U.N. report on poverty in U.S. cites paper by Professor Pruitt, Janet Wallace '10

A paper written by Professor Lisa Pruitt and a former King Hall student and published in 2011 in the Missouri Law Review was cited in a recent U.N. report on poverty in America.

Written by Philip Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, the report released in June examines inequality in the United States and condemns President Trump’s administration for seeking tax breaks for the wealthy and removing basic protections for the poor.

The report cited “Judging Parents, Judging Place: Poverty, Rurality and Termination of Parental Rights,” by Pruitt and Janet L. Wallace ’10, in a passage that notes, “In economically depressed areas of the Midwest, rural Appalachia and the deep South, unemployment is high and essential services, such as child care, health care and grocery stores, are unavailable or difficult to access.”

It is the same U.N. report that U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has condemned as “misleading and politically motivated.” As the Los Angeles Times and other outlets reported, Haley sharply criticized the report in a letter to Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of several lawmakers who urged the Trump administration to give Congress a plan to reduce poverty in the United States.

“It is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America," Haley wrote. “In our country, the President, Members of Congress, Governors, Mayors, and City Council members actively engage on poverty issues every day.” Earlier in June, Haley announced the U.S. was pulling out of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Lisa R. Pruitt, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor at UC Davis School of Law, is a scholar whose recent work explores the legal relevance of rural spatiality, including how it inflects dimensions of gender, race, and ethnicity.  Pruitt's work also considers rural-urban difference in transnational and international contexts.