thirteenth amendment

Dorothy Roberts is George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology; Raymond Pace & Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights; and Professor of Africana Studies Director, Program on Race, Science and Society.  She is an acclaimed scholar of race, gender and the law. Her pathbreaking work focuses on urgent contemporary issues in health, social justice, and bioethics, especially as they impact the lives of women, children and African-Americans.  In this episode, we discuss her 2022 book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World and her 2019  Her major books include Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century (New Press, 2011); Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (Basic Books, 2002), and Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (Pantheon, 1997). She is the author of more than 100 scholarly articles and book chapters, as well as a co-editor of six books on such topics as constitutional law and women and the law.

Read Dorothy Roberts’ Harvard Law Review Foreword, Abolition Constitutionalism (2019), and her November 2022 intervention in the Harvard Law Review Forum, Racism, Abolition, and Historical Resembalnce.

In this episode, we continue our discussion with Nathan B. Oman, the W. Taylor Reveley III Research Professor and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Markets at William & Mary School of Law. Nate specializes in Contract Law, the Economic Analysis of Law, Jurisprudence, Law and Religion, and Legal History. Today, we’re discussing his 2009 article, Specific Performance and the Thirteenth Amendment, published in the Minnesota Law Review. 

As I mentioned in episode 1, the article first came to my attention this summer, when the internet erupted with suggestions that the specific performance clause in the Elon Musk (more precisely, X Holdings) merger agreement with Twitter wasn’t enforceable because of the 13th Amendment. As you heard in our last episode, Nate strongly disagrees with that take. 

 I’ve split my discussion with Nate into two parts. In Episode 1, largely driven by questions from UVA Law 3Ls Bridget Boyd and Jenn Scoler, we discussed the Musk-Twitter litigation and the various provisions of the merger agreement, including the specific performance provision and the termination fee. In this episode, we delve more deeply into Nate’s analysis of the scope of the 13th amendment’s prohibition against indentured servitude and its relation to the specific performance of personal service contracts. As always, we spend some time on examples from the world of sports . . . because hey, we’re in Virginia. 

Links:

Nathan B. Oman faculty bio https://law2.wm.edu/faculty/bios/fulltime/nboman.php 

Nathan B. Oman, Specific Performance and the Thirteenth Amendment, 93 MINN. L. REV. 2020 (2009). https://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Oman_MLR.pdf

Amendment and Plan of Merger by and among X Holdings I, Inc., X Holdings II, Inc. and Twitter, Inc. dated as of April 25, 2022 https://kimberlydkrawiec.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Musk-Twitter-Agreement.pdf

In this episode, UVA Law 3Ls Bridget Boyd and Jenn Scoler join me to interview Nathan B. Oman, the W. Taylor Reveley III Research Professor and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Markets at William & Mary School of Law. Nate specializes in Contract Law, the Economic Analysis of Law, Jurisprudence, Law and Religion, and Legal History. Today, we’re discussing his 2009 article, Specific Performance and the Thirteenth Amendment, published in the Minnesota Law Review. 

The article first came to my attention this summer, when the internet erupted with suggestions that the specific performance clause in the Elon Musk (more precisely, X Holdings) merger agreement with Twitter wasn’t enforceable because of the 13thAmendment. As you’ll hear in this episode, Nate is having none of that.  

I’ve split my discussion with Nate into two parts. In this Part, largely driven by questions from Bridget and Jenn, we discuss the Musk-Twitter litigation and the various provisions of the merger agreement, including the specific performance provision and the termination fee. If you’re covering that litigation in class this year, in my completely and wholly unbiased view , the episode makes a really nice introduction for students to some of the issues.  

Links:

Nathan B. Oman faculty bio https://law2.wm.edu/faculty/bios/fulltime/nboman.php

Nathan B. Oman, Specific Performance and the Thirteenth Amendment, 93 MINN. L. REV. 2020 (2009). https://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Oman_MLR.pdf

Amendment and Plan of Merger by and among X Holdings I, Inc., X Holdings II, Inc. and Twitter, Inc. dated as of April 25, 2022 https://kimberlydkrawiec.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Musk-Twitter-Agreement.pdf

SEASON 2 PRESENTED BY GREEKS PIZZERIA!

Join Ryan, Blaine, & Russ as they discuss our Nation's sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln! 

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The Art Press

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Reading List:

A. Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald C White

For other books on Abraham Lincoln (and all the other Presidents), check out Stephen Floyd's Journey Through Presidential Biographies

EPISODE MUSIC:

Music in this episode was created by Ryan Ahlwardt and the intro/outro song is Granary. Check Ryan out where ever you stream or download your music, or at ryansongs.com

In this episode we discuss the laws put in place after slavery was abolished in America, which in many cases were just slavery by another name. These laws were created specifically for disenfranchisement and exclusion, and they formed the foundation of the the system and laws we have today.