Occupation Professor of Law | ||
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Born 1978 Orumieh, Iran Employer University of Georgia Law faculty Notable work How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy Books How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy | ||
Mehrsa Baradaran is a law professor specializing in banking law at the University of Georgia Law faculty. Her book How the Other Half Banks has received significant multiple reviews.
Contents
Postal banking an old solution to a new problem mehrsa baradaran tedxuga
Life
Baradaran was born in Orumieh, Iran, in 1978 and immigrated to the United States with her family in 1986. She earned her bachelor's degree cum laude from Brigham Young University and her law degree cum laude from New York University. She served as a member of the New York University Law Review. She was an Academic Research Fellow at the New York University School of Law. She joined the Law faculty at the University of Georgia in 2012 and is the J. Alton Hosch Associate Professor teaching Contracts and Banking Law. Prior to that position, she taught banking regulation, property, and administrative law at Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School. Baradaran practised law in the Davis, Polk & Wardwell financial institutions group in New York City. She served a Spanish-speaking mission in Houston, Texas, for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Huffington Post describes her as one of "a powerful cohort of Mormon women of color scholar-activists... who are powerful critics of racism, colonialism, and economic exploitation".
She spoke about her experience as a refugee from Iran in a Slate on 27 January 2017. She describes going from shouting "Death to America!" in the "terrorist country" of Iran to pledging allegiance to the American flag. She also describes the problems in the Middle East in the 1980s and points out that she was one of the "immigrants and refugees from 'terrorist countries' that soon will be banned by executive order from coming [to America]". She concludes: "The irony for me is that it was Iran’s tribalism and nationalism that put my family out in the first place. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime had said 'Iran First', too. They silenced the press, kicked out all the 'others', and ran the liberal intellectuals out of the country. I hope that’s not what happens here. But even if it does, this is my home and I will keep working to make America great because I have so much hope in America".
Books
Both Baradaran and her book How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy (ISBN 9780674286061) have received significant national and international media coverage, the book having been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Financial Times, the Irish Examiner, National Public Radio's Marketplace, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, and as part of TEDxUGA. In the book, she proposes postal banking, an idea that was endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. She gave a speech on the book and her thoughts on America's banking system generally to the American Postal Workers Union and the National Association of Letter Carriers on 15 October 2015, again suggesting a return to postal banking (which was discontinued in 1967).
Her second book, The Color of Money: Black Banking and the Racial Wealth Gap is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. She has also published articles including "Regulation by Hypothetical" in the Vanderbilt Law Review, "It's Time for Postal Banking" in the Harvard Law Review Forum, "Banking and the Social Contract" in the Notre Dame Law Review, "How the Poor Got Cut Out of Banking" in the Emory Law Journal, "Reconsidering the Separation of Banking and Commerce" in the George Washington Law Review and "The ILC and the Reconstruction of U.S. Banking" in the SMU Law Review.