A Civil Rights Movement for Corporations? Inside the 400-Year Struggle

UCLA Law School Professor Adam Winkler talks about the under-the-radar civil rights movement corporations fought in the American legal system over hundreds of years.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magazine/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason
Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes: https://goo.gl/az3a7a

Reason is the leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.

----------------

"The movement and struggle to win rights for corporations," says UCLA Law School Professor Adam Winkler, is "one of the least well-known yet most successful civil rights movements in American history."

An important chapter in that history came in 2010, when the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to keep corporations from spending money on political ads right before an election. Many liberal advocacy groups were outraged over Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Last year, U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D–N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D–N.M.) introduced a constitutional amendment that would overturn the decision.

In a new book, We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights, Winkler challenges the conventional wisdom about Citizens United. He complicates the narrative about America's founding, too.

Interview by Paul Detrick. Edited by Detrick. Shot by Zach Weismuller and Alexis Garcia.

"Aourourou," by Blue Dot Sessions, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/BlueDotSessions/Azalai/Aourourou
Artist: https://www.sessions.blue/

"Toothless Slope," by Blue Dot Sessions, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/BlueDotSessions/Azalai/ToothlessSlope
Artist: https://www.sessions.blue/

Photo of Supreme Court: credit, Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Newscom
Photo of crowd outside Supreme Court: credit, Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Newscom
Photo of protest sign: credit, Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom
Photo of protesters yelling: credit, Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Newscom
Photo of arrest: credit, Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Newscom