Ricci Decision Threatens Constitutional Values of Equal Justice for All
In a 5 to 4 decision in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the city of New Haven, Connecticut violated Title VII when it declined to make promotions in the fire department on the basis of a test that disproportionately screened out minority candidates.
The Equal Justice Society joined the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, brief urging the Court to uphold New Haven’s efforts to root out discrimination from its promotional process, consistent with civil rights laws and the Constitution. The Lawyers’ Committee brief was also joined by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League.
“We are shocked by the decision and we will continue our work to preserve the vital protections of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” said Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Like Justice Ginsburg, we anticipate that the decision ‘will not have staying power.’”
In this case, the city of New Haven, Connecticut declined to certify the results of a firefighter promotion test based on evidence that the test discriminated on the basis of race. The city also had evidence that more fair and effective tests were available. Rather than making promotions on the basis of the discriminatory test, the city declined to certify the results, and sought to explore less discriminatory alternatives, in keeping with its obligations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When the city declined to make promotions on the basis of the test results, firefighters who had scored highly on the test filed suit, alleging that the city discriminated on the basis of race.
“Today’s decision ignores the plain language of Title VII, congressional intent and established precedent,” said Sarah Crawford, senior counsel with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s Employment Discrimination Project. “We still have far to go to fulfill Title VII’s promise of equal employment opportunity. This is a giant leap backward.”
Position Opening: EJS Director of Law and Public Policy
The Equal Justice Society is seeking experienced candidates for the position of Director of Law and Public Policy.
The Director of Law and Public Policy is a member of the management team of EJS and participates in the overall management and development of the organization. The Director reports to the President of EJS.
EJS is a national strategy group driven by a vision of a society where race is no longer a barrier to opportunity. Our mission is to heighten consciousness on race in the law and popular discourse. Grounded by an agenda that seeks progressive legal reform, we engage a three-pronged strategy that incorporates communications, law and policy, and fostering a “grand alliance” among our progressive allies.
Our legal strategy aims to broaden conceptions of present-day discrimination using cognitive science, structural analysis, and real-life experience. We provide attorneys with tools to challenge the flawed assumptions underlying current anti-discrimination doctrine.
The Director of Law and Public Policy is responsible for managing and directing the implementation of multiple programmatic responsibilities in pursuit of the organization’s goals and strategies. The Director will be expected to:
* Supervise and prepare legal activity, including appellate briefs, amicus curiae, and, eventually, impact litigation involving issues of critical importance to EJS’s mission;
* Direct research by EJS staff, consultants and outside academics and social scientists on various legal and social justice issues;
* Plan and prepare law related conferences that bring together legal scholars, practitioners, law students, social scientists, journalists and other concerned activists to stimulate analysis and progressive reform of key areas of the law, with a particular emphasis on civil rights and social justice;
* Direct outreach to law schools, students and faculty to engage in research, public policy initiatives and legal action and supervising legal and/or research interns.
The Director of Law and Public Policy should have at least five (5) years of academic and/or legal experience, particularly in the area of civil rights, critical race theory, and/or the use of social science and the law. The ability to engage legal scholars, practitioners and grassroots activists is essential to successful performance. The Director will supervise a full-time staff attorney and a fellow, additional legal staff as the organization grows, occasional interns and help coordinate and direct other program staff.
The position is an exempt, professional and management position. The Director is expected to be a senior, experienced manager. A demonstrated record of working in coalition with other organizations is required.
Interested candidates should send a résumé and letter of interest on or after July 1* and sent no later than July 15, 2009, to info@equaljusticesociety.org and sent via postal mail (postmarked by July 15) to:
Search Committee
Equal Justice Society
260 California Street, Suite 700
San Francisco, CA 94111
* We ask that applications be sent on or after July 1 due to our office move taking place June 26-30.
Luke Cole: A Fierce Advocate
The Equal Justice Society mourns the loss of Luke W. Cole, founder of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment. Luke passed away June 6 in Uganda while on sabbatical.
The social justice movement is filled with many wonderful and effective advocates. Many of us have friends who are not part of this world who are just heaven to be with. Their presence brings a smile to your lips and lifts your heart.
Luke Cole was both—a great and fierce advocate and a great man. Many knew him for his yearly root beer parties. Others knew of the ground breaking work he did in the field of environmental justice. He made sure that the concerns of people of color and poor and working people were addressed when environmental issues were raised.
He also clearly loved his wife and his son and his life. I remember his trying to figure out how to get to France a couple of years ago and remember his absolute delight when he was able to pull it off.
Little did any of us know that this would be his last trip. It is both heart breaking and somehow life affirming that he died while on a trip that brought him so much pleasure. He was dedicated to the work that we all do but he also knew that a fully lived life encompasses much more than work. He knew how to live.
All the people I have communicated with are so sad, so sincerely sad. There is such a sense of loss. We have lost a good friend. A man with a wonderful spirit is no longer with us. We send our prayers and thoughts to his wife Nancy Shelby Cole who lost an eye in the horrible accident that took place on a road in Uganda at 7:30 a.m. on June 6. Their son Zane is on his way to Amsterdam to be with his Mom while doctors fight to save the orb of her eye.
At times like these, the petty concerns of the day fade away. One wants to reach out to everyone you know to let them know that you love them.
Luke’s death is somehow unbelievable. We are all so sad.
Eva Paterson
President
Equal Justice Society
Memorial services for Luke will be announced on the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment website.
Condolences may be sent to Luke’s family at:
Herbert “Skip” Cole
scole@arthistory.ucsb.edu
2020 El Camino de la Luz
Santa Barbara, CA 93109
Alexandra Cole
Accole5@yahoo.com
519 Fig Avenue
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Memorial Link:
www.lcmemorial.org
EJS Selects Brando Starkey as Judge Motley Civil Rights Fellow for 2009-2010
The Equal Justice Society announced the selection of Brando Starkey as our Judge Constance Baker Motley Civil Rights Fellow for 2009-2010.
The Judge Motley Fellowship was established to invigorate the next generation of progressive legal practitioners seeking to transform anti-discrimination law and policy. Proceeds from the annual Judge Motley Fellowship luncheon support the fellowship.
Brando Simeo Starkey graduated in June of 2008 with a J.D. from Harvard Law School. There, he was a research assistant at both the Jamestown Project, a think tank, and at the Law School’s library researching various matters for professors. He was also was an opinion editorialist for the Harvard Law Record, the school’s newspaper.
Brando also participated in the Human Rights clinic working for the Center for Constitutional Rights and Alternatives for Community & Environment. During his final year, he did some archival research for Philip Hamburger’s book Law and Judicial Duty.
His first year summer experience involved investigating poverty, arbitrary arrest and constitutional issues in Sierra Leone for the Sierra Leone Citizens’ Rights Association. The following summer, he interned at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Boston, Mass.
He received his undergraduate degree from Ohio State University in 2004 where he participated in the Students Research Opportunities Program and was a grant recipient for the STARS Research Program.
Additionally, he has published several works: The Veil of Fair Representation: Maurice Clarett v. NFL, “Acting White” and the Achievement Gap: Burden or Myth?: A Research Brief & Recommendations for Educators, Policymakers & Members of the Media, and Drastic Action: The 1983 Course Boycott at Harvard Law School.
Brando is finishing his first book on how the epithet Uncle Tom illustrates the various manners in which the law impacts Black culture. He has also delivered speeches on his written works at related academic conferences.
In addition to finishing his book, since graduation, Brando participates in the Post-Graduate Research Fellowship at HLS and was a Harvard Law Summer Fellow in 2008.
Brando starts his fellowship at EJS in October 2009.
Kellogg Foundation Awards Equal Justice Society Three-Year Grant
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has awarded the Equal Justice Society (EJS) a $1 million, three-year grant to support the organization’s ongoing efforts to address structural racial inequities, restore equal protection jurisprudence and help build a public platform - a “Grand Alliance” - for the racial justice advocacy movement.
EJS is a national strategy group heightening consciousness on race in the law and popular discourse. Employing strategies including law and public policy advocacy, cross-disciplinary convenings and strategic public communications, EJS seeks to restore race equity issues to the national consciousness, strengthen progressive alliances, and advance the discourse on the positive role of government.
The Kellogg Foundation grant will enhance EJS’s capacity in two key areas: improving the understanding and consideration of race in the law to minimize or remove barriers to equal opportunity; and fostering a “Grand Alliance” that encompasses a wide range of individuals, organizations and movements working together to achieve common goals and a collective vision.
“We are deeply grateful for the Kellogg Foundation’s generosity and its recognition of our work to move us closer to a society where race is no longer a barrier to opportunity,” said Eva Paterson, EJS co-founder and president. “EJS can now more aggressively pursue initiatives that have a long-term impact on the progressive and racial justice movements.”
EJS is one of the few institutions with an explicit focus on overturning barriers to implementing the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and antidiscrimination legislation. We are dedicated to redefining the “Equal Protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in order to redress and prevent present-day forms of bias and discrimination.
Our legal strategy aims to broaden conceptions of present-day discrimination by redefining the legal understanding of discrimination and how it operates. Our theory of changing the law relies upon real-life experiences of race and racial discrimination, and is supported by scientific evidence regarding the process and operation of discrimination at multiple levels, including the individual, institutional and structural. Because contemporary discrimination is frequently structural in nature, unconscious, or hidden beneath alternative excuses for a decision maker’s behavior (despite the fact that a tangible harm has resulted from their actions), the showing of “intent,” as required under current Equal Protection doctrine, becomes a near impossible burden to meet.
Moreover, the notion of proving “intent” has started to bleed into areas of law outside equal protection jurisprudence. In recent years, courts have demanded that plaintiffs prove “intent” in education, employment, criminal law and environmental discrimination cases. Thus, protection against any form of discrimination is under attack as long as the “intent” doctrine remains in place.
In developing a progressive vision of the law and of justice, we must acknowledge the interconnectedness between various issues, struggles and constituencies. This philosophy is the basis of EJS’s efforts to build a national “Grand Alliance.”
A Grand Alliance will create a culture of, and infrastructure for, engaging in cross-silo organizing and strategizing, educating our allies and ourselves - and supporting each other during difficult periods. Today’s civil rights movement must coalesce diverse communities and achieve a broad-based advocacy agenda inclusive of issues such as equal opportunity, marriage equality, and progressive immigration reform.
EJS has a proud tradition of reaching out to marginalized communities and advocating on behalf of social justice issues that have not always fallen under the civil rights umbrella.
EJS will continue supporting legal action to overturn California Proposition 8 and strengthen alliances between the African American and LGBT communities. We will also continue participating in strategic convenings on marriage equality, racial justice, and other intersecting issues. Likewise, EJS will continue supporting the immigrants’ rights movement by helping advance a progressive immigrant integration platform as well as strengthen support for immigrants’ rights from the civil rights, legal, and African American communities.
The Kellogg Foundation grant provides $200,000 to be applied in the first two years and $600,000 in the third and final year.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930. The organization supports children, families and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. For further information, please visit the Foundation’s website at www.wkkf.org.
Prof. Margaret Russell Appointed to Sen. Boxer’s Judicial Advisory Committee
U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today announced that she has established her judicial advisory committees that will be responsible for making recommendations to her for the positions of U.S. District Court Judge, U.S. Attorney, and U.S. Marshal. After consideration of their recommendations, Senator Boxer will forward her choices to the Administration.
Included among Sen. Boxer’s appointments is EJS board member Prof. Margaret Russell, who will sit on the Northern District committee.
“These committee members will ensure that my recommendations for judges, U.S. Attorneys, and U.S. Marshals will be highly qualified and worthy of the enormous trust that Californians will place in them,” said Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer has established judicial advisory committees in each of California’s four federal districts:
Akonadi Foundation Launches Oscar Grant Peace and Racial Justice Fund
The Akonadi Foundation today announced the launch of the Oscar Grant Peace and Racial Justice Fund and the immediate availability of mini-grants of up to $500 to support the critical and emerging organizing, advocacy, and cultural work taking place.
On the first day of 2009, a white BART police officer shot and killed Oscar Grant, 22, as the young African American man lay on his stomach with his hands cuffed behind his back. While the officer has now been charged with murder, his arrest took place a full two weeks after the killing, following massive public outcry and an intervention by the state Attorney General. (For more information please go to http://joincape.blogspot.com).
In response to Oscar Grant’s killing, people all across Oakland, the Bay Area, and the country have come together to demand justice. This outpouring of collective action has been supported and guided by the experience, resources, and members of community organizations that have worked for years toward creating a world free of the structures of racism that oppress and brutalize people of color every day.
