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LPE Blog

An Open Letter to the Minnesota Law Community
An Open Letter to the Minnesota Law Community
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The Means-Testing Industrial Complex

As Republicans tightened work requirements and eligibility rules for Medicaid and SNAP last year, Equifax’s CEO openly celebrated the profits to be made from administering this deprivation. Means-testing and administrative complexity have turned America’s safety net into a lucrative revenue stream for monopolistic private contractors, underscoring the need for public data infrastructure and simpler eligibility rules.

Beyond Feasibility in Legal Scholarship

Law review articles are expected to conclude with a short section, often “Part IV,” that translates analysis into actionable prescriptions. Though well-intentioned, this convention constrains ambition, sidelines critique, and conflates near-term feasibility with rigor. In a moment of institutional unraveling and authoritarian threat, legal scholars and law review editors should resist the Part IV reflex and make space for bolder analyses, longer horizons, and more collective ways of imagining change.

Beginning with Empire

U.S. attacks on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean have been widely condemned for violating international law. Yet much of this criticism, by focusing narrowly on the Trump administration’s military excesses, risks repeating a familiar mistake: debating how the United States wages war while leaving unquestioned why it wages it at all.

Recent

Weekly Roundup: Feb 6

Patrick Driessen on Big Pharma’s exit strategy, and Serena Mayeri on her recent history of marital privilege. Plus, Jake Grumbach and Adam Bonica on the scourge of moderation, JS Tan and Kathleen Thelen on cloud capitalism, Jessica Shoemaker & James Fallows Tierney on Wall Street’s arrival at rural America’s gate, and the third installment of. . .

Writing a History of Marital Privilege in an Age of Retrenchment

As the government seeks to erase the past injustices and achievements of marginalized groups, it is worth recalling how those gains were made. Parents, partners, students, and lawyers pursued a more just future at significant personal and institutional risk. Their courage offers a lesson for the present. At stake is whether this moment marks a temporary break. . .

Big Pharma’s Get-Out-of-U.S.-Tax-Free Card

While many industries excel at not paying U.S. corporate taxes, the pharmaceutical industry takes the cake – despite $400 billion in prescription drug sales in 2022, Big Pharma claimed to have close to zero taxable income. One of their principal methods for maintaining this charade is the constant threat of exit, moving their headquarters abroad to. . .

Weekly Roundup: Jan 30

Edie Conekin-Tooze on hidden foster care as neoliberal family governance, an open letter from seventy-two UMN law faculty, and Luke Farrell on the means-testing industrial complex. Plus, Aslı Bâli and Aziz Rana on the roots of the Trump Doctrine, Sandeep Vaheesan and Brian Callaci on building democratic state capacity, Luke Herrine on the institutional foundations. . .

Weekly Roundup: Jan 23

Nathan Yaffe on the immigration agencies openly defying federal courts, and Sabeel Rahman and Jocelyn Simonson on the Part IV problem in legal scholarship. Plus, Michael Macher traces the bipartisan origins of Trump’s immigration crackdown; Eric Blanc, Claire Sandberg, and Wes McEnany advocate targeting ICE’s corporate collaborators; David Austin. . .