Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Book Club
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NY Times: Christmas and the Resilience of Religious Doubt
Christmas and the resilience of religious doubt
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How Church Could (Literally) Save Your Life
How Church Could (Literally) Save Your Life introduces skeptics to data, invites them to church, and finally guides them toward the one by whose wounds we are healed—no pills, planks, or apps required.
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DREAM Act Reintroduced in Congress
This week, another version of the DREAM Act was introduced in the U.S. Congress. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced the bill, which would create a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. The law likely would ease access for immigrant students to higher education. It also a…
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Book of the Week
This one’s a couple of years old, but it’s so well done, I couldn’t skip it. For a profound diagnosis of what ails America and the West, I suggest The Twilight of the American State by Pierre Schlag, University Distinguished Professor and Byron R. White Professor of Law at the University of Colorado. You can…
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From the Bookshelves: The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education by Brian Soucek
Speech at — and by — universities has been an issue of controversy in recent years. My colleague, Brian Soucek, has a book on the topic, The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education. Here is the publisher’s teaser:
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Cauble: Exceptional Cases And Automated Agencies
Emily Cauble (Wisconsin; Google Scholar), Exceptional Cases (reviewing Joshua D. Blank (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) & Leigh Osofsky (North Carolina; Google Scholar), Automated Agencies: The Transformation of Government Guidance (Cambridge University Press 2025)): In their recent book, Automated Agencies, Professors Blank and Osofsky offer what the book front matter aptly describes as “the definitive account of how automation…
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Townsend: Federal Tax Procedure 2025
Jack Townsend, formerly an adjunct tax professor at the University of Houston Law School, has posted to SSRN his annual editions of the Federal Tax Procedure book: Student 2025 Edition (806 pages): This edition has no footnotes and is designed for the federal tax procedure student. I present the core tax procedure information that I…
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Turley: New Study Raises Concerns Over Universal Basic Income Plans
Jonathan Turley (George Washington; Google Scholar), New Study Raises Concerns Over Universal Basic Income Plans: In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I explore how the American republic can survive in the 21st Century given unprecedented economic, technological, and political changes. The book addresses the increasing calls for…
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American Inheritance: Liberty And Slavery In The Birth Of A Nation
The New York Review: The Contradictory Revolution, by David S. Reynolds (CUNY; Google Scholar) (reviewing Edward J. Larson (Pepperdine)), American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795 (2023): Historians have long grappled with “the American Paradox” of American Revolutionary leaders who fought for their own liberty while denying it to enslaved…
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Back To The Future: How The Pre-OECD Global Tax Landscape Offers Lessons For Today
Steven Dean (Boston University), Erin Ryu (J.D. 2026, Boston University) & Danna Lopez-Flores (J.D. 2026, Boston University), Back to the Future: How the Pre-OECD Global Tax Landscape Offers Lessons for Today: At a time when developing countries need to ramp up investment to achieve development and climate goals, tax revenue is particularly urgent. A global…
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Wallace Reviews Taxation, Citizenship And Democracy In The 21st Century
Clint Wallace (South Carolina; Google Scholar), Book Review, 8 British Tax Rev. 296 (2025) (reviewing Taxation, Citizenship and Democracy in the 21st Century (Yvette Lind (BI Norwegian Business School; Google Scholar) & Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) eds. 2024)): The editors of this volume diplomatically challenge the “conservative amount of communication” between scholars focusing on taxation,…
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Ajay Mehrotra Receives Prestigious Research Honors To Support His Latest Tax Book Project
Northwestern Law News, Professor Ajay Mehrotra Receives Prestigious Research Honors to Advance New Book Project: Ajay K. Mehrotra, the Stanford Clinton Sr. and Zylpha Kilbride Clinton Research Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and Affiliated Professor of History also at Northwestern University, has been selected as a Visiting Scholar at the Russell…
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NY Times Op-Ed: Charisma, Christianity, And Trump
New York Times Op-Ed: Charisma Rules the World, by Molly Worthen (North Carolina; Author, Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump (2025)): The 2020s should have been the decade when American politics began to make sense. The multibillion-dollar industry of public opinion polling can turn vibe shifts into tweetable bar graphs and trend…
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The Atlantic: What The Fastest-Growing Christian Group Reveals About America
The Atlantic: What the Fastest-Growing Christian Group Reveals About America, by Molly Worthen (North Carolina; Author, Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump (2025)): In Durham, North Carolina, just a few miles from major universities, teaching hospitals, and other temples of science, the Holy Spirit remains formidable. When I attended a gathering at…
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The Secret To Workplace Happiness: ‘High-Quality Connections’
The Athletic, Joey Votto and Steph Curry Found a Secret to Workplace Happiness. You Can, Too: As a young first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds, Votto showed up to work, kept his head down and locked into his routine, the same drills, the same swings, the same results. … The routine turned Votto into one…
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Shaviro: Now Is Now, And Then Is Then—A Memoir
Daniel Shaviro (NYU; Google Scholar), Now Is Now, and Then Is Then: A Memoir: “Who am I really? And what should I name my pet iguana?” Few people – and certainly not Daniel Shaviro when he was young – can answer such questions very well. But, as Shaviro shows in this lively, witty, and candid…
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Reviews Of Ross Douthat’s Believe: ‘A Mere Christianity For The 21st Century’
The Dispatch: Something Spiritual This Way Comes, by Patrick T. Brown (Ethics and Public Policy Center): Believe engages with materialism on its own terms. Roughly the first half of the book deals with consciousness and the cosmos, from the start of the universe to the end of life. Science, far from disproving religion, has deepened…
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The Empty Ecstasy Of Digital Crowds
Dispatch Faith: The Empty Ecstasy of Digital Crowds, by Brad Edwards (Pastor, The Table Church (Lafayette, CO); Author, The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Still Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism (2025)): Should Christians support Black Lives Matter? Fifteen years ago that question would likely have been asked in…
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The Spiritual Journey Of Albert Einstein
Wall Street Journal Book Review: Einstein’s Sense of Awe, by Andrew Crumey (Author, Beethoven's Assassins (2024)) (Reviewing Kieran Fox (UC-San Francisco), I Am a Part of Infinity: The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein (2025); and Diana Kormos Buchwald (Einstein Papers Project) & Michael D. Gordin (Princeton), Free Creations of the Human Mind: The Worlds of…
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Work And The Meaning Of Life
Christianity Today: Work Matters to God Because We Matter, by David L. Bahnsen (Author, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life (2024)): If one were to summarize the underlying thesis of the contemporary faith and work movement in a single sentence, it would likely be “Your work matters to God.” Dozens of books have been…
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Mehrotra: The Rise And Entrenchment Of The Antitax Movement
Ajay K. Mehrotra (Northwestern; Google Scholar), The Rise and Entrenchment of the Antitax Movement: A Review Article, 141 Pol. Sci. Q. ___ (2025) (reviewing Michael J. Graetz (Columbia), The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America (Princeton University Press 2024)): Despite the vast and growing literature on U.S. conservatism, one aspect of the…
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Bill Belichick: The Four Words Every Coach (And Dean) Needs To Say More Than Anyone Else On Their Team
Wall Street Journal Essay, How to Win Six Super Bowls? Don’t Relax After the First One. (Adapted From Bill Belichick, The Art of Winning: Lessons From My Life in Football (2015)): Sustained success, writes former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, requires sticking with what you’ve practiced and being ready to admit your own…
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Blank & Osofsky: Introduction To Automated Agencies — The Transformation Of Government Guidance
Joshua D. Blank (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) & Leigh Osofsky (North Carolina; Google Scholar), Introduction to Automated Agencies: The Transformation of Government Guidance (Cambridge University Press, 2025): Administrative agencies that are responsible for running federal government operations have increasingly turned to chatbots, virtual assistants, and other automated tools to offer guidance to the public about the law. Together,…
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The First IRS Commissioner: ‘The Most Consequential Public Figure Americans Have Never Heard Of’
Harold Holzer (Director, The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute (Hunter College)), The First IRS Commissioner: ‘The Most Consequential Public Figure Americans Have Never Heard Of’ (reviewing Jeffrey Boutwell, Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy (2025)): America’s first IRS commissioner helped raise the vast sums needed to wage the Civil War and was a strong…
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NY Times: Can The Jesus Of History Support The Christ Of Faith?
New York Times Op-Ed: Can the Jesus of History Support the Christ of Faith?, by Ross Douthat (Author, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (2025)): The latest issue of The New Yorker includes an essay by Adam Gopnik, “We’re Still Not Done With Jesus,” on the scholarly debates about the origins of Christianity. In the piece, Gopnik positions himself…