Our Rights, Our Future

NCRCR Recognizes the Next Generation of Civil Rights Leaders

The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights (NCRCR) has announced the winners of its 2010 Written Essay and Visual Image Contest. The contest entitled “What Does Equality Mean to You?” asked youth ages 14-18 across the United States to define equality from their unique perspectives by submitting either a written entry or a visual image such as a drawing, cartoon or photograph. Winners were selected by a panel of high-profile judges, including singer and songwriter Alicia Keys, comedian Margaret Cho, Congressman Keith Ellison (MN), Congressman Gregory Meeks (NY) and NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous.

Naomi Lattanzi, 16, of Los Altos, California won for her courageous personal essay entitled “Are You?” in which she discusses how she feels when a schoolmate asks whether she is a lesbian. As the nation continues to struggle with issues affecting the rights and everyday lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (“LGBTQQ”) communities such as marriage equality, bias attacks and bullying, Naomi’s answer seems fitting: “I don’t know, but you can’t take away what sense of self I have. As long as I have people who accept me you can’t make me feel inferior. You’ll eventually have to accept the truth: We are equals.”

18-year-old Misra Walker from the Bronx, New York is the winner in the visual image category. Misra’s powerful image of a Latino man standing in front of an American flag with his arms crossed over his chest and eyes downcast evokes the conflicting feelings of frustration and hope experienced by many immigrants across this country as they seek to realize the “American Dream.” This image seems particularly appropriate given the debates about immigration and citizenship happening across the country.

Finally, 18-year-old Abisola Barbara Williams from Brooklyn, New York was the first runner-up in the visual entry category. Abisola’s piece, a collage of three images featuring a young woman wearing a Muslim headscarf, another without head covering, and someone wearing a bracelet with the word “peace,” spoke to her sense of how the various aspects of race, gender and religion interact to form a complex pattern of discrimination that has resulted in her Muslim peers experiencing violence and harassment on the streets of New York. Again, this image addressed a timely and important topic given the recent rise in anti-Islamic sentiment across the country.

The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights invited winners and finalists to New York City this week in order to recognize their leadership efforts. Naomi and Abisola participated in a training session on how to speak about civil rights issues and met with a variety of civil rights advocates.

Young people have always played an important role in the struggle for civil rights and social justice. Despite the accusations of laziness and indifference leveled at them, youth political involvement over the past few years has broken every stereotype about the apathy of young people in America. During the 2008 presidential campaign we saw first-hand that this ‘Millennial Generation’ is thinking about and playing an active role in civil rights, politics and social issues. Naomi, Misra and Abisola represent a new generation of leaders whose activism and innovation will continue to shape the landscape of civil rights and social justice in the 21st century.

Culture Corner: More on Civil Rights and the Courts in Pop Culture

If you’ll permit us a brief detour from pop culture into a more scholarly, Supreme Court-loving culture (although the Supreme Court probably does constitute pop culture for many people) we thought it worth highlighting the biography of former Justice William J. Brennan published late last year. While NCRCR Director Juanne Renee Harris has acknowledged that Brennan was ‘no Jimmy Smits,’ there was still a good deal of intrigue to be found in this book...mixed in with a few hundred pages of dense but interesting case history. For those not yet born during the early days of the civil rights movement, the book provides a lot of context for what was going on in the judiciary and around the country during one of the most profound eras of social change in our country and in the decades that followed. So, if you are a Supreme Court watcher, find case law interesting, think Supreme Court justices are pop culture icons, or would just like to try something that looks at the civil rights movement from a different perspective, this book may be for you.

For a more detailed review of the book, see Dahlia Lithwick's piece in the New York Times.

The Culture Corner is a series of blog posts intended to be a forum for discussion of how pop culture treats issues of civil rights, social justice and the courts. Television, movie, theater and musical portrayals inform our understanding of these issues on a daily basis. Are these depictions accurate? Fair? Misleading? We welcome your thoughts. Please join in the discussion. 

(Photo by Chattanooga Endeavors Inc.) 

Guest Blogger: Citizens United Opening the Floodgates

By Paula Z. Segal

The Supreme Court once said, “The protection given speech and press was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.”

Earlier this year, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court made clear that, according to its way of thinking, “people” includes “corporations.” Previous decisions by the Court suggested that limits on corporate financial contributions served the important purpose of preventing corruption in elections.  Now, though, the Court distinction between money given directly to candidates’ campaigns and independent expenditures on advertising or, in this case, a movie, that took a position on a candidate. The Court reasoned that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,” and concluded that the First Amendment does not allow the government to limit independent expenditures under most circumstances.

As the Supreme Court term ends, it’s timely to look back on one of the key decisions of the year.  Some critics of the decision have said that it will undermine democracy by giving corporations unprecedented power; supporters say that it supports free speech. Six months after the Citizens United ruling, we are beginning to see signs of how significant this decision really is.

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court expanded the protection of the First Amendment to corporations that spend money in elections, as long as that money was not a direct contribution to a candidate’s campaign. Corporate spending on behalf of a candidate can no longer be limited in the interests of reducing corruption or the appearance of corruption. This expanded zone of protection offered by the First Amendment restricts laws passed by federal, state and local governments that were intended precisely to limit corporate involvement. Since the Citizens United decision, state courts and officials around the country have invalidated state statutes passed earlier with the intention of creating a buffer zone between business and government.

The Tennessee legislature passed a statute in 1972 that has prohibited use of any corporate funds in any elections. After Citizens United, Tennessee’s Attorney General concluded that the statute was unconstitutional and invalid. According to the Attorney General, corporate funds are now allowed in Tennessee elections as long as they are “independent expenditures,” not direct contributions to a candidate. The Attorney General’s ruling is based entirely on the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United; there was no need for the legislature to revisit the statute. The statute can no longer be enforced because its enforcement would violate the First Amendment as newly interpreted. The 2010 election cycle will be the first time in 38 years that corporate funds will be allowed in Tennessee campaigns.

The Ohio legislature passed a “revolving door statute” in 2005 with the explicit intention of  preventing unethical practices by public employees and public officials and to promote, maintain, and bolster the public's confidence in the integrity of state government. The statute prohibited uncompensated lobbying by former members of the Ohio legislature for a year after leaving the assembly. The legislature was also concerned with unequal access to the legislature by outside organizations and concluded that a year waiting period would reduce the effect of such access. The federal district court concluded that the revolving door statute violated the First Amendment after Citizens United. Now, former members of the Ohio legislature can become lobbyists for corporate interests the day after leaving office. They no longer need to wait a year.

In 2002, the people of Colorado amended their state constitution to limit corporate influence in state elections. The 2002 amendments included a provision that made it unlawful for a corporation or labor organization to make expenditures expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate and a separate provision that made it unlawful for a corporation or a labor organization to provide funding for an electioneering communication. When asked by Governor Ritter to consider whether these provisions are a violation of the First Amendment after Citizens United, the top court in Colorado concluded that they were. The impact of Citizens United in Colorado is that, despite the clearly expressed desire of the people of the state to protect Colorado’s electoral politics from corporate influence and the passage of amendments to the Colorado constitution, corporations and labor organizations now can spend money to advocate directly for or against a candidate, and to fund campaign communications directly.

Sections of the San Diego Municipal Election Campaign Control Ordinance prohibited election spending by any entity that is not an individual person, imposed a $500 cap on spending by a single entity, and limited spending by candidates on their own behalf to 12 months or more before election day. A federal court in California concluded that those sections cannot be enforced after Citizens United because they violate the newly interpreted First Amendment. Now, corporate entities can spend money to influence San Diego elections; they can spend an unrestricted amount of money. Candidates can also spend their own money to campaign right up until the day of the election.

Whatever you think of the Citizens United ruling, it is important. The examples above serve to illustrate the domino effect such a decision can have on state and local policies throughout the country.

Paula Z. Segal is a second year student at City University of New York School of Law and a Haywood Burns Fellow in Civil and Human Rights. Before law school, she taught English to Speakers of Other Languages and continues to develop materials for ESOL instructors to connect language and life skills. She is also working with the New York Civil Liberties Union to reduce the school to prison pipeline and coordinates the CUNY Street Law Team, which brings the law to New York City high school students and community groups. For more on the school to prison pipeline, go to http://www.nyclu.org/issues/youth-and-student-rights.

(Photo by PoliticalActivityLaw.com.)

Supreme Court Roundup: What Is at Stake for Civil Rights

Yet again we have reached the end of a Supreme Court term and important rulings are being released in short succession.  Below is a roundup of some of the term’s most significant cases involving civil rights. While the cases vary in subject matter, all illustrate that the way the Court rules (and correspondingly, who is making the decisions) has a serious impact on our lives.

THE GOOD

We touched upon the Lewis v. City of Chicago case in our March audio interview. Last month, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the black firefighters seeking redress for racial discrimination in hiring. The case will be sent back to appeals court to be tried once again.

The Supreme Court also ruled that teenagers may not be locked up for life without chance of parole if they haven't killed anyone. Of course, that any teenagers get life sentences in the United States is still astounding and unusual from an international perspective. It’s worth noting, though, that the juvenile offender case was a 5-4 ruling (written by Justice Kennedy), which serves as yet another reminder of how important the selection of the justices is in preserving basic rights.

THE BAD

The big news last week was the 5-4 ruling on “Miranda rights,” having to do with the right to remain silent when under arrest. Though NCRCR largely focuses on access to the courts to enforce anti-discrimination law, the rights of workers and our ability to protect the environment (among other things), this case is a big deal and serves as a reminder of the important role of the court system. The Supreme Court ruled that criminal suspects seeking to protect their right to remain silent must actually speak up in order to invoke it, redefining the court’s 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona.

Another 5-4 ruling in April further restricted fees that lawyers can receive under laws that were intended to encourage attorneys to take on civil rights cases.  Though many people may not be so interested in the issue of attorneys' fees, the question  whether attorneys can receive payment when they take on civil rights cases is an important one.  Clients in these cases are often low-income and thus cannot pay for legal services. The way the law is structured, when people who are discriminated against win their case, they’re entitled to fees, so that the lawyers can get paid something for their work and so there will be an incentive for lawyers to take these cases in the future, which helps to ensure that the law is enforced and benefits us all.   Perdue v. Kenny A. dealt with how judges should determine how much the losing side has to pay.  Though the Court didn’t rule out the possibility that attorneys might be recognized for extraordinary work, they set the standard so high that it’s hard to see what might qualify.  (In this case, the judge increased fees in light of the fact that, as he put it, it was the best performance he had seen in his 28 years on the bench.  This apparently wasn’t good enough to meet the Court’s new standard). Perdue is one of a number of cases over the last decade that raise questions about when the prevailing party is entitled to fees and how much they can get, cutting back on when lawyers can get an award (see Buckhannon, for example) and how much they can get.

THE UGLY

The Supreme Court announced that visitors to its courthouse will no longer be allowed to enter through the front door. The New York Times describes this decision as “ripe with symbolism about access to justice in the age of terror.”

THE YET UNDETERMINED

In March, the Supreme Court heard a case challenging the way the government interprets immigration laws. The case involves a lawful permanent resident (with four children who are US citizens) who had been convicted of a misdemeanor for possession of marijuana and one Xanax pill. José Angel Carachuri-Rosendo was subsequently located and ordered to be deported on grounds that he “could have” been convicted of a felony. Kevin Johnson writes on the ACSblog that, “The U.S. government's tortured interpretation would have a devastating impact on immigrant communities, especially long-time residents with deep family and community ties to the United States.” We are awaiting a ruling.

Also still pending a decision is McDonald v. Chicago, a challenge to the authority of state and local governments to regulate individual possession of guns.  Legally, the question is whether or not the right to bear arms, which the Court has recently ruled restricts the federal government’s latitude, also applies to state and local governments. It’s a tricky issue for people who have been fighting against gun control and, at the same time, argue for “strict constructionism” or a more “textual” reading of the Constitution, which has no explicit language suggesting that the states can’t regulate possession of guns.  Invalidating the Chicago law at issue in the case would require a broad interpretation of the due process clause or other restrictions on states found in the 14th Amendment, something that “strict constructionists” have been staunchly against. 

Stay tuned for more information and feel free to comment on which cases you think are most important!

(Photo by The Library of Congress.)

Guest Blogger: Senators, Start Asking Supreme Court Nominees the Right Questions.

By Richael Faithful

Today, President Obama announced the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. For the past few weeks, legal and political commentators have speculated widely about the President's prospective Court choices, potential procedural barriers facing judicial nominees, and have already been debating the candidate's pros and cons. Justice Stevens’ replacement -- the President’s second Supreme Court nomination during his short tenure -- is certainly significant. Recent Court decisions on corporate campaign spending, DNA evidence in criminal cases, and federal government voters’ rights enforcement, demonstrate the Roberts Court’s  hostility toward core civil rights principles. Many insist that a new Supreme Court Justice must be an individual who will maintain some ideological balance in the Court, blocking Justice Roberts’ assault on constitutional protections.

However, it can be argued that the nomination process itself, as it currently exists, impedes civil rights progress in the United States.

First, the current confirmation process dissuades the President from choosing the strongest candidates for the job -- nominees with truly robust pro-civil rights records. Before the process even begins, many excellent Supreme Court candidates decline nomination offers because they do not want to undergo the accompanying public scrutiny. In this media-driven age, many prospective candidates simply do not want to have every aspect of their lives turned over for scandal-fodder. Pro-civil rights candidates who have written progressive judicial opinions, those whose decisions reflect pro-civil rights philosophies, and/or those who have displayed pro-civil rights leanings that have nothing to do with their judicial records have come to be proverbial sitting ducks for character assassins. Although the confirmation process is not responsible for the current political environment, Senators often do not exercise prudential restraint in their questioning, arguably using the nominations venue for personal political grand-standing.  We cannot know for sure the number of outstanding potential nominees we have lost before the nominations process even started, due to the very nature of the process. 

Once a candidate is nominated, she or he faces the radicalization of their judicial persona by Senate members. Civil rights supporters are attacked by the Right as being “outside the mainstream” or “supportive of special rights.” Oftentimes these charges are heavily coded, as they were during Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation. Justice Sotomayor underwent relentless criticism for her opinion in the well-known Ricci decision, which upheld settled employment discrimination law designed to protect minorities from systemic workplace bias through facially neutral practices. Senators made baseless charges that her opinion revealed some secret anti-white sentiment. These charges gained some traction among the white viewing public who are suspicious of certain civil rights policies, which some see as a form of government-sanctioned favoritism. In fact, this spin-campaign was so effective that it emboldened Senator Tom Coburn to make highly-inappropriate, racist statements about the distinguished judge. Such comments, in my opinion, are much more than faux-pas -- they are invitations to a powerful, mobilized political base and to the general public, asking them to marginalize civil rights issues as [undeserved ‘special rights’ that positively impact only a few].

Finally, the current confirmation process diminishes the relevance -- indeed, the importance -- of today’s civil rights movements. Nominees are routinely asked about their views on landmark cases, their stock answers tend to placate those who will only be satisfied by politically-correct answers. We know, of course, that the next Supreme Court Justice nominee supports Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. Professing allegiance to important yet old cases suggests that civil rights is an ancient agenda — one that was sought and achieved during the time of Dorothy Height’s prominence. The Senate’s disengagement with nominees on “live” civil rights issues allow nominees to slip into high-court seats with little accountability or knowledge about their true judicial philosophies. This has a very real impact on all of us; especially America’s most marginalized people. Senators rarely level sophisticated, fair-minded questions on modern civil rights issues such racial profiling against communities of color, women’s right to equal pay, government discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, or the status of American Indian tribal sovereignty. Rather, they tend to hammer through hyper-partisan questions to either grand-stand on “their” issues or tip-toe into a “gotcha” moment. This sort of exchange does little to advance civil rights in this country.

The system of checks and balances serves as a procedural safeguard against executive branch abuse, however, the current nomination and confirmation process has negative implications for civil rights.  Courageous Senators, advocates, and members of the general public must push the President to choose a nominee with a solid civil rights record and a strong voice on the issues that affect us all.  Senators must delve into the nominee’s judicial record to ask pointed, non-partisan questions about their rationales. In doing so, they can more forcefully challenge  those who insist on portraying civil rights as a “special interest” legacy that is longer necessary, while  re-introducing congeniality and  restoring professionalism and integrity to the confirmation process.  Most importantly, Senators must be independent -- they must refuse to support nominees who are soft on civil rights regardless of party affiliation. Values-based tenacity is the true character of the modern civil rights movement. Now, we just need congressional leaders who exemplify that character. 

Richael Faithful is a second-year student at American University Washington College of Law. She is Editor-In-Chief of The Modern American, a legal publication dedicated to diversity and the law. She is also a former community organizer with the Virginia Organizing Project. As a law student she continues organize and advocate for radical, transformative change.

(Photo by dsearls.)

1955 Revisited

Every so often, a news story calls for the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights (NCRCR) to acknowledge the value of our system of checks and balances and how important it is to the enforcement of the law.   For example, this past month, a federal district court ordered Walthall County, Mississippi to eliminate policies that have resulted in racial segregation among the school district’s students. Judge Tom Lee ordered a small south Mississippi school district to stop allowing hundreds of white students to transfer out of largely black schools, calling the practice a violation of a 1970s desegregation order and federal law. As a result of student transfers, one school became racially identifiable as the ‘white school’ while student enrollment at the other schools had become predominately black. The judicial order calls for the current transfer policies to be reversed, and for the creation of specific guidelines under which student transfers must be approved.

The Department of Justice (DOJ), a federal agency under the executive branch of government, began investigating the Walthall County school district in 2007, and discovered the use of duplicate bus routes to transfer children to different schools. The measure cost the school district about $54,000 a year -- money that clearly should have been spent on education. In addition, the school district allegedly grouped students in individual schools, creating a disproportionate number of white students in certain elementary level classrooms. This resulted in “large numbers of all-black classes at every grade level in those schools.”

Given that the Walthall County School Board had ignored previous directives to stop segregating its schools, the Justice Department called upon the federal court system to remedy the situation, proposing a consent decree to reverse the school board's practices. Thomas Perez, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said, "More than 55 years after Brown v. Board of Education, it is unacceptable for school districts to act in a way that encourages or tolerates the resegregation of public schools. We will take action so that school districts subject to federal desegregation orders comply with their obligation to eliminate vestiges of separate black and white schools."

Our country has a great set of laws aimed at creating a fair and just society, but laws alone do not justice make. Laws need to be enforced, and policies that overstep the mark need to be checked. Over the past decade, many have criticized the Department of Justice for its inaction and failure to fulfill its mission to “enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law” and to “ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.” In this instance, though, the Department of Justice did its job, very well at that.

(Photo by Guerilla Futures | Jason Tester.)

NCRCR on The Huffingon Post, Again!

The Campaign had a piece published on The Huffington Post today. Check out 'The Constitution Does Not Sanction Bigotry'.

Grammy Award Winner Alicia Keys and Comedian Margaret Cho Join the NCRCR 2010 Youth Contest

The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights is happy to announce the addition of artist/humanitarian Alicia Keys and comedian/civil rights activist Margaret Cho to the panel of judges for its 2010 Contest, which asks young people across the country for their views on equality.  More information is available on the contest site.

National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights Spurs National Youth Dialogue

Today, the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights (NCRCR) is launching a national contest intended to draw thousands of young people into a dialogue on civil rights. The contest, entitled “What Does Equality Mean to You?” asks youth aged 14-18 across the United States to define equality from their unique perspectives. 

This contest seeks the opinions of a generation entering civic life. “Equality has meant different things to different people at different times,” said Marianne Engelman-Lado of NCRCR. “We invite America’s youth to share their perspectives and tell us what equality means to them.” Young people can submit either a written entry or a visual image such as a drawing, cartoon or photograph. The contest will run until April 12, 2010. Contest winners will receive prizes including a $500 cash award, and a trip for two to New York City. Entries will be judged by a panel of celebrity judges, including Congressman Keith Ellison, Congressman Gregory Meeks, and Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Please go to http://www.rollbackcampaign.org/contest2010/ for more details.

NCRCR Interview Series: Implicit Bias

Tricia Perry of the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights spoke with Rachel Godsil, professor at Seton Hall School of Law and founding board member of the American Values Institute, about how discrimination can persist in a society that seeks to treat all people equally. Listen in as Godsil explains the concept of implicit bias and the role it may play in the justice system going forward.