ClassCrits XI Conference Call for Papers

Rising Together for Economic Hope, Power and Justice

Co-Sponsored by

West Virginia University College of Law & ClassCrits

Morgantown, West Virginia

November 2-3, 2018

Call for Partipation available here. Conference information here.

 

 

ClassCrits Website has moved!

As of Nov. 2017, ClassCrits has a new website, www.classcrits.org  with newly expanded capacity to support our annual conference and network of scholars, students and activists interested in critical analysis of economic inequality and law.

For information on our conferences, news, and members, please check out the new website.  We encourage you to sign on as a member to be on our contact list and to include your profile  to build our network and to share your work and interests.  Basic membership is free, but members who elect to pay dues will receive conference discounts and to will be voting members of ClassCrits, Inc.

ClassCrits X: Call For Papers and Participation

ClassCrits at Ten: Mobilizing for Resistance, Solidarity and Justice
Call For Papers and Participation

Sponsored by the Tulane University School of Law
New Orleans, LA

November 10 & 11, 2017

Ten years ago, a group of scholar-activists organized a series of conversations about law and economic class.  Building on “outsider” jurisprudence that has moved inequalities of race, gender, and sexuality from the margins to the center of law, the group proposed a jurisprudence of economic inequality. To foreground economic justice, the group sought to critique mainstream law and economics and to focus on the lives of poor and working class people.

Rejecting the neoliberal ideology of scarcity, and reclaiming the possibilities presented by the commons and by collective action, ClassCrits was born.  Our name “ClassCrits” reflects our ties to critical legal analysis and our goal of addressing economic class in the multiple intersecting forms of subordination. We confront the roots of economic inequality in divisions such as race and gender and in legal and economic systems destructive to the well-being of humanity and the planet.

Alternative visions and solutions have become even more essential in the contemporary moment. In the United States, 2017 has begun with historic dangers, global protests, and major constitutional litigation against the new federal administration.  The 2016 presidential election has exposed deep rifts in the foundations of law, economy, and society, reflecting a broad and deep discontent with neoliberal globalization.  Decades of bipartisan policies have focused on privatization and de-regulation of economic power.  Perceptions that established systems of law and economy are “rigged” against ordinary people have led to demands for change.  Some blame liberal “identity” politics for giving short shrift to those harmed by economic disruption.  Others rationalize increased inequality and insecurity as the inevitable results of innovation and potential growth that necessarily skews rewards to a privileged few.

What we cannot deny is the reality we are facing:  A counter-democratic revolution.  In response to this discontent, the prevailing response has been to take the neoliberal vision further. In place of principles and practices of law, democracy, and public service, this vision idealizes unaccountable authority aimed at unequal private gain.  Policy proposals include selling off public lands, privatizing the already fragile public education system with vouchers, and permitting private interests to foul the air and water held in common as fundamental to health and life on earth.  Promises to “Make America Great Again” seem to entail a rollback of civil rights protections for people of color, women, immigrants, religious minorities, and LGBTQ persons, along with an increase in militarization and an expanding carceral state, in the name of never ending foreign threats and geared toward hands of private profiteers.

The new dangers of oligarchy and authoritarianism risk fostering hopelessness and cynicism. Many of us grope around silences to find reasoned words of persuasion.  Many struggle to find strategies for scholarship, teaching and advocacy sufficient to address emerging threats.

At the same time, this moment has sparked new voices and energy.  Whether it is attending town hall meetings, calling or writing democratically elected representatives, engaging in numerous strikes and protests, or filing lawsuits, a resurgence of public dissent and collective action suggests the possibility of alternative solutions.  Protests by indigenous persons at Standing Rock, by diverse groups of women marching in cities all over the world, by workers of color in the “Fight for Fifteen,” and by immigrants speaking out against the rising xenophobia and racism have inspired support and action challenging established boundaries of identity, interest, and policy.

During this exciting moment of possibility and struggle, we invite participants to submit applications to present at the 10^th Annual ClassCrits conference, held at Tulane University Law School.  We invite panel proposals, roundtable discussion proposals, paper presentations, poetry and fiction reading, and art that speak to this year’s theme, as well as to general ClassCrits themes.  We are also interested in receiving proposals from law clinicians who engage in activist lawyering as a core part of their curriculum design. See the following page for details.

Finally, we extend a special invitation to junior scholars (i.e., graduate students and non-tenured faculty members) to submit proposals for works in progress. At least one senior scholar, as well as other ClassCrits scholars, will provide feedback and detailed commentary upon each work in progress in a small, supportive working session at this year’s workshop

The general themes of ClassCrits, include:

• The legal and cultural project of constructing inequalities of all kinds as natural, normal, and necessary.
• The relationships among economic, racial, and gender inequality.
• The development of new methods (including the interdisciplinary study and development of such methods) with which to analyze and criticize economics and law (beyond traditional “law and economics”).
• The relationship between material systems and institutions and cultural systems and institutions.
• The concept and reality of class within the international legal community, within international development studies and welfare strategies, and within a “flattening” world of globalized economics and geopolitical relations.

Proposal Submission Procedure and Deadline

Please submit your proposal by email to classcrits@gmail.com by June 1, 2017. Proposals should include the author’s name, institutional affiliation and contact information, the title of the paper to be presented, and an abstract of the paper to be presented of no more than 750 words.  Junior scholar submissions for works in progress should be clearly marked as “JUNIOR SCHOLAR WORK IN PROGRESS PROPOSAL.”

The venue for the gathering is Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans, LA. The workshop will begin with continental breakfast on Friday, November 10 and continue through the afternoon of Saturday, November 11. Arrangements are being made for conference hotels. Please check this for further updates.

The registration fee is $210.00 for all conference attendees who are full-time faculty members from the Global North. Registration is free for students and activists. Participants who do not fit into these categories, and/or who for individual reasons cannot afford the registration fee, should contact us at classcrits@gmail.com. Workshop attendees are responsible for their own travel and lodging expenses.

ClassCrits X, Nov.10-11 2017, Tulane University School of Law: Save the Date !

As we move into the challenges of 2017, we’re looking forward gathering for a fabulous 10th Anniversary conference in New Orleans Nov. 10-11. Mark your calendars now, and check back in February for the call for papers (and other forms of participation!).  The event will be hosted by Tulane Law Professor Saru Matambandzo .  Among the highlights will be a keynote address by renowned social justice lawyer, teacher, and scholar William P. Quigley of Loyola University of New Orleans College of Law.

Thanks to Loyola University Chicago School of Law for hosting ClassCrits IX!

Kudos to Professor Steven Ramirez and Loyola University Chicago School of Law for hosting our recent event, The New Corporatocracy and Election 2016.  Loyola Chicago Law’s social justice  mission made it an inspiring venue for our discussions, and we appreciate the support of Dean Michael Kaufman and Associate Dean Spencer Weber Waller.  Thanks also to Loyola Chicago Law Professors Emily Benfer, Sam Brunson, and Allyson Gold, as well as Steve Ramirez, for their conference presentations, and to the Loyola public health law clinical students whose groundbreaking work was featured by Professors Benfer and Gold.

Law faculty letter on investor-state arbitration

June 19, 2016

A group of law faculty and economists is organizing faculty signatures on a letter opposing the inclusion of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).  The provisions in the TPP text made public in late 2015 show that as many feared, the final text not only fails to address the problems of previous ISDS treaty provisions but indeed would vastly expand the U.S. government’s potential liability under the ISDS system. That raises concerns that ISDS will be used to undermine or discourage a broad range of regulatory protections of the environment, consumers, and health, exacerbating global inequality and anti-democratic elite political power.

Here is the link to the full letter if you would like to sign on: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1aPbS_jfsYHnvT0SPso4d9qatWKY7ezdr5A0yrpuU2jM/viewform

 

 

ClassCrits IX: Call for Papers and Participation

We invite panel proposals, roundtable discussion proposals, and paper presentations that speak to this year’s theme, as well as to general ClassCrits themes.  Proposal due: May 16, 2016. (Download a PDF of this page)

As the U.S. presidential election approaches, our 2016 conference will explore the role of corporate power in a political and economic system challenged by inequality and distrust as well as by new energy for transformative reform.

In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Citizens United v. FEC, redesigned the functioning of our constitutional democracy. By giving corporations a fundamental right to bankroll elections, the Court effectively shifted power to a new economic ‘royalty’ that sits atop the most massive capital aggregations in history.  Further, other government officials, influenced by elite lobbying and theory, have diminished longstanding rules and systems of corporate accountability (including criminal liability for financial crimes and basic norms of corporate disclosure) on the premise that some corporations and institutional forces are too big or important to fail or control. The result is that, along with other billionaires, these corporate and financial elites now may hold more influence in our political system than ever before.

The heightened power of monied interests has loomed over the 2016 election, provoking a groundswell of populist anger and resistance.  Even as elites have selected, shaped, and mediated candidates and campaigns, traditionally marginalized groups have also flexed new electoral muscle.  For example, #Blacklivesmatter and Fight for 15 have turned new energy toward visions of power based on values other than quantifiable individualized material gain. Yet this emerging and democratic populism has also confronted new restrictions on voting and newly limited protections for voting rights that strike at the heart of the public’s ability to enact meaningful democratic reform.

If the election has brought new mainstream attention to problems of inequality and insecurity, it has also exposed deep popular skepticism toward existing political and economic systems and whether they will provide adequate answers to these problems.  Out of this sense of human powerlessness, some populist calls seek security and control not only through invigorated social and political engagement, but also through messages of exclusion, fear and hate, as well as violence.  Against this backdrop, many social movements increasingly target corporate power and corporate citizenship rights, particularly the Citizens United ruling, as a source of numerous social, political, economic and environmental ills.

How might a sharper understanding of corporate power shed light on the current context of inequality and distrust?  How have legal changes in corporate rights and regulation reshaped political and social as well as economic activity?  Does the contemporary corporation simply empower individual human interests, as the Supreme Court suggested in the recent Hobby Lobby decision, or do the legal rights of corporations operate to narrow, distribute, and distort human rights and interests and citizenship?  What kind of person is the contemporary corporation and what does this mean for society, government, and law?   What is missing from the prevailing legal theory of the corporation as a nexus of contracts reflecting individualized economic transactions?  How does the contemporary legal understanding of the corporation help enforce and excuse inequality and instability? What structures of race, gender, and class have been advanced or obscured by the corporatocracy?   And finally, what law reforms might best reshape the corporation?  What alternative forms of business organization might offer better opportunities for more inclusive and responsible economic coordination? And, how might insights from other disciplines, including studies on religion and mindfulness, inform and inspire alternative visions and practices of law, democracy and political economy that promote human and (planetary) thriving?

We seek to explore these and other questions by focusing on a range of legal subject areas. Possibilities include:

• Antitrust and Competition Law
• Comparative Corporate Law
• Corporate Constitutional Rights
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Personhood
• Corporate Power and Labor
• Corporate Power, Class, and Poverty
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Corporate Taxation
• Corporations and Campaign Finance
• Corporations and Civil Justice Systems (civil procedure, class actions, judicial elections, tort reform)
• Corporations and Diversity
• Corporations and the Family
• Corporations and Human Rights
• Corporations and Immigration
• Corporations and International Trade Law
• Corporations and the University
• Corporations, Pensions, and Social Security
• Corporatization of Professions such as Health, Education and Law
• Corporations and Small Business
• Criminalization of Corporate Wrongdoing
• Economic Development and Corporate Subsidies
• Financial Institutions and Financial Regulation
• Gender, Sex, Sexuality and the Corporation
• Global Regulation of Corporations
• Law, Corporations and Political Economy
• Law, Litigation and the Corporation
• Legal History of the Corporation
• Race and the Corporation
• Religion and the Corporation
• Social Movements and the Corporation

ClassCrits IX also seeks to engage activists who help organize communities to action. The conference solicits the participation of activists who believe their work should be informed by a deep understanding of the limitations of current legal and institutional structures, as academics and activists alike strive to energize and mobilize our many communities for a more equal and just society.

Finally, we extend a special invitation to junior scholars (i.e., graduate students and non-tenured faculty members) to submit proposals for works in progress. At least one senior scholar, as well as other ClassCrits scholars, will provide feedback and detailed commentary upon each work in progress in a small, supportive working session at this year’s workshop.

Proposal Submission Procedure and Deadline

Please submit your proposal by email to classcrits@gmail.com by May 16, 2016. Proposals should include the author’s name, institutional affiliation and contact information, the title of the paper to be presented, and an abstract of the paper to be presented of no more than 750 words.  The Conference also welcomes panel proposals.  Junior scholar submissions for works in progress should be clearly marked as “JUNIOR SCHOLAR WORK IN PROGRESS PROPOSAL.”

The venue for the gathering is Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Chicago IL, October 21-22, 2016. The workshop will begin with continental breakfast on Friday, October 21, and continue through the afternoon of Saturday, October 22. Arrangements are being made for conference hotels. Please check our website, http://www.classcrits.org, for further updates. The registration fee is $150.00 for all conference attendees who are full-time faculty members.

Registration is free for students and activists. Participants who do not fit into these categories, and/or who for individual reasons cannot afford the registration fee, should contact us at classcrits@gmail.com. Workshop attendees are responsible for their own travel and lodging expenses.

Conference Organizing Committee

• Steven Ramirez, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, sramir3@luc.edu (Chair)
• Wendy Bach, University of Tennessee College of Law, wbach@utk.edu
• Tonya Brito, University of Wisconsin Law School, tlbrito@wisc.edu
• Kim Clark, Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union, boalted@hotmail.com
• Angela Harris, U.C. Davis School of Law, apharris@ucdavis.edu
• Danielle Hart, Southwestern Law School, dhart@swlaw.edu
• Rana Jaleel, University of California, Davis, rmjaleel@ucdavis.edu
• Lucy Jewel, University of Tennessee College of Law, ljewel@utk.edu
• Martha R. Mahoney, University of Miami School of Law, mmahoney@law.miami.edu
• Saru Matambanadzo, Tulane University Law School saruchie@gmail.com
• Martha McCluskey, University of Buffalo School of Law, mmclusk@buffalo.edu
• Athena Mutua, University of Buffalo School of Law, admutua@buffalo.edu
• René Reich-Graefe, Western New England Law School, rene.reich-graefe@law.wne.edu
• Matthew Titolo, University of West Virginia School of Law, matthew.titolo@mail.wvu.edu

Save the Date! ClassCrits 9 Conference Oct. 21-22, 2016

The New Corporatocracy and Election 2016 (preliminary title)

Loyola University Chicago School of Law

We are very excited to announce that the Loyola University Chicago School of Law will host next year’s ClassCrits conference in Chicago Illinois on Oct. 21-22, 2016! Thank you to the leadership of Professor Steven Ramirez of Loyola Law. A call for papers will be issued in the next several weeks. Please stay tuned for more details and save the date for ClassCrits IX!

 

Police bias against victims of domestic & sexual violence

Re-posting this important survey from Move to End Violence . 

This is relevant to the ClassCrits VIII conference this past October at University of Tennessee, Knoxville College of Law, where thought-provoking discussion and presentations emphasized the multidimensional nature of the problems of both domestic violence and police violence.

By Sandra Park, Donna Coker, and Julie Goldscheid

The shooting deaths by police of unarmed African-American men and the violent treatment of Sandra Bland have focused national attention and outrage on the problem of police racial bias and brutality. A new national survey finds that the same kind of police bias often affects police responses to sexual assault and domestic violence.

Over 900 advocates, service providers, and attorneys who work with survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence responded to a national survey regarding policing and domestic and sexual violence.  Responses from the Field: Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, and Policing describes what they shared with us.

Advocates identified police inaction, hostility, and bias against survivors as a key barrier to seeking criminal justice intervention.  Eighty-eight percent (88%) said that police sometimes or often do not believe victims or blame victims for the violence. Over 80% of respondents believed that police relations with marginalized communities influenced survivors’ willingness to call the police.  Respondents told us that many police are biased against women of color, immigrant women, and poor women. They are biased against lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender survivors. They are biased against young survivors of sexual assault, believing that rape is really just “regret sex.” They are biased against sex workers and those who suffer drug addiction.

Join us at Classcrits 8, Univ. of Tenn. Knoxville Law!

We welcome you to join us at Classcrits VIII: Emerging Coalitions: Challenging the Structures of Inequality, October 23–24, 2015, at University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Law. Here is the registration and program. 

This year’s conference takes its inspiration from new alliances that have emerged on the progressive left, sparked in part by the shooting deaths of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and other young black men by police officers across the country. In one example of these emerging coalitions, retail and fast food workers recently engaged in the “Fight for $15/Lucha Por $15” march wearing “I Can’t Breathe” shirts, chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” The conference will focus on the efforts of various community groups, students, academics, workers, and churches to combat injustice and inequality by forging connections across shared interests and forging robust coalitional praxes.