Monday, December 9, 2013 | news
District prosecutors ran criminal background checks on several potential jurors in a high-profile gang case, raising serious concerns from a judge who questioned why most people they selected were African American….Vincent M. Southerland, senior counsel with the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, called what prosecutors did in the case “troubling.” “If you subject one […]
Tuesday, July 15, 2014 | news
Below is a statement from Sherrilyn A. Ifill, the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Fisher v. University of Texas on remand. The Fifth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s finding of summary judgment. Today, the Fifth Circuit affirmed that Affirmative Action measures taken […]
Thursday, August 13, 2015 | news
In 50 years into the Voting Rights Act, there’s still work to do, LDF attorney Leah Aden discusses LDF’s efforts to use Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and other advocacy tools to challenge felon disfranchisement laws in states like New York and Washington. Aden asserts that felon disfranchisement laws are rooted in post-slavery efforts to make the […]
Monday, September 13, 2021 | ldf-perspectives
In Their Words Women of LDF on Constance Baker Motley’s Enduring Legacy By Sarah Friedmann Director of Original Content and Editor in Chief Through her storied career, Constance Baker Motley left an indelible mark, advancing civil rights in the United States, improving countless lives through her work on desegregation and equity — and breaking numerous […]
Monday, April 25, 2016 | news
A Mix of Hope, Skepticism Greets North Charleston’s Bid for Police Reform …Monique Dixon, [LDF’s] deputy policy director in Washington, said she and other advocates view North Charleston’s move as a direct result of that persistent call. She welcomed it. But in effect, the city will be getting softer scrutiny than it would face in […]
Tuesday, February 16, 2016 | news
How to Bring the Supreme Court Back Down to Earth Today’s court includes two former prosecutors (Justices Sotomayor and Samuel A. Alito Jr.) and no former defense lawyers. What difference does that make? In The Washington Post, Radley Balko has argued that the court has a “massive blind spot” when it comes to abuses by […]
Monday, May 4, 2015 | news
Obama’s Difficult Legacy on Race “There is more that the administration can be doing to ensure proper training, supervision, and transparency at the local level through the funding structure and civil rights compliance structure that is already in place,” said Leslie Proll, Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Washington office. Read the full article […]
Monday, September 17, 2018 | news
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) today filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court arguing that a key statute designed to shield consumers from abusive debt collection practices applies to all homeowners facing foreclosure. The brief was filed in Obduskey v. McCarthy, where the Court is weighing whether the protections of […]
Thursday, June 2, 2011 | news
WASHINGTON — Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has reversed a pattern of systematically hiring conservative lawyers with little experience in civil rights, the practice that caused a scandal over politicization during the Bush administration. Instead, newly disclosed documents show, the lawyers hired over the past two years at the division […]
Friday, January 29, 2016 | news
Sherrilyn Ifill and the NAACP Legal Defense Educational Fund Inc. (LDF) Driving Diversity and Democracy in the Legal Profession When asked about the mission of the NAACP LDF, Sherrilyn Ifill, [President and Director-Counsel] of the nation’s premier civil rights law organization, stated, “I am fond of saying that civil rights work is the work of […]
