Thursday, March 19, 2020 | news
“Dear Mayor Young and Police Commissioner Harrison: On behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF),1 we write to raise several concerns about the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) Aerial Investigation Research Pilot Program, which is better known to Baltimore City residents as the aerial surveillance plane program.2 First, there is no evidence […]
Monday, September 22, 2025 | news
Read a PDF of our statement here. A recent New York Times article reports that civil rights attorneys at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) filed a whistleblower complaint stating that the Trump administration is actively rolling back enforcement of laws that protect against housing discrimination, including the Fair Housing Act of […]
Thursday, July 21, 2011 | news
(Washington, DC) — LDF commends Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Attorney General Eric Holder on their announcement of the “Supportive School Discipline Initiative”. This is a collaboration between the Department of Education and Department of Justice is designed to address the “School-to-Prison Pipeline.” The stated goals of the initiative are to build consensus for […]
Wednesday, December 17, 2025 | news
Yesterday, members of the Maryland State Legislature voted to override the veto of Senate Bill 587, which now establishes a Reparations Commission to study and make recommendations to address discrimination and other harms faced by individuals whose ancestors were enslaved in Maryland or were impacted by Jim Crow era laws and their legacy. With this action, […]
Tuesday, July 30, 2024 | news
President Joseph Biden has proposed a series of reforms to increase ethics, accountability, and public trust in the Supreme Court of the United States. His proposal follows recommendations made by the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, in which former Legal Defense Fund (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Sherrilyn Ifill participated and […]
Tuesday, March 21, 2023 | news
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a decision in Mack v. Yost et al., vacating the District Court’s grant of qualified immunity to corrections officers who are alleged to have engaged in a campaign of religious bigotry and harassment against Charles Mack, a practicing Muslim, during his incarceration at a […]
Thursday, December 5, 2024 | news
The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) today commends the Department of Justice (DOJ) for concluding its investigation under 34 U.S.C. § 12601 regarding whether the Memphis Police Department had committed a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights. The DOJ’s findings shed a light on issues that Memphis residents have been raising […]
Thursday, August 14, 2014 | news
LDF today commended President Obama for ordering an investigation into the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager shot to death by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri earlier this week. LDF also commends the President for urging Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to create a plan for addressing the state’s response to protests in the wake of Mr. Brown’s death. […]
Monday, December 23, 2024 | news
Read a PDF of our press statement here. Today, President Biden granted commutations to nearly all persons who were facing execution on federal death row. In response, Legal Defense Fund (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson issued the following statement: “We commend President Biden for using his clemency powers to address systemic injustice and save the […]
Thursday, December 12, 2024 | news
Today, President Biden granted commutations to nearly 1,500 people serving the remainder of their sentences in home confinement under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The CARES Act was enacted in March 2020 and was later expanded to allow certain medically vulnerable people in federal prisons to be released into federal custody […]
