Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips decorates a cake inside his store, in Lakewood, Colo. Phillips is appealing a recent ruling against him in a legal complaint filed.

The Civil Rights Movement of American Corporations

The Brian Lehrer Show | Mar 8, 2018

Adam Winkler, UCLA professor of law and author of We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights (Liveright, 2018), traces the history of corporate rights in the United States, which goes back 200 years before Citizens United.

A listeners asks -- if corporations are like people, can they go to jail the way people can? @adamwinkler says we have held corporations criminally liable for about the past 100+ yrs, but they don't go to prison.
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) March 8, 2018

@adamwinkler says we do have a corporate death penalty but it's almost never used -- and the way businesses can re-locate, shift their names -- they can magically re-form and reappear somewhere else to get out of it.
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) March 8, 2018

WNYC is funded by sponsors and member donations

WNYC Homepage - Top Stories

Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy Running for Congress in New York. Plus, the Astronaut Reid Wiseman

The candidate on the role of social media in politics, and speaking out against his cousin R.F.K., Jr. Plus, the commander of NASA’s Artemis II mission on the dark side of the moon.

The New Yorker Radio Hour |

NJ Gov. Sherrill: If state police were too aggressive at Delaney Hall, we'll look into it

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill took call after call Wednesday night from people who told her state police had been overly aggressive in violent clashes with protesters outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center this weekend.

Ask Governor Sherrill |

I.C.E.'s "Wartime Recruitment" Campaign

Hiring at the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency.

On the Media |

Ask the Mayor Recap and More News From City Hall

Elizabeth Kim discusses the issues Mayor Mamdani talked about in his first "ask the mayor" segment.

The Brian Lehrer Show |