ACS is pleased to distribute an Issue Brief by Ellen Dannin, the Fannie Weiss Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson School of Law, entitled Understanding How Employees’ Rights to Organize Under the National Labor Relations Act Have Been Limited: The Case of Brown University. In this Issue Brief, Professor Dannin focuses on the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) 2004 Brown University decision, which held that graduate student teaching and research assistants were not employees, and therefore, were not protected by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). As Professor Dannin explains, deciding whether individuals are employees as defined by the NLRA is critical to labor law, as it determines whether individuals have a protected right to engage in freedom of association, self-organization, collective bargaining, and acts of mutual aid or protection. Professor Dannin explains and critiques the decision as a departure both from precedent as well as from the central purposes of the NLRA. The author also examines how, in her view, Brown University “foreshadowed other cases in which the Board would ignore precedent and the policies underlying the NLRA.” Professor Dannin advises readers about the importance of precision in criticizing such decisions, because “if that criticism is not targeted to the specific wrong, it can do damage.” Professor Dannin cautions that while criticizing specific failures to enforce NLRA rights is essential, it is important to not wholly abandon the NLRA as a vehicle for protecting such rights, stating “We must insist that the promise of the NLRA to actively promote freedom of association in order to create equality of bargaining power between employers and employees . . . is kept.”

ACS is pleased to distribute an Issue Brief by Ahilan T. Arulanantham, Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, entitled “A Hungry Child Knows No Politics:” A Proposal for Reform of the Laws Governing Humanitarian Relief and 'Material Support' of Terrorism. In this Issue Brief, Mr. Arulanantham focuses on the material support laws, “a constellation of statutes found in the federal criminal code, immigration code, and elsewhere, whose ostensible purpose is to enhance our national security by stopping aid to terrorist groups.” As the author explains, the unintended consequence of these extremely broad laws has been impeding, and in some cases, entirely preventing, the rendering of critical humanitarian assistance in certain areas of the world. Grounding his argument in his personal experience in Sri Lanka immediately after the tsunami of December 2004, Mr. Arulanantham demonstrates how the material support laws can undermine relief efforts. Mr. Arulanantham also discusses, and critiques, the arguments used by the federal government to justify these laws. Finally, the author concludes by offering multiple suggestions for how Congress could amend the material support laws to allow the discharging of humanitarian obligations without compromising national security. Mr. Arulanantham advises readers that “[w]e do not have to choose between national security and our commitment to help those who are suffering around the globe.”