Melissa B. Jacoby — Unjust Debts - with Vicki Shabo

Watch author Melissa B. Jacoby's book talk and reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.

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Bankruptcy is the busiest federal court in America. In theory, bankruptcy in America exists to cancel or restructure debts for people and companies that have way too many--a safety valve designed to provide a mechanism for restarting lives and businesses when things go wrong financially.

In this brilliant and paradigm-shifting book, legal scholar Melissa B. Jacoby shows how bankruptcy has also become an escape hatch for powerful individuals, corporations, and governments, contributing in unseen and poorly understood ways to race, gender, and class inequality in America. When cities go bankrupt, for example, police unions enjoy added leverage while police brutality victims are denied a seat at the negotiating table; the system is more forgiving of civil rights abuses than of the parking tickets disproportionately distributed in African American neighborhoods. Across a broad range of crucial issues, Unjust Debts reveals the hidden mechanisms by which bankruptcy impacts everything from sexual harassment to health care, police violence to employment discrimination, and the opioid crisis to gun violence.

In the tradition of Matthew Desmond's groundbreaking Evicted, Unjust Debts is a riveting and original work of accessible scholarship with huge implications for ordinary people and will set the terms of debate for this vital subject.

Melissa B. Jacoby is the Graham Kenan Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A frequent commentator on bankruptcy and debt in national media outlets, she has published over fifty articles, book chapters, and op-eds. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York. Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal (The New Press) is her first book. Find her at mbjacoby.org.

Jacoby is in conversation with Vicki Shabo, a gender equity expert, policy advocate and coalition builder, who has helped to win paid leave, paid sick time, equal pay and pregnancy fairness policies affecting tens of millions of people. For well over a decade, she has been at the forefront of the campaign to win a national paid family and medical leave program. At New America, Shabo works closely with policymakers, advocates, researchers and the private sector; is a resource to journalists; and advises entertainment-industry creatives on telling stories more reflective of people’s lived experiences and shifting narratives about the role of government in advancing work-family justice and an inclusive economy. Her opinion pieces have been published at The Boston Globe, CNN.com, Hollywood Reporter, New York Daily News, New York Times, Refinery 29, Roll Call, Romper, and USA Today, and her observations and analysis have been featured widely in hundreds of national, regional and state news stories. She is an advisor to the Paid Leave for All Campaign; previously served on the advisory committee of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Paid Family and Medical Leave Task Force; and advised a research project on paid leave and disability led by the Arc of the United States and the National Center on Children in Poverty. She is also a member of the National Academies of Social Insurance. She lives in Washington D.C. with her husband, teenager and two cats.

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Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.

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