Monday, March 7, 2011 | news
New York City has quietly reached settlements with several plaintiffs in a federal class-action lawsuit alleging that the city’s trespassing-enforcement policies in public housing complexes are discriminatory and unlawful, lawyers and others said this week. Eleanor Britt, 63, of the Taft Houses rejected a city offer to settle her claims as part of a class-action […]
Thursday, November 4, 2010 | news
New Orleans is finally rebounding from much of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. But five years later, a big problem remains: blighted neighborhoods. To attract a vibrant middle class, these neighborhoods need to be repaired and restored, or, at the very least, stabilized. Residents who have been unable to rebuild because storm relief grants […]
Monday, December 27, 2010 | news
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said the judge’s decision was “not a setback” because it was consistent with new housing vertical patrol, procedures and training curriculum put in place this year. Before making a trespass arrest, Mr. Browne said, officers are trained to ask a person: Do you live in the building? […]
Thursday, February 24, 2011 | news
Two years ago, the Supreme Court looked over a cliff and decided not to jump. The question was whether a core section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as renewed by Congress in 2006 for another 25 years, was constitutional. A majority opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. strongly suggested that it […]
Monday, October 17, 2011 | news
ABIGAIL FISHER, a white student, says she was denied admission to the University of Texas because of her race. She sued in Federal District Court in Austin, causing Judge Sam Sparks to spend time trying to make sense of a 2003 Supreme Court decision allowing racial preferences in higher education. “I’ve read it till I’m […]
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | news
A City Council hearing on the New York Police Department’s use of its controversial “stop, question and frisk” policy in public housing became a one-sided affair on Tuesday, after police and housing officials declined to testify. Officials with both agencies cited pending federal litigation surrounding the policy in deciding not to appear. The officials said […]
Thursday, November 3, 2011 | news
Richard Thompson Ford (“Moving Beyond Civil Rights,” Op-Ed, Oct. 28) asserts that “civil rights have barely made a dent in today’s most severe and persistent social injustices” and suggests that part of the problem is an inordinate focus on “individual injuries.” Although Mr. Ford rightly addresses the importance of tackling racial inequality, he articulates an […]
Monday, October 14, 2013 | news
The New York Times’ Editorial Board writes a vigorous piece in today’s paper that charges Prop 2 in Michigan as “impermissibly alter[ing] the political process that determines admissions policies in a way that places special burdens on racial minorities.” Can a state’s citizens amend the state constitution to ban affirmative action programs in public universities, […]
Tuesday, February 26, 2013 | case-update
Yesterday’s unusual and powerful statement by Justice Sonya Sotomayor, which rebuked a federal prosecutor for appealing to racially biased stereotype during a trial, ended with an expression of her hope to “never to see a case like this again.” Today, the New York Times Editorial Page Editor’s blog pointed out that the case of LDF client, Duane Buck, […]
Wednesday, August 14, 2013 | news
The New York Times highlighted the efforts of Communities United for Police Reform which recently achieved a major legal victory in the movement against Stop-and-Frisk tactics. LDF’s representatives to CUPR are Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele and Marquis Jenkins. Communities United for Police Reform — an umbrella organization with strong ties in communities throughout the city — successfully reframed the […]
