Monday, September 23, 2024 | news
Read a PDF of our statement here. Recently, multiple public officials, including Portage County, Ohio Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski, unleashed a deluge of hateful language aimed at immigrants of color and asylum seekers. In response, Legal Defense Fund (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson made the following statement: “The recent onslaught of hateful language aimed at immigrants […]
Wednesday, March 6, 2024 | post
Read a PDF of our statement here. Today, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul announced a five-point plan that includes deploying 1,000 members of the U.S. National Guard and New York State police throughout New York City’s transit system. Hochul’s plan includes legislation that would expand judges’ authority to ban people from the transit system […]
Wednesday, March 6, 2024 | news
Today, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul announced a five-point plan that includes deploying 1,000 members of the U.S. National Guard and New York State police throughout New York City’s transit system. Hochul’s plan includes legislation that would expand judges’ authority to ban people from the transit system upon certain kinds of convictions, allow prosecutors […]
Friday, March 22, 2024 | news
The state of Georgia executed Willie James Pye via lethal injection late Wednesday evening after the Georgia Parole Board denied his request for clemency based on his intellectual disability and the gross ineffectiveness of his trial counsel. Prior to Mr. Pye’s execution, Georgia had not executed anyone in four years. In response, the Legal Defense […]
Friday, June 13, 2025 | news
Legal Defense Fund (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson issued the following statement in response to the forced removal and handcuffing of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla at a Department of Homeland Security press conference on June 12, 2025. “We are outraged by the aggressive and unjustified mistreatment of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, who was forcibly […]
Friday, January 12, 2024 | news
Today, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it will be seeking the death penalty in the event of a conviction of Payton Gendron, the then 18-year-old white supremacist that shot and killed 10 Black people in Buffalo, New York at the Tops supermarket. In response, the Legal Defense Fund’s (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Janai S. […]
Saturday, August 26, 2023 | news
This week, a referendum campaign by the Cop City Vote coalition faces a new hurdle: the City of Atlanta has revealed it will engage in a signature matching process that courts have repeatedly found to be inaccurate, subjective, and suppressive. The Cop City Vote coalition has been working to halt the construction of Cop City, […]
Saturday, June 17, 2017 | news
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Condemns Education Department’s Decision to Scale Back Civil Rights Enforcement Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education signaled that it would all but abandon its mandate to enforce civil rights protections in America’s public schools, jeopardizing the well-being and academic success of millions of children at a moment when they need those […]
Monday, August 11, 2025 | news
Today, President Trump announced the deployment of the D.C. National Guard and that he would work with state governors to deploy other National Guard units to Washington, D.C. The President issued an executive order claiming a crime emergency in D.C., despite strong evidence to the contrary, and that the federal government would take control of […]
Tuesday, April 29, 2025 | news
Yesterday, President Trump issued an executive order that, without cause or justification, aims to expand aggressive law enforcement practices that will increase criminalization, funnel federal resources—including military and national security assets—to local law enforcement agencies, bolster already expansive protections for law enforcement officers, and threaten prosecution of state and local officials who promote more equitable […]
