What is "Corporate Personhood" and Why Does it Matter?
“Corporate Personhood” is a legal concept, also known as a “legal fiction” that, as a matter of interpretation of the word “person” in the 14th Amendment, has legally guaranteed certain, increasing constitutional protections for corporations since 1886.
The misguided argument behind corporate personhood is that, since corporations are organizations of people, people should not be deprived of their constitutional rights when they act collectively.
Under this legal rhetoric, in 1886 corporations were granted the ability to sue and be sued in court in the same manner that natural persons or unincorporated associations of persons can. Since then, over 125 years of oppressive, misguided case law has solidified the fabrication of corporate personhood and laid the path for the extension of corporate power over humans.
Over the past three decades, the fabrication of corporate rights have allowed corporations increased opportunity to legally strike down democratically-enacted laws in environmental, health care, consumer rights and civil rights sectors – specifically through the development of a set of legal rights under state and federal statues that have granted corporations protections under the First Amendment. Before 1976, “commercial speech” was not protected under the First Amendment. Since then, commercial speech has gained a stranglehold on our nation's electoral processes.
On January 21, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission by a 5-4 decision, that restrictions on corporate expenditures in elections contained in the federal Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (known as BCRA or “McCain-Feingold”) violated the First Amendment protections of free speech .
This Supreme Court ruling gave corporations the right to spend unlimited funds in U.S. elections because their corporate personhood granted them the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech. This represents the largest expansion of corporate personhood to date.
The issue of corporate free speech and corporate personhood therefore became more prominent than ever before in human history during the 2012 U.S. election cycle, due to the unprecedented amounts of money corporations were allowed to spend on campaigns, candidates and committees. In response, last November over 100 communities across the nation passed ballot initiatives to amend the U.S. Constitution and reverse the Supreme Court's 2011 Citizens United decision.
The Legal History of Corporate Personhood:
1886 - Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad
Though the court did not make a ruling on the question of “corporate personhood” (whether 14th Amendment covered corporations), the decision subsequently was cited as precedent to hold that a private corporation was a "natural person." Justices have since struck down hundreds of local, state and federal laws enacted to protect people from corporate harm based on this illegitimate premise.
1905 - Lochner v. New York
“Lochner” became shorthand for using the Constitution to invalidate government regulation of the corporation. It embodies the doctrine of “substantive due process.” From 1905 until the mid 1930s the Court invalidated approximately 200 economic regulations, usually under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
1908 - Armour Packing Co. v. U.S.
Corporations get 6th Amendment right to jury trial in a criminal case. A corporate defendant was considered an “accused” for 6th Amendment purposes.
1936 - Grosjean v. American Press Co.
A newspaper corporation has a 1st Amendment liberty right to freedom of speech that would be applied to the states through the 14th Amendment. The Court ruled that the corporation was free to sell advertising in newspapers without being taxed. This is the first 1st Amendment protection for corporations.
1976 - Buckley v. Valeo
The Supreme Court rules that political money is equivalent to speech. This ruling expanded the First Amendment’s protections to include financial contributions to candidates or parties.
The Team
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Jonathan Frieman is a dedicated advocate for social justice, philanthropy, and community empowerment. With a Juris Doctorate from The New College School of Law and a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Denver, he has devoted his career to legal advocacy, nonprofit leadership, and civic engagement.
He has co-founded multiple nonprofits, including the JoMiJo Foundation, Current Innovations, and the Center for Corporate Policy, focusing on sustainable economic policies, corporate accountability, and social equity. As president of InSpirit, he helps fund IHSS payments for quadriplegics, and he has played key roles in organizations such as the California Clean Money Campaign and the Marin County Public Law Library, which supports self-represented litigants.
Frieman’s legal work includes volunteering with the Homeless Advocacy Project and founding New Beginnings Law Center, which assists with record expungement. His leadership helped the Marin City Health and Wellness Center secure Federally Qualified Health Center status, increasing its funding and impact. He also led efforts to challenge corporate expansion in San Rafael and raised $1.5 million for Marin Clean Energy.
Passionate about civic engagement, Frieman continues to champion policies that promote equity and sustainability, ensuring lasting positive change in his community.
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“An outspoken ex-Moonie-turned-cult-deprogrammer-turned-lawyer,” Ford Greene is an attorney with one of the most unusual backgrounds you will ever encounter.
As he will admit, "I'm a man with no skeletons in the closet— They're all dancing around in public."
As a young man in the 1970s, Ford’s life was irrevocably altered when – in a failed attempt to remove his sister from the same organization – he was brainwashed by members of Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church (commonly referred to as the “Moonies”). A rare case, Ford was able to deprogram himself from the Moonies and proceeded to earn a reputation for himself as a deprogrammer, paid by family and loved ones to deprogram people who had been inducted into large authoritarian organizations (often referred to as “cults”). Greene's deprogramming of a young Canadian schoolteacher who fell in with the Unification Church while on a trip to the Bay Area was then chronicled in the 1980 film Ticket to Heaven.
Following these experiences, Ford decided to become an attorney and dedicate his adult life toward challenging, exposing and suing large authoritarian organizations. He attended the New College of California School of Law in San Francisco and was admitted to the state bar of California in 1983. His activism and legal work has earned him a lifelong enmity from Scientologists (who follow the teachings of the late science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard), the Unification Church (founded by the Rev. Moon, who claims to have met Jesus on a Korean mountainside in 1935), and other so-called new religious movements.
It didn’t take Ford long to make an impact on illegal cult tactics.
In 1979, two former Moonies sued the Unification Church, claiming to have been coerced and brainwashed; however, The lower courts ruled that constitutional guarantees of religious freedom barred such suits.
Ford Greene represented the two former Moonies in the appeal, Molko v. Holy Spirit Association, and prevailed before the California Supreme Court in 1988. Justice Stanley Mosk’s written judgement about the tactics religious groups use to attract followers said that any burden on the free exercise of religion was outweighed by the state's interest in protecting against "fraudulent induction of unconsenting individuals into an atmosphere of coercive persuasion."
Throughout his career, Ford has continued to vigorously exercise his right to criticize absurd, illegitimate and oppressive systems of power. He values and practices his constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech because without freedom, democratic self-government is no better than a bedtime story.
Ford’s office, in Marin County, California, is housed in a century-old converted storefront that was a bakery in a past life; his home is in the basement of the same building.