On July 17, 2024 we hosted our July installment of the Roosevelt’s Book Club. This month we welcomed author Melissa B. Jacoby to discuss her new book, Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal.
Jacoby is a professor of law and an expert in American bankruptcy, having served as a law clerk in a federal bankruptcy court and a staff attorney on the National Bankruptcy Review Commission before becoming a legal scholar. In Unjust Debts, she charts how corporations and the wealthy have manipulated the bankruptcy system to their advantage, transforming it from a necessary form of debt relief for struggling families into a legal escape hatch that perpetuates race, gender, and class inequality. Our conversation will explore this history and dive into policy changes that could reform the very structure of bankruptcy to better serve the many, rather than the powerful few.
In Conversation
Melissa B. Jacoby
Graham Kenan Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillMelissa B. Jacoby is the Graham Kenan Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and will be a visiting professor at Harvard Law School in Fall 2024. A frequent commentator on bankruptcy and debt in national media outlets, she has testified before Congress and has published over fifty articles, book chapters, and op-eds. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York. Unjust Debts is her first book.
Hannah Groch-Begley
Think Tank Director, Roosevelt Institute [Moderator]As Roosevelt’s think tank director, Hannah Groch-Begley manages the day-to-day of Roosevelt’s research staff, oversees the think tank fellows program, and helps shape research priorities for the organization. Previously, Hannah led research programs at national progressive institutions studying reproductive rights, disability rights, and anti-poverty programs in the United States. Hannah holds a PhD in History from Rutgers University and a BA from Vassar College.