Article

Companies with a dual-class structure have increasingly been involved in high-profile battles over the reallocation of control rights. Google, for instance, sought to entrench its founders’ control by recapital­izing from a dual-class into a triple-class structure. The CBS board, in contrast, attempted to dilute its controlling shareholder by distributing a voting stock dividend that would empower minority shareholders to block a merger it perceived...

Courts and commentators have long struggled to reconcile promi­nent federalism doctrines with the text of the Constitution. These doc­trines include state sovereign immunity, the anticommandeering doc­trine, and the equal sovereignty of the States. Supporters of such doctrines have generally relied on the history, structure, and purpose of the Constitution rather than its text. Critics have charged that the doctrines lack adequate support in...

After years of stagnation, pay equity law is gaining spectacular momentum. In the past three years, over a dozen states have passed important new legislation with numerous other bills pending before the federal, state, and local legislatures and a rising number of class action suits underway. This Article, the first to study the emerging ecology of pay equity law, argues that the underlying logic of these reforms is to structurally change the ways...

Temporary leaders in federal agencies—commonly known as “actings”—are a fixture of the modern administrative state. These acting officials have recently come under fire, particularly after President Trump ousted Jeff Sessions and installed Matthew Whitaker as acting Attorney General in November 2018. Yet despite their ubiquity and the fervent criticism we know almost nothing about them.

This Article examines open questions about...

Whether it is a financial institution like Wells Fargo, an automotive company like General Motors, a transportation company like Uber, or a religious organization like the Catholic Church, failing to properly prevent, detect, investigate, and remediate misconduct within an organization’s ranks can have devastating results. The importance of the compliance function is accepted within corporations, but the reality is that all types of organizations—private...

Courts, scholars, and advocacy organizations across the political spectrum are calling on the Supreme Court to limit qualified immunity or do away with the defense altogether. They argue—and offer compelling evidence to show—the doctrine bears little resemblance to defenses available when Section 1983 became law, undermines government account­ability, and is both unnecessary and ill-suited to shield government defendants from the burdens and...

In recent years, Congress has repeatedly failed to appropriate funds necessary to honor legal commitments (or entitlements) that are them­selves enacted in permanent law. The Appropriations Clause has forced the government to defy legislative command and break such commit­ments, with destructive results for recipients and the rule of law. This Article is the first to address this poorly understood phenomenon, which it labels a form of “disappropriation.”

The...

The topic of political branch motivation has long bedeviled courts and scholars, especially when facially neutral government action is under constitutional challenge. The definitive decision in this realm, Washington v. Davis, holds that a finding of discriminatory intent is necessary to prompt more exacting scrutiny of facially neutral legislation or administrative action. One major problem with this rule is that it risks licensing malintent by...

Index funds own an increasingly large proportion of American public companies. The stewardship decisions of index fund managers—how they monitor, vote, and engage with their portfolio companies—can be expected to have a profound impact on the governance and performance of public companies and the economy. Understanding index fund stewardship, and how policymaking can improve it, is thus critical for corporate law scholarship. In this Article...

Civil forfeiture is controversial. Critics allege that law enforcement authorities use forfeiture to take property from often-innocent victims free of the constraints of criminal process. Yet despite recent statutory reforms, a significant obstacle to meaningful change remains: Under longstanding Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution imposes few limits on civil forfeiture. Relying on a perceived tradition of largely unfettered government power...