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Paul L. Caron
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Pepperdine Caruso
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  • Kevin R Johnson

    After Cornell, is it time to ban fraternities?

    The deeply disturbing events at Cornell (as well as other universities) have had people talking for weeks. Some observers have raised the possibility of banning fraternities on college campuses. Microsoft Copilot offered what I thought a balanced summary of the issues raised by such a ban:

    “Whether fraternities should be banned is a matter of debate. A blanket ban is hard to justify because fraternities vary widely, but there are legitimate concerns that lead some people to support banning them.

    Arguments for banning fraternities

    • Hazing and safety risks: Some fraternities have been linked to dangerous hazing practices, alcohol abuse, and injuries or deaths.
    • Exclusive culture: Critics argue that fraternities can promote social exclusion based on wealth, connections, race, or other factors.
    • Misconduct concerns: Certain fraternity chapters have been associated with sexual misconduct, discrimination, and other disciplinary issues.
    • University liability: Colleges may face reputational and legal risks when fraternity-related incidents occur.

    Arguments against banning fraternities

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  • Sloan Speck

    SSRN Review & Roundup: Speck Reviews Oh’s Does the Corporate Tax Still Distort Organizational Governance?

    This week, Sloan Speck (Blue J; Google Scholar, SSRN) reviews a new work by Jason S. Oh (UCLA; SSRN), Does the Corporate Tax Still Distort Organizational Governance?, 22 N.Y.U. J.L. & Bus. 69 (2025) (TaxProf Blog).

    Lawyers and economists have long recognized that taxation affects business entities’ governance decisions, and these tax-induced distortions have motivated decades of calls for corporate tax integration. In Does the Corporate Tax Still Distort Organizational Governance?, Jason Oh brings fresh insights to these longstanding debates. Oh observes that publicly traded companies rarely organize as limited liability companies (or other noncorporate state-law forms), even though LLCs’ governance regime allows greater flexibility without changing the entity’s corporate tax classification (through a check-the-box election or under § 7704’s publicly traded partnership rules). As Oh frames the question, “Why are there so few public LLCs?” To explain this puzzle, Oh advances a “homogeneity hypothesis”: “public entities prefer homogeneous interests and therefore gravitate toward governance and taxation regimes that reinforce homogeneity amongst investors.” In a world where public companies have diverse stakeholders, allocating the firm’s residual value—and upside—in a block of small, standardized units just makes life simpler.

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  • Jeremy Paul

    Book of the Week

    The tenth edition of Brian Bix’s ‘canonical text, Jurisprudence: Theory and Context, introducing students to the basics of jurisprudence, is out now in the UK and due in the U.S . from Carolina Academic Press in March 27. If you teach in this area, consider it as a great vehicle to acquaint your students with the richness of legal concepts.

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  • Jeremy Paul

    Symposium on Higher Education

    Volume 41 of the Touro Law Review is devoted to a wide-ranging set of articles dealing with legal issues in higher ed ranging from the effects of Loper Bright to exploration of the new world of college athletics. The thoughtful introduction by Patricia Salkin can be found here:
    Salkin, Patricia E., Evolving Legal Issues in Higher Education: Introduction to the Evolving Legal Issues in Higher Education: Introduction to the Higher Education and the Law Symposium Higher Education and the Law Symposium (January 10, 2026). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=7553002 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7553002

  • Kevin R Johnson

    Arizona Supreme Court Approves Law School Without ABA Accreditation

    News from Arizona. “Arizona’s first law school with graduates eligible for bar admission without American Bar Association (ABA) accreditation will be rooted in the Christian faith.”

    Earlier this month, Grand Canyon University (GCU) received approval from the Arizona Supreme Court to open a College of Law in Phoenix by the fall of 2027.  Attached to the order is the proposed framework for the new law school. The order states that

    “the Committee on Examinations and the Administrative Office of the Courts shall provide periodic oversight of the Grand Canyon University College of Law to determine its compliance with the Court’s standards, including requirements relating to curriculum, faculty, academic performance, bar examination performance, and reporting. It is necessary to adopt a framework for the Committee on Examinations and the Administrative Office of the Courts to use in providing that oversight.”

  • Jeremy Paul

    Abolish Business Schools?

    In his song Radio Radio, a tune so controversial that SNL didn’t want him to play in on air, Elvis Costello sang “I want to bite the hand that feeds me. I want to bite that hand so badly. I want to make them wish they’d never seen me.” But Elvis has nothing on Christopher Marquis, professor at the University of Cambridge Business School, who authored in last Sunday’s NYTimes this compelling essay calling for the elimination of business schools. In short, he argues, universities are training generations of leaders focused too narrowly on individual decision-making and the bottom line. Broader systemic questions and inquiry into what’s good for the world at large get lost. As he puts it, “Tinkering at the margins with a class on corporate responsibility or ethics is not going to help. We don’t need to ‘fix’ business schools. We need to abolish them.” Fortunately, he’s much kinder to law school, although one wonders whether some of his critique might apply.

  • Deanna Newton

    Bloomberg: Basketball Player in Japan Says He Deserves Foreign Credits

    Bloomberg (David Schultz), Basketball Player in Japan Says He Deserves Foreign Credits:

    A professional basketball player who played in Japan sued the IRS in US Tax Court, contesting the agency’s rejection of more than $1.28 million in foreign tax credits he claimed on his 2020 and 2021 federal returns.

    Ryan Rossiter, who has played professional basketball since at least 2011, argues that he adequately documented the Japanese taxes he paid while playing for two teams in Japan’s professional basketball league, according to an Oct. 13 petition filed in Tax Court.

    The IRS proposed additional taxes of $595,151 for 2020 and $688,925 for 2021, plus accuracy-related penalties of $119,030.20 and $137,785 for those years, respectively. Read more here.

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  • Deanna Newton

    Harvard: Call for Abstracts

    Call for abstracts: “Disciplining AI.” Submissions due October 26, 2026, for an in-person symposium at Harvard Law School on April 2, 2027.

    As the world increasingly runs on AI, humanity has yet to discover how best to curb AI harms. Current legal policy and scholarship emphasize two strategies. The first imposes liability on people after their AI causes harm. The second regulates AI more directly, governing its development and deployment, but before harm occurs.

    “Disciplining AI” will explore a third approach: directly intervening with AI after it causes harm.

    Co-hosted by the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and the University of Iowa’s Innovation, Business, and Law Center, the symposium will convene in person on April 2, 2027, at Harvard Law School. Participants will consider whether it is possible and advisable to apply sanctions, or sanction-like responses, to AI.

    We welcome all methodologies and fields of study. Submissions may engage constructively or critically with any step of the disciplinary process, from articulating liability standards, to detecting violations, to crafting interventions.

    Subthemes

    HJOLT is particularly interested in submissions that engage one of the following four subthemes:

    1. Corporate Law and Personhood Must AI be a legal person for the law to discipline it? What sort of legal person would AI be? Could existing legal structures support AI legal personhood, for example by creating corporations that are co-extensive with an AI system?
    2. Theories of Punishment What model of discipline is best suited to AI? Does AI have, or could it have, the sort of “motivation” deterrence requires? Is it possible to “rehabilitate” AI? Could targeted incapacitation prevent future offenses?
    3. Civil Liberties What constitutional protections does AI discipline implicate: free speech, due process, takings? Would these safeguards protect AI itself, or those who develop and deploy it?
    4. Implementation Which jurisdiction has the power or authority to discipline AI? Do we need an international framework? Within the United States, which agencies are relevant? What role could non-state actors play, including market forces, private coordination, or the technical research community?

    Publication and Honorarium

    Authors of accepted proposals will prepare essays of up to 8,000 words for presentation at the symposium and subsequent publication in Volume 41 of HJOLT. Each symposiast will receive an honorarium of $1,750 to help cover travel and accommodation.

    Invited Symposiasts

    Ryan Abbott (Surrey), Joanna Bryson (Hertie School), Pauline Kim (WashU), Frank Pasquale (Cornell), Alexander Sarch (Surrey), and Jordi Weinstock (Harvard).

    How to Apply

    Submit an abstract (300–500 words) and a CV by October 26, 2026 to:

    Abstracts should clearly indicate which of the four subthemes, if any, they engage.

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  • Deanna Newton

    Legal Scholarship Network Publishes New Issue of Tax Law & Policy eJournal

    Volume 26, Number 75 (October 2026) of the eJournal of Tax Law and Policy, published by The Social Science Research Network (SSRN), and edited by Paul L. Caron:

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  • Deanna Newton

    2026 Virginia Invitational Tax Conference

    UVA Law Autumn Invitational Tax Conference on October 16 and October 17:

    • Paper #1: Deanna Newton (Pepperdine), Financing Local Good: The Case for Expanding State Charitable Tax Credits
      • Discussant: Ben Leff (American University Washington College of Law)
    • Paper #2: Robin Morgan (University of Toronto Henry N.R.), Substance Over Form as a Doctrine of Legal Characterization
      • Discussant: Tessa Davis (University of South Carolina Rice School of Law)
    • Paper #3: Amanda Leon (Michigan Law), Structural Tax Subsidies for AI
      • Discussant: Orly Mazur (SMU Dedman School of Law)
    • Paper #4: Brian Galle (UC Berkeley Law) and Daniel Hemel (NYU), Tax Holidays and Anti-Holidays
      • Discussant: Daniel Schaffa (University of Richmond School of Law)
    • Paper #5: Ruth Mason (Virginia), Assigning the Citizenship Power in Federations
      • Discussant: Michael Love (Columbia Law School)
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