Volume 21, Issue 2: Dedicated to Professor Len Rubinowitz

This Article presents a policy and a structural response to a national capacity failure in American higher education: the concentration of endowment wealth in a handful of elite institutions, while most colleges, those that educate the majority of Americans, including most low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented students, operate under permanent financial constraint, and remain drastically underfunded. This imbalance carries a profound social cost. It weakens equity, limits inclusion, and undermines the promise of upward mobility that higher education is supposed to deliver. The proposed framework introduces a progressive excise tax on endowment investment returns, scaled by per-student wealth. Universities with excessive capital would be required to meet minimum spending thresholds for academic priorities such as need-based aid, tenure-track hiring, and research infrastructure. The revenue would support two federal programs. The first, a permanent Education Equity Fund, would deliver formula-based support to under-resourced institutions based on enrollment, student need, regional disadvantage, and research potential. The second, a Competitive Capacity-Building Grant Pool, would fund high-impact institutional growth projects at colleges historically excluded from major federal research investment. This model provides a concrete, enforceable path toward equity, inclusion, and upward mobility. It strengthens institutions that serve diverse student populations without undermining the success or autonomy of elite universities. Rather than punishing excellence, the proposal balances the needs of top-tier schools and their students with broader public interests and needs. Overall, the model ties tax privileges to public purpose and accountability and offers a blueprint for a higher education system that is not only highly competitive and innovative but also equitable, inclusive, and fair.

Although there is a consensus that children receiving mental health treatment in youth residential programs should only be restrained and secluded in emergency situations, youth residential program staff routinely restrain and seclude children in non-emergency situations, causing significant physical and psychological harm to the child and, on occasion, leading to the child’s death. Current federal and state laws do not adequately regulate this practice, nor correct a business model that wrongly prioritizes profits over a child’s well-being, but private action through 42 U.S.C. § 1983 may provide a powerful remedy to victims of the troubled teen industry and the necessary incentive for the industry to change its ways. The collection of youth residential programs, known colloquially as the troubled teen industry, is well-known for problematic and abusive practices and a troubling lack of federal oversight. Youth residential programs provide much-needed behavioral health services for a wide range of children, thereby taking in an exorbitant amount of public funds and attracting significant interest from private equity investors focused only on short-term profits. The unfortunate result of this business model is that staff frequently restrain and seclude children out of convenience and as a means of coercion, discipline, and retaliation. Although a patchwork of state and federal laws and regulations generally prevents the use of restraint and seclusion for these purposes, it has been increasingly difficult to enforce these laws and hold programs accountable as the troubled teen industry continues to grow. Even when parties initiate legal action against youth residential programs, monetary judgments do not provide the necessary incentive for operators of these programs to change. This Note explores the possibility of initiating private action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a violation of rights provided under the Children’s Health Act of 2000 for children harmed by the unlawful use of restraints and seclusion, and how injunctive relief may bring the troubled teen industry, on the whole, into compliance.

The ministerial exception is generally seen as safeguarding the autonomy of religious institutions in employment decisions, but does it also serve as a roadblock to religious freedom? The recent dismissal of the gender discrimination lawsuit by Rev. Dr. Eboni Marshall Turman against the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church calls into question whether the breadth of the exception promotes religious freedom in all contexts. This article argues that the ministerial exception, although designed to protect religious autonomy, may paradoxically undermine that very autonomy when applied to faith communities, like Abyssinian, that have voluntarily embraced anti-discrimination as part of their theology and praxis. These religious communities view the dismantling of oppressive systems as a sacred obligation. As a result, they do not seek immunity from the laws that do this dismantling work because to do so would run afoul of their religious beliefs. Winnifred Sullivan explains that “religious freedom, affirmatively understood, must mean something like the freedom not to be free, in ways not already constrained . . . .” Therefore, when a religious denomination voluntarily commits to upholding anti-discrimination laws, we must also view this choice as an exercise of religious freedom. This article outlines the key features of organizations that adhere to a theology of anti-discrimination. It then uses limited case studies to demonstrate how this theology functions. Finally, it proposes a contextual approach to the ministerial exception—one that respects not only the right of religious institutions to resist state interference, but also their right to embrace it when doing so reflects their deepest convictions.