Mary L. Heen
Professor of Law
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Profile

Professor Heen’s teaching and research focus on tax law, federal legislative policy issues, and sex discrimination. Her articles have appeared in North Carolina Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, Ohio State Law Journal, and elsewhere. In Spring 2009, she taught at Washington and Lee University as Visiting Professor of Law, and prior to joining Richmond's faculty in 1992, taught as a visiting professor in the Graduate Tax Program at New York University School of Law. She practiced law in New York City with Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler and the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union. As an ACLU lawyer, she argued an immigration case before the U.S. Supreme Court, served as counsel in other major statutory and constitutional law cases before the Court, and litigated Women’s Rights Project employment discrimination cases at the trial and appellate levels. Professor Heen served as General Counsel of the American Association of University Professors for a two-year term in 2006-2008, and as a member of AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure during 2003-2006.

Courses Taught: Legislation and Regulation; Taxation; Corporate Taxation; Federal Income Taxation; Federal Tax Policy; Feminist Legal Theory

Publications
Books
Welfare Reform, the Child Care Dilemma, the Tax Code: Family Values, the Wage Labor Market, and the Race- and Class-Based Double Standard, in Taxing America: The Social and Economic Implications of Tax Reform (Brown & Fellows, eds., New York University Press 1996).
A Review of Federal Court Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in Comparable Worth and Wage Discrimination: Technical Possibilities and Political Realities (H. Remick, ed.) (Temple University Press 1984).
Articles

From Coverture to Contract: Engendering Insurance on Lives, 23 Yale J.L. & Feminism 335 (2011).

Ending Jim Crow Life Insurance Rates, 4 Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy 360 (2009).

Congress, Public Values, and the Financing of Private Choice, 65 Ohio State Law Journal 853 (2004).
Reinventing Tax Expenditure Reform: Improving Program Oversight Under the Government Performance and Results Act, 35 Wake Forest Law Review 751 (2000).

Plain Meaning, the Tax Code, and Doctrinal Incoherence, 48 Hastings Law Journal 771 (1997).

Welfare Reform, Child Care Costs, and Taxes: Delivering Increased Work-Related Child Care Benefits to Low-Income Families, 13 Yale Law & Policy Review 173-217 (1995), reprinted in Federal Income Tax Anthology (Paul L. Caron et al. eds., 1997).
An Alternative Approach to the Taxation of Employment Discrimination Recoveries Under Federal Civil Rights Statutes: Income from Human Capital, Realization, and Nonrecognition, 72 North Carolina Law Review 549 (1994), reprinted in Federal Income Tax Anthology (Paul L. Caron et al. eds., 1997).
Sex Discrimination in Pension and Retirement Annuity Plans After Arizona Governing Committee v. Norris: Recognizing and Remedying Employer Non-Compliance, 8 Women's Rights Law Reporter 115 (1985).
Essays
A Call to Action on Post-Garcetti Policy Revisions, Virginia Conference AAUP Newsletter (November 2010).
Equally Insured? Lasting Insurance Industry Reform Came Only With a Rethinking of Race, Richmond Law (Summer 2010).
The IRS and Politically Controversial Speakers, Academe, Vol. 93, No. 5 (September/October 2007)
Should Controversial Outside Speakers Be Restricted on Campus? Co-authored with Robert C. Post, Trusteeship magazine of Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (September/October 2006).
Providing a Framework for Learning, in Teaching the Law School Curriculum 197 (Friedland & Hess, eds., Carolina Academic Press 2004).
Incentives for Hiring Welfare-to-Work Participants, Community Tax Law Report, Vol. 6, No.1 (Spring/Summer 2002).
The Child Tax Credit (§101), in The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, a joint publication of the ABA Section of Taxation and the ALI-ABA Committee on Continuing Professional Education, at I-D-11 (Jerald David August, ed., 1998).
Child Care, Welfare Reform, and Taxes, The Community Tax Law Report, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1997).
Welfare Reform, Work-Related Child Care, and Tax Policy: The “Family Values” Double Standard, 2 Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest 2 (Spring 1997, Symposium on “Welfare Reform: A New Deal for the 1990s”).
Sex Discrimination, Mortality Tables and Pensions: Improving the Economic Status of Older Women, 11 Women & Health 119 (1986).
Insurance Rates Must Change, Perspective (op-ed), Chicago Tribune, §1, p. 15 (May 3, 1983).
Due Process Protections for Tenants in Section 8 Assisted Housing: Prospects for a Good Cause Eviction Standard, 12 Clearinghouse Review 1 (1978).
Biographical Information
Bar Admissions
California
Alaska
New York
Massachusetts
Associate Member of Virginia State Bar
United States Supreme Court
United States Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and Second Circuits
United States District Courts for the Southern District of New York and the Northern District of California
United States Tax Court
Professional Experience
Professor of Law (1998-present)
University of Richmond School of Law, Richmond, Va.
Associate Professor of Law (1995-1998)
University of Richmond School of Law, Richmond, Va.
Assistant Professor of Law (1992-95)
University of Richmond School of Law, Richmond, Va.
Visiting Professor of Law (2009)
Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va.
General Counsel (2006-2008)
American Association of University Professors, Washington, D.C.
Acting Assistant Professor of Law (1990-92)
New York University, New York, NY
Associate Attorney (1987-90)
Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, New York, NY
Staff Counsel (1980-86)
National Office, ACLU, New York, NY
Law Clerk (1978-79)
Hon. James M. Fitzgerald, United States District Court, Anchorage, AK
Education
LL.M., New York University
Taxation; Assistant Editor, Tax Law Review
J.D., University of California, Berkeley
M.A.T., Harvard University
B.A., Yale University
magna cum laude; Honors in English
Contact Information
318 International Studies
(804) 289-8528
(804) 289-8683 (FAX)

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