The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld the August 2010 decision of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco striking down Proposition 8, the 2008 measure that stripped same-sex couples of the right to marry in California. The Court affirmed the ruling of former Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker that Prop 8 [...]
Several of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations filed amicus briefs this week urging the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in Magner v. Gallagher that the federal Fair Housing Act can be enforced when a seemingly neutral housing policy results in discrimination. The Opportunity Agenda joined AARP, ACLU, The Lawyers’ Committee For Civil Rights Under [...]
The Equal Justice Society signed on to an amicus brief by the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP opposing Alabama’s HB 56 law, the Beason-Hammon “Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act.” The country’s most draconian anti-immigrant law, HN 56 will result in discrimination against lawful permanent residents and citizens of color. The brief was filed [...]
The Equal Justice Society and more than a dozen other civil rights organizations this week filed an amicus brief (PDF) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, urging the court to strike down Michigan’s anti-equality Proposal 2 as unconstitutional. In its brief, EJS argues that Proposal 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause [...]
“Litigating Implicit Bias,” an article by EJS President Eva Paterson, appears in the latest issue of Poverty & Race, a bi-monthly newsletter by the Poverty & Race Research Action Council. PRRAC is an organization that connects advocates with social scientists working on race and poverty issues and promotes a research-based advocacy strategy on structural inequality [...]
In August, the EJS legal team traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the civil rights movement, where we met with death penalty litigators from around the country to identify strategies to overturn McCleskey v. Kemp, a 1987 Supreme Court case in which a habeas petitioner presented statistical evidence showing grave disparities in the imposition [...]
The end of the Supreme Court’s 2010-2011 term was marked in part by a series of recent developments and revelations highlighting the dire state of the Supreme Court, an institution that should be a fair and impartial forum for justice. The Court has instead become increasingly damaged, especially with landmark decisions such as in Dukes [...]
At the Equal Justice Society, we are working to reclaim the full protections of the 14th Amendment and help those who experience discrimination get their day in court. We know we have a tough and long road ahead in tackling our biggest challenge, namely overturning the “intent doctrine” as established in Washington v. Davis. Yet, [...]