Benefit Expenses: How the Benefit Corporation\u27s Social Purpose Changes the Ordinary and Necessary

The recent spread of Benefit Corporations formally challenges the assumption that for-profit companies are strictly profit maximizing entities. Businesses can now incorporate under charitable business purposes that were once restricted to 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations. While incorporating under a charitable purpose is no longer restricted to only non-profit entities, Benefit Corporations are not able to receive the same income tax exemption under the Internal Revenue Code. While for-profit entities do receive some tax benefits for their charitable behavior, such as the charitable donation deduction, the current tax structure does not provide an equal amount of tax benefits for charitable behavior when performed by a Benefit Corporation as it does for a 501(c)(3). This Note argues that the Internal Revenue Code’s entity classification for non-profits and forprofits does not accommodate the mixed-purpose structure of the Benefit Corporation. This Note will explore the Internal Revenue Code’s treatment of non-profit 501(c)(3)s and charitable behavior by for-profit entities and posits that the Internal Revenue Code attempts to treat the charitable behavior of an entity favorably more than it attempts to treat an entity as a whole favorably. Because charitable behavior is not considered a trade or business under the Internal Revenue Code, Benefit Corporations will now be regularly engaging in charitable behavior, the expense of which will not be categorized as either a charitable deduction or as ordinary and necessary business expenses. This Note suggests that a possible way to give Benefit Corporations the same tax treatment for its charitable behavior as non-profits engaging in the same behavior is to create a “Benefit Expense” deduction akin to the ordinary and necessary business expense deduction currently available to for-profit entities

Communication with Public Officials in the Modern Age of Social Media: Does It Violate the First Amendment When Public Officials Block Private Individuals From Their Social Media Pages?

In the modern world, social media dominates. It is considered an almost essential function of public officials, ranging from the President of the United States to local politicians, to maintain at least one social media page to keep the public updated on their policies and current events. As public officials shift toward social media to communicate with the public, these social media sites become the new spaces for public discourse, with members of the public often commenting on or responding to public officials\u27 posts. As more public discourse occurs on these sites, and individuals begin to criticize their public officials on them, this criticism of the officials, protected by the First Amendment, must be given the same safeguards as more traditional forms of speech. This Note argues that it violates the First Amendment when public officials block individuals from their public social media pages for criticizing the official. Various courts have analyzed this issue, with some courts finding First Amendment violations due to the public official\u27s blocking of an individual and other courts finding no such violation. The Supreme Court has yet to issue an opinion on this issue but will soon, after recently granting cert. for two cases discussed in this Note: Garnier v. O\u27Connor-Ratcliff and Lindke v. Freed. Therefore, this Note argues that the cases where the courts did not find First Amendment violations were decided incorrectly. In a time when social media is the center of public discourse, the law must adopt to fit modern times, leading to a finding of First Amendment violations when public officials prohibit free speech online, in the same way as it does when they prohibit free speech in any other public forum

Past Tense Route Priming

The current study examined whether lexical: whole word) or more rule-based: morphological constituent) processes can be locally biased by experimental list context in past tense verb inflection in younger and older adults. During each trial, participants produced the past tense verb from a present tense verb. List context was manipulated across blocks such that context trials consisted of either regular past tense verbs: e.g., LIVE-LIVED) or irregular past tense verbs: e.g., RUN-RAN). Half of the targets within each list context were regular and half were irregular verbs. In the regular context, there was a very robust regularity effect: regular targets verbs were conjugated faster and more accurately than irregular target verbs. In the irregular context, this regularity effect was reversed in response times and diminished in accuracy. Age group and individual difference measures of attention and vocabulary were also investigated as possible variables that may modulate the route priming effects. The results support the notion that distinct processes in past tense verb production can be locally biased by list context

Survival Strategies: Historic Preservation, Jewish Community, and the German Democratic Republic

Following the Second World War, as German Communists worked to establish a new socialist East German state, Jews who survived persecution and imprisonment by the Nazis worked to reestablish a Jewish community at the same time. Though many scholars dismiss the relationship between Jews and the Socialist Unity Party, the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic, as one characterized only by neglect and occasional political exploitation, it was much more nuanced, shaped in large part by the Cold War. Both the party and the Jewish community relied on the other to accomplish their goals, namely, survival in a new world order: The Socialist Unity Party relied on the Jewish community to maintain the German Democratic Republic\u27s claim to legitimacy, and the Jews, few in number, relied on the party for financial support. Despite mutual benefits, however, the state and party nearly always had the upper hand. The power imbalance led Jews to find creative ways to fulfill their needs and, at several points, even prompted protest of the party’s treatment of its Jewish citizens. This paper follows the course of this relationship by focusing on the German Democratic Republic\u27s management of sites of historical significance—which vacillated between outright destruction and dedicated protection—returning particularly to the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weissensee, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. With this particular lens, this project addresses questions about memory, mythology, and agency in a socialist dictatorship and challenges assumptions about Jewish life in East Germany

Movement Ecology of an Intercontinental Migratory Bird During Spring Stopover

Movement ecology is a component of nearly all aspects of animal behavior and an animal’s decision to move is likely influenced by a complex combination of exogenous and endogenous factors. Therefore, an examination of the causes and consequences of organismal movement provides a conceptual framework for understanding complex behavioral strategies. My dissertation research is focused on the movement ecology of an intercontinental migratory songbird during spring migration. I adopted experimental approaches to study the factors influencing how a songbird migrant, red-eyed vireos (Vireo olivaceus), makes decisions in unfamiliar landscapes from the initiation of spring stopover. I simulated the arrival of nocturnal migrants at unfamiliar stopover sites to study the influence of multiple factors including energetic condition, sex, time program, habitat, landscape and conspecific song on movement patterns and stopover duration. To do this, I used radio-telemetry to follow the detailed movements of red-eyed vireos at stopover sites while quantifying vegetation structure and composition, food availability and avian predators and competitors. I found that arrival energetic condition and habitat strongly influenced movement. In addition, migrants moved further and faster during an initial “searching” period during which they selected habitat types with greater food availability where they captured more prey. Migrants arriving with reduced fuel stores also remained longer at stopover sites and only migrants arriving early in the spring stayed for extended periods of time. Conspecific song did not serve as a cue for the quality of a habitat type but it did influence within-habitat selection. Finally, I applied the results of these experiments to build individual-based models of movement according to behavioral rules and habitat-specific fuel deposition rates to measure the fitness consequences of migrant-habitat interactions during spring stopover. I applied the model and found fuel deposition rate increased as the amount of hardwood in the landscape increased and the degree of spatial aggregation of habitat decreased. The experimental and individual-based modeling approach adopted in this research provides much needed information about how migrants make decisions in unfamiliar landscapes during stopover as well as the fitness consequences of those decisions

Judge Barry S. Schermer: A Teacher of Law and of Life

This Article reflects on lessons learned from Judge Barry Schermer from one of his current law clerks. Cohen recalls her experiences with Judge Schermer while a student at Washington University School of Law, and how his teaching styles influenced her to pursue bankruptcy law. The author recounts many of the legal skills emphasized by Judge Schermer’s collaborative and team-centered environment, but as well as the personable aspects of his practice that maintain his well-regarded reputation in the legal community

Revised scored sensory perception quotient reveals sensory hypersensitivity in women with autism

Previous research using the Sensory Perception Quotient (SPQ) has reported greater sensory hypersensitivity in people with autism spectrum condition (ASC) compared to controls, consistent with other research. However, current scoring of the SPQ does not differentiate between hyper and hyposensitivity, making it uncertain whether individuals with ASC might also show differences in hyposensitivity. Furthermore, no research to date has focused on sensory differences in females, and whether differences in sensory sensitivity extend to the broader autism phenotype (BAP). The present study aimed to fill these gaps. The present study developed and validated a Revised Scoring of the Sensory Perception Quotient (SPQ-RS) in order to investigate self-reported hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity in three groups of adults: a female ASC group (n = 152), mothers of children with ASC (BAP mothers group; n = 103), and a control mothers group (n = 74). All participants completed the SPQ as a self-report measure of sensory processing and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) as a measure of the degree of autism traits. The female ASC group reported significantly more hypersensitivity, but not more hyposensitivity, compared to the control female and BAP mothers groups. The BAP mothers group did not differ from the control mothers group in either reported hypersensitivity (p = .365) or hyposensitivity (p = .075), suggesting atypical sensory sensitivity is not a BAP trait within females. SPQ-RS hypersensitivity scores positively correlated with autistic traits in the female ASC (r = .266) and BAP mothers groups (r = .350). The present findings revealed greater sensory hypersensitivity, but not hyposensitivity, in females with ASC compared to BAP and control female groups, and that a greater degree of autism traits relates to higher hypersensitivity in ASC females. The results offer support for the enhanced perceptual functioning model using large samples of females, who are an understudied population, and demonstrate the validity of the SPQ-RS as a valuable new research tool for exploring self-reported hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity

A Longitudinal Study Of Maternal Style, Young Adult Temperament And Cognition, And Program Outcome In Guide Dogs

How does maternal style, experienced over the first few weeks of life, affect later outcomes? Equally important, what is the role of an adolescent’s temperament and cognitive skills? The quest to understand which factors early in development lead to positive life outcomes is an endeavor that transcends species boundaries. In this dissertation, I explore the nature of these relationships using data collected from birth to adolescence in a cohort of prospective guide dogs. In Study 1, I quantify the behavior of mothers (n = 21) toward their litters. The results revealed that canine maternal style can be summarized in one principal component that explained a significant proportion of the variation and was stable across weeks, variable across individuals, and related to maternal cortisol and experimental measures. In Study 2, I examine the influence of early maternal style on later behavior, as well as on success in the guide dog program up to two years later. I also evaluated the influence of young adult temperament and cognition on success. Measures of maternal style as well as adolescent temperament and cognition were significantly associated with outcome in the guide dog program, even when controlling for each other. Successful dogs had less involved mothers as puppies, and demonstrated superior problem-solving skills, lower levels of perseveration, and reduced anxious vocal behavior as young adults. Temperament and cognition are frequently assessed in tasks purporting to measure one or the other, but large-scale studies usually only include tasks assigned to either domain. Dogs in our study completed a battery of both temperament and cognitive tasks. Thus, in Study 3, I address the categorization of ‘temperament’ and ‘cognitive’ tasks using both confirmatory and exploratory analyses and validate the findings using subjective ratings from puppy raisers, salivary cortisol, and program outcome measures. Forcing tasks into groups defined by cognition or temperament led to poor results, whereas a bottom-up approach revealed that putative cognitive and temperament measures interact in unanticipated ways. Taken together, these results suggest that mothering and the not-so-straightforward interplay of temperament and cognition provide important clues to the future success of an animal

The Influence of Word Frequency and Aging on Lexical Access

Visual word recognition has been a central area of psychological inquiry over the past century. The current dissertation examines how visual word recognition changes as a function of age by focusing on the influence of word frequency, or how commonly a word is encountered. Word frequency is arguably the strongest predictor of visual word recognition performance across a variety of language tasks, and the most influential factor in models of language processing. All models of visual word recognition include a strong role for word frequency but often assume different underlying mechanisms, which produce differing predictions for age changes. Although there is already a literature examining word frequency effects in younger and older adults, these studies have produced inconsistent results, possibly due to procedural limitations and task-specific processes. This dissertation explores the influence of task and age on the word frequency effect, while directly examining individual differences (e.g., changes in vocabulary, vision, education) in order to better understand the mechanisms underlying word frequency effects. In contrast to the dichotomous approach of examining extreme groups of young and older adults, or extreme bands of word frequency, the present study examined both variables in a continuous manner. The primary finding is that the word frequency effect does not appear to change as a function of age across all three tasks considered. This finding is discussed in reference to previous inconsistent findings in the literature and important theoretical implications