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This article asks whether Muslims whose religious beliefs prevent investment in their employers' private pension plans have a right to religious accommodation. This is a real issue for a growing part of the population whose spiritual lives are governed by rules that prohibit the giving or taking of interest. As one might expect, the investments available through most American pension plans involve some aspect of interest making those investments unsuitable retirement vehicles for devote Muslims. Consequently, in order to secure their retirement income, Muslims are faced with either violating their religious beliefs, losing years of investment opportunity as they wait for the American investment market to catch up to their religious needs, relying on their employer's goodwill, or religious accommodation through court or statute. Religious accommodation in the workplace is governed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (Title VII). The statute is directive and punitive. There are potential money damages if an employer does not comply with Title VII's religious accommodation requirement but no benefit (monetary or otherwise) in exchange for compliance. The two Supreme Court decisions that look at religious accommodation under Title VII concern private employers asked to rearrange employee work schedules to accommodate Sabbatarians. Where the employer faced a potential penalty for failure to provide religious accommodation but no benefit for compliance with the statute's requirements, the Court treated the Title VII accommodation obligation as an Establishment of religion and as a burden on the non-believers' Free Exercise rights. Accordingly, the Court diminished Congress' religious accommodation rule under Title VII to the point that no motivated employer need ever accommodate an employee's religious practice.Not all religious accommodations occur in the same context. As opposed to religious accommodation under Title VII, the Court generally gives Congress great deference when the legislature bestows tax ...

The United States trade deficit grows larger each year.' What the trade deficit means and what is to be done in response to its growth shifts with administrations and over time. Nevertheless, since World War II, the United States' general position on international trade has been unbridled support for free access to free markets. Now, the world economy is changing and our economy is responding. When the international trade regime we work under began cross border trade meant steel and oil and cotton. Now, our Gross Domestic Product and employment comes from services as much as anything else. Just as the United States supported its manufacturers seeking to export goods in the last century, the United States government supports the new U.S. economy by being at the forefront of the push to open foreign markets to services. The Curb Center is dedicated to the study of the arts and public policy. Not just the high arts that concern Old World European ministries of culture, but also the street arts, the market arts, the arts that feed into our Gross Domestic Product and employment rates. Further, the Curb Center is concerned with both self-conscious public policy and public policy that comes from seemingly culture neutral government functions. In the case of the United States trade deficit and our government's policy to open markets to services, we see culture and public policy combine in our push to maintain world dominance in the film industry.

The big question that the Wisconsin diploma privilege raises is whether waivers into practice upon graduation can work outside the Dairy State. Is Wisconsin simply so unique that its successful experience cannot be replicated elsewhere? My conclusion is that there are certain characteristics that make Wisconsin a good site for the diploma privilege but that those characteristics are shared by several other states. These characteristics include (1) a small state with a relatively small practicing bar; (2) a close relationship between the bar, the judiciary, the legislature, and the law schools within the state; and (3) great regard between the public and the bar for the state's law schools.

The politics behind tax legislation are explored in order to demonstrate that, rather than being surprising or unexpected, it is easily predictable that federal tax laws would favor whites over blacks.

The 1992 presidential election is over but the United States economy still faces hard times. Each man who hoped to lead us promised to revive our sick economy, and each cure promised included a strong dose of tax reform. At no time during the campaign or the transition did anyone seem to ask: Can tax reform actually increase employment, lower the deficit, nwerse our trade imbalance, or provide any other boost out of the recession? Why do Americans accept the notion that economic recovery requires tax reform? We did not always think this way. Why does it seem so natural now? Furthermore, is it good for our politics to focus so much on constant tax reform?

Using legislative histories the article shows how the incidence of taxation began to fall more heavily on women in the context of divorce as women's social and political status rose during World War II and that this trend continued through several sets of divorce tax reform.

With the specter of prosecution after his term is over and the possibility of disbarment in Arkansas hanging over President Clinton, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and the events that have followed it show no sign of abating. The question has become what to do, and how to think, about those eight months. Did the President lie or was it plausible that he had truthfully testified to no sexual relationship? Was the job search for Monica just help for a friend or a sinister means of obtaining silence? Even if all the charges were true, did impeachment follow or was censure enough? And what are the l.

All the federal tax decisions of the Burger Court are reviewed in order to demonstrate that widely held beliefs about statutory interpretation in tax cases are misleading. For example, although the literature asserts that courts do not distinguish between legislative and interpretive regulations, the Burger Court did give greater deference to legislative regulations. Further, despite some Justices antipathy to legislative history, the Burger Court relied heavily on legislative histories in making its decisions. In addition, the widely held view that the Court eschews tax controversies was found false when compared to other business areas.