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Policymakers and businesses focused on economic growth in the United States know that human capital is a key contributor to productivity.

But in a world in which people enjoy increasing mobility, individual states may find themselves competing for workers and citizens in the global marketplace. Are there strategies that states can employ to influence who lives within their borders?

Two IU McKinney Law students named as 2019 Program on Law and State Government (PLSG) Fellows are looking at how state governments respond to population movement. Their research will culminate in a symposium, “The Laws of Attraction: State Governments Strategies to Influence Interstate Migration,” at the law school on Friday, September 20, 2019.

Patrick Clark (left) is exploring state governments’ various strategies to combat brain drain. He will focus his fellowship scholarship on state government tax law to retain university graduates in the state. Specifically, he plans to research various state tax credits offered to businesses and how such tax expenditures succeed in retaining intellectual capital within state boundaries.

Tátiana Foote (right) is exploring states’ civil rights laws regarding bias in housing and the workforce. In particular, Foote plans on researching connections between the demographic make-up of states in conjunction with the level of protection and enforcement of those states’ respective civil rights laws and enforcement structures.

The fellows will reach out to state government leaders, lawyers, academics, and policy makers about other strategies that states are using to influence who stays and who leaves their respective states. Each fellows’ ideas and research, along with those of members of the symposium faculty, will be presented at the fall symposium.

Clark and Foote, both 2020 J.D. candidates, bring personal perspectives to their research. Each responded to opportunities in Indianapolis, away from their hometowns outside of the state of Indiana.

Clark is from Homer City, a small town outside of Pittsburgh, PA. He came to Indianapolis to study at Butler University, where he double-majored in economics and minored in mathematics. When he enrolled at Butler, Clark said that he was already thinking about opportunities that existed in Indianapolis after college.

“I knew I eventually wanted to go to law school, and Indianapolis had IU McKinney, a phenomenal law school,” he said.

The PLSG Fellowship seemed a natural fit for Clark, who has a background in public policy and government. During law school at IU McKinney, he completed an externship with the Indiana Gaming Commission and recently interned with the Performance Management Hub, which provides analytic solutions tailored to address complex management and policy questions for the State of Indiana.

“I have a great interest in how changing structures can alter outcomes, and how governments can shape people’s behavior,” Clark said.

In addition to researching his PLSG project this summer, Clark has an internship with the law firm Lewis Wagner. Clark is also Executive Articles Development Editor for the Indiana International and Comparative Law Review.

Foote’s topic reflects her interest in how people make decisions about where to live. She was born in Baltimore, and at age 4 moved with her parents to Philadelphia, and chose to attend Salem College, a small liberal arts institution in Winston-Salem, N.C. “Living in different states has given me so much insight into people,” she said.

The topic also relates to issues that Foote has been interested in since high school. As an undergraduate at Salem College, she majored in communication, political science and race and ethnicity studies.

As a first-year law student, Foote worked pro bono at the Indiana Civil Rights Commission and was asked to stay on as a law clerk. She is also president of Equal Justice Works, a student organization that promotes public interest among students seeking a career in law while supporting those who have definitively decided to pursue public interest. She is also chair of the IU Student Outreach Clinic, a student-led effort to help residents on the Indianapolis near east side with a variety of issues, and public service chair for the Black Law Students Association.

“As a law clerk, I have been able to compare states’ civil rights and case law,” Foote said. “The PLSG fellowship provides an opportunity to explore those issues more deeply. We’re looking forward to a healthy, empowering dialogue about solutions for states.”

The fellows are advised by IU McKinney Professor Cynthia Baker, who directs the IU McKinney School of Law Program on Law and State Government.

“As Tátiana and Patrick make decisions about how to bring the results of their research to our legal community, theirs will become another in a series of important, scholarly conversations about what states can do, and are doing, to steer people, economies, policies toward a productive, peaceful society,” Baker said. “Why do people leave, why do people stay, and can state governments, the ultimate democratic middleman, do anything about it? What great questions!”