About

Hello!  My name is Sarah and I am a member of Boston University’s Honors College. Every semester, the University Honors College (UHC) requires its students to take a 4-credit seminar that focuses on instruction and research through the lens of an interdisciplinary topic.  This website was designed as my final project for the course I took this semester, “The Secret Life of Corporations.”  As you can probably guess from its name, this class focused on corporations and their often unrecognized impact on society.  Through readings, films, and research, I have come to learn an incredible amount about a field that I never knew existed: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).  It sounds like common sense: if a corporation’s actions impact the surrounding community, it should of course be held responsible.  But many times, this is not the case.  Even in the current era, even as you read these words, corporations are polluting our air and water with dangerous chemicals, recklessly depleting our beautiful natural world, exploiting workers in both the U.S. and abroad, and committing countless other crimes simply because they think that no one will stop them.  

Maybe you don’t know much about what corporations do.  Maybe you don’t really care, because “it doesn’t affect you.”  That’s certainly how I felt prior to this class.  Yes, I knew that I should recycle and that organic products are better and that people in third world countries made terrible wages.  But it never seemed like my problem.  That all changed when I learned about the movement towards CSR.  What startled me most was the realization that corporations have little power to change themselves.  The landmark case Dodge v. Ford established that corporations’ only legal imperative is to maximize shareholder profits (see my first post, “Corporate Law: The Facts).  This means that even if they have good intentions, it is illegal for a corporation to concern itself with issues like public health or environmental safety unless they can somehow turn said ventures into profit.  Also, did you know that corporations are legally considered people in the U.S.?  This allows them to claim many of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights for itself.

Our world is in bad shape.  Corporations are gaining more and more power with the increasing move towards deregulation.  Their influence grows as they pervade our environment, our workforce, and even our government.  We cannot sit idly by and watch, helpless, as they continue to abuse our world.  If corporate behavior is not your problem now, you can rest assured that it will be soon in the future.  Corporations are  This website contains the facts about corporate law.  I created it in hopes that you and others will read it and become just as moved and inspired to action as I now am.  Check out my posts and pages for more information!  If you want to leave a comment on any area of the site, simply click on the link that says “Leave a Comment” and then fill out form titled “Leave a Reply” at the bottom of the page.  I’ll have to approve your comment before it becomes visible, so don’t panic if it is not displayed immediately!  I welcome your feedback and questions.