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Cara McClellan

Cara McClellan is Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund where she works primarily on increasing equitable access to education and ending the criminalization of Black people. Cara is lead counsel in I.S. v. Binghamton School District, a lawsuit challenging the discriminatory strip search of four middle school Black and Latina girls […]

Captive Constituents Report

Capital punishment: America’s worst crime

The death penalty case of Mumia Abu-Jamal took a surprising turn this week, as a federal appeals court declared, for the second time, that Abu-Jamal’s death sentence was unconstitutional. The third US circuit court of appeals, in Philadelphia, found that the sentencing instructions the jury received, and the verdict form they had to use in […]

Can We Fix the Race Problem in America’s School Discipline?

In Rolling Stone, Leticia Smith-Evans, Interim Director of the Education Practice at LDF, is featured in “Can We Fix the Race Problem in America’s School Discipline?” in which she talks about the DOJ and DOE’s recently issued guidance on school discipline:  “Of course, school-based discrimination does not exist in a vacuum. Advocates like Arnold point […]

Calvin McMillian v. State of Alabama

On September 18 2020, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court supporting the overturning of the judicial override for capital punishment in Alabama. In previous capital cases, if a jury voted to sentence a defendant to life in prison, a judge in Alabama could override the […]

California Horror Stories and the 3-Strikes Law

Californians brought a close to a shameful period in the state’s history when they voted this month to soften the infamous “three strikes” sentencing law. The original law was approved by ballot initiative in 1994, not long after a parolee kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl. It was sold to voters as a way of […]

Business, Civil Rights Groups Blast Kline’s NCLB Proposal

A top GOP lawmaker’s plan for rewriting the No Child Left Behind Act amounts to a “rollback” of the law, 38 business, civil rights, and other advocacy organizations said in a letter, sent Jan. 24 to its sponsor. The draft from U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., chairman of the House education committee, “would thrust us […]

Building a campus that includes everyone

I won’t be in class on Wednesday. Instead, I will be in Washington, D.C. at the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the historic arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas. This case will decide whether UT will be able to continue on the path to becoming a place where students of all races and backgrounds […]

Buck v. Davis

At Duane Buck’s 1997 capital sentencing hearing in Harris County (Houston), Texas, Mr. Buck’s own appointed trial attorneys presented testimony from a psychologist that Mr. Buck was likely to commit criminal acts of violence in the future because he is black. The trial prosecutor exploited trial counsel’s error and relied on this expert testimony to […]

Bryan Independent School District – Police in Schools Complaint

Civil rights advocates have long worked to limit harmful school discipline practices that exclude children from quality educational environments.  Suspensions, expulsions and disciplinary assignments to alternative schools have devastating consequences on students, reducing their chances of graduating and making it more likely that they will become involved in juvenile or criminal courts.  Now another trend […]