Monday on Just Peace: NYU Law Professor Burt Neuborne on Corporate Contributions

Just Peace
Mondays, 6pm - 7pm EST ----- WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM
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On Monday, February 22 at 6PM, we on Just Peace will interview Law Professor Burt Neuborne of New York University about the recent Supreme Court decision on corporate contributions that overturned past decisions on the issue. The decision basically opened the flood gates for corporations to pour money into the American political arena with few constraints. The question remains, what will happen to American democracy under the circumstances and what if anything can be done to reign in corporate control of American politics? We will also talk with Professor Neuborne about the definition of corporate personhood and the distinction between legal and natural persons that was partly the premise of the recent decision - and that is that corporations have been considered persons and corporations therefore have first amendment rights of free speech.

Biographical information about Burt Neuborne:
During his years at New York University School of Law, Burt Neuborne has straddled the line between academe's ivory towers and the "real world." For 30 years, he has been one of the nation's foremost civil liberties lawyers, serving as National Legal Director of the ACLU, Special Counsel to the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, and as a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission. He has argued many Supreme Court cases, and litigated literally hundreds of important constitutional cases. He challenged the constitutionality of the Vietnam War, pioneered the flag burning cases, worked on the Pentagon Papers case, worked with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she headed the ACLU Women's Rights Project, and anchored the ACLU's legal program during the Reagan years.

At the same time, Professor Neuborne has forged a national reputation as a constitutional scholar and teacher, culminating in his appointment in 1991 as NYU School of Law's first John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law and his receipt in 1990 of the University-wide Distinguished Teacher Award. Among his best known scholarly works is the two-volume Political and Civil Rights in the United States, which he co-authored with NYU colleagues Norman Dorsen and Sylvia Law and the current Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, Paul Bender. His 1992 lectures on American law at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona have been published in Spanish.

In recent years, he has become a regular commentator on "Court TV," which he views as a chance to teach constitutional law to a mass audience. In 1996, Professor Neuborne appeared as Jerry Falwell's lawyer in Milos Forman's The People v. Larry Flint.

Professor Neuborne is the Legal Director of the Brennan Center for Justice at the Law School. The Brennan Center was established in 1994 by the law clerks to Justice William Brennan, Jr., to honor his monumental contribution to American Law. The Brennan Center seeks to link the academic resources of a great law school and the practical skills of the bar in an effort to develop pragmatic approaches to problems that have resisted conventional solutions.

He received his LL.B. at Harvard Law School in 1964.

On the fourth Monday of each month we on Just Peace will talk with attorneys on some of the critical legal issues facing our communities. You are welcome to call in to the studio in the latter part of the interview to ask questions. The phone number into the studio is 404 523 8989.

--
Heather Gray & Nadia Ali, Ph.D.
Co-producers, Just Peace
WRFG 89.3 FM
www.wrfg.org

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