The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) applauds U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) swift legal action today against the city of Ferguson. Ferguson has demonstrated extreme recalcitrance and disregard for the best interests of its residents by reneging on a well-negotiated consent decree with the DOJ to remediate racial discrimination in policing and its courts.
“The DOJ’s filing of a lawsuit against Ferguson today shows that it is rightly intolerant of cities and police forces that use obstructionist tactics to avoid responsibility for a pattern or practice of racial discrimination,” said Janai Nelson, LDF’s Associate-Director Counsel. “Ferguson residents now face a costly and potentially protracted lawsuit to achieve the needed reforms that the city had already agreed to. The Ferguson City Council’s actions yesterday–when it voted to reject a consent decree it had spent months negotiating with the DOJ–amount to a dereliction of duty to its residents who supported the consent decree and deserve responsive representation from its elected officials.”
For more on LDF’s response to the Ferguson City Council’s rejection of the proposed police and court reform consent decree, click here.
For the DOJ’s lawsuit against Ferguson, click here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization and has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
