What Does Citizens United Mean for the Workplace?

Few recent Supreme Court decisions have provoked such heated debate as Citizens United v. FEC, which undermined federal restrictions on corporate and union contributions to political campaigns.  Despite all of the discussion of Citizens United, little attention has been paid to the decision’s implications for the workplace.   In a new paper on SSRN, however, Paul Secunda argues that Citizens United may have the effect of lifting some longstanding restrictions on the ability of employers to communicate political messages to their employees.  Paul argues for a statutory response that would prohibit the termination of employees for refusing to attend political meetings at the workplace.

Paul’s paper, entitled “Addressing Political Captive Audience Workplace Meetings in the Post-Citizens United Environment,” appeared in the Yale Law Journal Online here.  The abstract appears after the jump. 

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When a Justice’s Spouse Engages in Political Activity

When Mrs. Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, launched a new non-profit organization called Liberty Central earlier this spring, the announcement prompted a firestorm of media coverage. The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and numerous other news outlets ran stories discussing the possible ethical issues that may arise. The stories focused on two particular questions: to what extent may the spouses of Supreme Court justices engage in political activity, and when may Justice Thomas’s recusal be necessary if a donor to Liberty Central comes before the Court? Legal ethics experts quoted in the news stories offered brief answers on both counts.

In a short paper recently posted to SSRN, I have endeavored to provide a comprehensive answer to both of these questions. The first conclusion was straightforward: the relevant codes of judicial conduct are limited by their texts to judges – they have no power over spouses. Moreover, numerous advisory opinions confirm the right of judicial spouses to engage in politics. However, a judge must clearly separate himself from the political activity of his spouse.  Judicial recusal is governed by a federal statute. Going through the statute, and the advisory opinions and precedents concerning it, the paper identifies the relevant standard and proposes a framework for evaluating cases that may arise in this circumstance. I conclude that Mrs. Thomas can fully pursue her new organization’s mission without compromising Justice Thomas’s role on the bench.

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How Can Software Licensing Help Farmers in the Developing World?

Answer: By providing a model for licensing agreements that can protect the farmers’ intellectual property rights in the seed that they use. 

I recently posted on the problem of biopiracy — the appropriation of genetic resources from developing nations by pharmaceutical and other companies.  Similar concerns have been raised about agro-companies obtaining exclusive intellectual property rights in plant genetic resources that have been first developed and used by farmers in developing nations. 

Fortunately, 3L Ryann Beck has come up with a clever solution that involves adapting the open source licencing systems commonly used for computer software.  Under Ryann’s proposal, a nonprofit steward would obtain intellectual property rights in plant genetic materials on behalf of the farmers who developed them.  Packages of the seeds would then be labeled with a “copy-left” license that would preclude purchasers from obtaining enforceable intellectual property rights in the seeds or derivatives of the seeds. 

Ryann’s proposal is contained in a new paper on SSRN.  Her paper got a nice write-up on the IPKat blog a few days ago, and is forthcoming in the Arizona Journal of Environmental Law and Policy.  The abstract appears after the jump. 

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