Tell Your Senators to Say “No” to Southwick

Alliance for Justice (afj.org) today asked that you urge your Senators to stop Leslie Southwick’s ascension to the federal bench. In recent meetings with Senators, staff expressed doubt that their constituents care about this nomination.

AFJ has been pressing for the defeat of Leslie Southwick’s nomination to the Fifth Circuit. But despite widespread opposition to the confirmation of Judge Southwick, his nomination was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last month and now is headed to the Senate floor.

The Congressional Black Caucus, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, People for the American Way, Human Rights Campaign, National Employment Lawyers Association, National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, Mississippi NAACP, the Magnolia Bar and the Equal Justice Society are all calling for his defeat.

Click here to fax a message to your Senators’ offices to vote against Leslie Southwick.

Read more on the FairAndIndependentJudges.org blog.

EJS Joins Call Urging Calif. Supreme Court to End Discrimination Against Same-Sex Marriage

The Equal Justice Society authored one of 30 amicus briefs submitted to the California Supreme Court, urging the court to put an end to state laws that deny same-sex couples the protections of marriage.

EJS joined scores of religious, civil rights, and child advocacy organizations, along with numerous California municipal governments, bar associations, and leading legal scholars, to insist we treat all Californians equally.

See the full press release here.

Congressional Leaders Call for Minority Media Ownership Task Force

Free Press (freepress.net) today announced that three Members of Congress endorsed FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein’s call for an independent, nonpartisan task force to address the disgracefully low levels of media ownership by people of color.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) endorsed the creation of a task force in public statements and letters sent late last week to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. The national, nonpartisan media reform group Free Press is urging the public to contact the FCC in support of the new task force.

At the FCC hearing in Chicago on Sept. 20, Adelstein called for a bipartisan, independent panel to review more than 40 policy recommendations proposed by the FCC’s Diversity Committee and the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. “Dozens of diversity enhancement recommendations have been collecting dust at the FCC since as far back as 1992,” Adelstein said. “I believe 15 years is long enough — justice deferred is justice denied.”

At the national level, according to research by Free Press, people of color make up 33 percent of the entire U.S. population yet own 7.2 percent of all full-power radio and TV stations. While women comprise 51 percent of the entire U.S. population, they own less than 6 percent of full-power commercial radio and TV stations.

“It is unacceptable for the FCC to move ahead with plans to allow for more media consolidation without first addressing how to increase minority ownership,” Congressman Conyers, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “I support Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein’s call for the FCC to create an independent task force to examine ways to increase minority ownership.”

The FCC was ordered to address minority ownership issues as part of the landmark 2004 Prometheus v. FCC decision. In August, after nearly a year of inaction on the issue, Chairman Martin asked for public comment on a series of proposals on minority media ownership. However, the public was given just a narrow, two-month window — ending Oct. 1 — to weigh in on the complex proposals.

“We need to deal with the disgraceful state of ownership by women and people of color first,” said Joseph Torres of Free Press, which coordinates the StopBigMedia.com Coalition. “The FCC has ignored these issues for far too long. Unchecked media consolidation makes it nearly impossible for anybody but the largest conglomerates get on the public airwaves. We need an independent, honest and thorough accounting of how FCC policies have impacted women and minority owners before even considering any changes that could make things worse.”

Visit freepress.net for more information on this issue.

Henderson Center for Social Justice report: Prop. 209 Impact on Women-Owned Businesses

The Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, will tomorrow issue “A Vision Fulfilled? The Impact of Proposition 209 on Equal Opportunity for Women Business Enterprises,” a new report documenting the 11-year impact of Prop. 209 on Women Business Enterprises (WBE) seeking public contracts in the state’s transportation construction industry.

California’s transportation construction industry is the source of over $2 billion in public contracts each year. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is the largest granting agency for transportation construction statewide and has tremendous capacity to increase the wealth and employment opportunities among California’s diverse population.

The Henderson Center examined the impact of Proposition 209 on businesses that were certified by Caltrans as Women Business Enterprises. The results are startling:

• Real dollars awarded to women-owned businesses fell dramatically;
• A significant number of women-owned companies went out of business entirely;
• Barriers to bidding on projects rose as women were squeezed out of the “good old boy” network.

The report recommends a number of steps state agencies can take to eliminate race and gender bias in public contracting.

The research began under the direction of Monique W. Morris at the Discrimination Research Center (DRC) and continued when Morris joined HCSJ in March 2007. “A Vision Fulfilled” is the second in a series of reports on the impact of Prop 209. The first report, “Free to Compete,” examined the impact on minority businesses.

Monique Morris will be one of the panelists at “Economic Opportunity in California: The Labor and Employment Impact of Prop. 209,” a symposium on Friday, October 26, 2007, from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the UCLA Faculty Center.

Established in 1999, HCSJ fosters creative scholarship that examines the law through a lens of social justice, and works in partnership with communities to provide education to the general public.

For more info: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/csj/.

Oct. 26 Symposium Registration Now Open

We’ve opened up the registration for “Economic Opportunity in California: The Labor and Employment Impact of Prop. 209,” a symposium on Friday, October 26, 2007, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (reception to follow) at the UCLA Faculty Center. The symposium will examine and discuss the 10-year impact of Proposition 209 on public employment, contracting and the public sphere.

Attendance is free, but pre-registration is required. Lunch will be provided.

We have held a block of rooms at a discounted rate of $169/night at Hotel Angeleno in Westwood. The hotel provides a shuttle to the UCLA campus every 30 minutes. You can reserve the rooms online or call the reservation line at (310) 476-6411 and ask for the “Impact 209″ group discount. You must book before October 3, 2007, to qualify for the rate.

We also recommend Tiverton House, one of the UCLA on-campus guest houses. It is walking distance from the UCLA Faculty Center. Rooms start at $120/night with parking included. Impact 209 does not have a block of rooms reserved there, but participants can call the reservation desk directly at (310) 794-0151.

UCLA also has a list of nearby hotels at www.cho.ucla.edu/housing/hotels.htm.

New ReclaimCivilRights.org Site Launched to Serve as Resource on Civil Rights Enforcement

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund today launched a new site, ReclaimCivilRights.org, to serve as a clearinghouse for civil rights enforcement materials. The website features an interactive map demonstrating how individual states have been affected by recent rollbacks in civil rights enforcement as well as an interactive timeline that tracks civil rights progress and setbacks.

The site was announced today in a media briefing call with former Assistant Attorney General John Dunne, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights President Wade Henderson, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund President & Director/Counsel Theodore Shaw and MALDEF Regional Counsel Peter Zamora.

The call participants discussed the future of the Civil Rights Division the same day that a Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the 50th anniversary of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

The 1957 Civil Rights Act, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, established the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice and created a federal civil rights legal infrastructure. The 1957 Act also expanded the Attorney General’s reach in certain civil rights cases and established the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Full unedited testimony of all of the committee’s witnesses, as well as key fact sheets and video, will be available at www.reclaimcivilrights.org.