Law professor to look back ‘On Sixty Years of Teaching Tax’ March 26

Wayne State University law students, faculty, staff, and alumni are invited to join in-person or virtually for a special lecture, “On Sixty Years of Teaching Tax at Wayne Law,” featuring Prof. Alan Schenk on Thursday, March 26, from 5 to 7 p.m. in Wayne Law’s Partrich Auditorium, 471 W. Palmer Ave. in Detroit.

Schenk will talk about the law school, its student body and faculty when he arrived, as an untested teacher in 1966, just seven years after Wayne became a state university. He expected to stay at Wayne for only three years, but during those first years, the school hired a new dean with different goals for the future of Detroit’s public law school. He will discuss how teaching at Wayne Law was impacted by student protests against the Vietnam war and for Civil Rights, by the women’s movement, and by children of immigrants who populated diverse classes.

The courses he taught changed as the law school’s business curriculum expanded, catching the attention of growing Michigan law firms seeking new associates. He and a colleague developed a Business Planning course to provide students with tools for their transition to practice. The ABA later mandated law school skills training and clinics, so that skills previously learned in early years of practice were shifted back to the law school curriculum.

He will discuss how statutory interpretation and tax policy in his courses changed and yet remained the same. The structure of the federal income tax system remained surprisingly static, but the details changed almost annually as members of Congress started hiring their own tax staff. The creation of the Limited Liability Company affected how businesses were organized, and who paid the tax on individual income and business profits. What happened to Congress’s historic reliance on progressive federal taxes?

Schenk’s accidental interest in value added tax provided him with opportunities to draft foreign tax laws and to teach at other law schools, both in the U.S. and around the world. Those experiences made him appreciate his students at Wayne Law even more.

A small reception will take place prior to the lecture, with the opportunity for students, faculty, staff, and alumni to congratulate Schenk on his career. After the lecture there will be time for  Q&A.

This event is sponsored by the Tax Law Society at Wayne State University Law School.

For those unable to attend in person, the registration form also has a virtual option to attend the lecture portion of the event via Zoom (details will be emailed to registrants directly).

The registration deadline is Thursday, March 12. To register, visit https://law.wayne.edu and scroll down to “events.”

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