companies applying for tax breaks to show they needed the cash and to promise that they would not distribute it to shareholders or lay off employees, Professor Dorothy A. Brown tells the Washington Post. Instead, the tax breaks were too broad in their applicability, she said, and "you see corporations taking money and laying off employees."

While the scandal surrounding the release of President Donald Trump's tax returns may reveal some unflattering things about his business practices, it's also an indictment of the tax code, Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown tells Vox. "The real wealthy don't save money on taxes by losing money and generating losses. The true wealthy in America have their wealth in investments that are taxed at a preferential rate. They build wealth with the help of federal tax policy, which taxes them less," Brown said.

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown joined Bloomberg News to discuss the capital gains tax cut proposed by President Trump. That would benefit the richest citizens, not the middle class, she said. A more equitable solution? "Go back to the Reagan Tax Reform Act of 1986, believe it or not, where wages were taxed at the same income level, the same rate as gains from stock," she said. "That's the only right answer. There's absolutely no justification for giving a special break to capital that we don’t give to labor."

Regardless of race, most crime victims and perpetrators are of the same race, so public figures talking about "black on black" crime after police brutality isn't relevant, Professor Dorothy Brown tells 11Alive News. The latter is state-sanctioned and often occurs in communities that are over-policed, she said. "It's not again that violent crime isn't serious, of course it's serious, but, I should be able to walk down this street and not be murdered by police. Period, full stop," Brown said. "And anyone who tries to change the subject is really telling me, you don’t care about black lives."

Professor Dorothy Brown is quoted in the New York Times on Elizabeth Warren's research on race and economics, including when Senator Warren spoke at Brown's 2004 symposium on critical race theory. She recalled Warren had spoken about how Black college graduates were more likely to file for bankruptcy, because of the student debt they carried. "When she presented, she freaked everybody out with her research," Brown said. "She blew us all away."

Professor Polly Price criticized Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's recent lawsuit against Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms. It challenges her order requiring Atlantans to wear masks in public to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Kemp has previously barred local governments from taking more restrictive steps than the state, but on Wednesday he explicitly banned cities and counties from requiring face coverings. Price says it's unlikely Kemp's order would stand up in court. "But rather than force the question, why not allow local decision-making, as Texas has done, rather than waste time and resources engaging in litigation?" Price told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to sue Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms over her announcement to enforce wearing masks in public demonstrates he doesn’t care about Black citizens, who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, Professor Dorothy Brown writes for CNN.

A massive new study of more than 10 years and 118 million tax assessments found Black homeowners pay, on average, 10 to 13% more in property taxes each year than a white family in the same situation. Black-owned homes were usually assessed at higher values, relative to their actual sale price, than white-owned homes. "Homeownership in America has always been about race and who could buy a home has always been a function of racism," Professor Dorothy Brown tells WAMU 88.5.

As Congress debates whether and when to send a second round of stimulus checks to offset the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, some Republican lawmakers have proposed dropping the income standard below the previous one of $75,000. "To the extent they make it a lower income cutoff than the last time, it will hurt more people," Professor Dorothy Brown told the Washington Post, noting that many Americans will face the lifting of eviction moratorium. "This will have drastic human consequences."

Professor Dorothy Brown discusses critical race theory, systemic racism, over-policing in black communities and "the disparate impact of the law on Black America," with Mohamed Younis, editor-in-chief of Gallup's digital news team. The podcast discusses how systemic racism affects U.S. courts and workplaces. "The easy answer is that the law is not colorblind in America," Brown says.

Corporate America has responded to nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd with a wave of public statements condemning racism, or by contributing financially to support to Black Lives Matter. But there's an underlying assumption, Professor Dorothy Brown tells Marker, that failing to make promised changes around race gets a pass--unlike failing to make promised changes around revenue or profits. CEO payouts or bonuses could be tied to keeping those promises. "Some CEO needs to lose their job because they failed at this," Brown said. "Make CEO pay dependent upon Black employee lives mattering."

Despite the Supreme Court's decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, it could take a court order to force the government to resume processing new DACA applications, Professor Polly Price tells WABE. Since the Trump administration attempted to end the program in 2017, only people who were already enrolled have been able to remain in America legally and no new applicants have been accepted. So one questions is, "does this mean the DHS has to accept new applicants? It's not clear that's the case," Price says.

Professor Dorothy A. Brown talks with Yahoo News about how both the trauma of George Floyd's death and the disproportionate deaths of black people caused by COVID19 are affecting the mental health of the black community.

Professor Dorothy A. Brown talked with "Marketplace" host Kai Ryssdal about the longstanding economic divide for black Americans and its relationship to current protests. While not the immediate instigating factor, Brown says there's a direct line between the two. "When we think about state and local government budgets and how much of taxpayer dollars, including black taxpayer dollars, that are spent on policing as opposed to social programs, yes, there's a direct line."

The Emory University School of Law Volunteer Clinic for Veterans (VCV) launched a program to provide advance directives, wills, and other estate planning assistance to medical residents completing their training at Emory University School of Medicine.

One of the law school’s signature events, the Emory Public Interest Committee’s (EPIC) Inspiration Awards,

On February 5, Emory Law hosted the 23rd annual Emory Public Interest Committee's (EPIC) Inspiration Awards.