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Washington Post: States line up to challenge stringent Section 5 voting rights provision

Conservative activists and Republican attorneys general have launched a series of lawsuits meant to challenge the most muscular provision of the Voting Rights Act 0f 1965 before a Supreme Court that has signaled it is suspicious of its constitutionality. Working their way to the high court are lawsuits from Arizona to North Carolina, challenging Section […]

Washington Post: Jacqueline Berrien on leading the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Jacqueline A. Berrien has been the chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) since April 2010. A Harvard Law School graduate, Berrien practiced civil rights law for many years, assisted underrepresented groups as a program officer for the Ford Foundation, and came to the EEOC from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, […]

Washington Post: Defense lawyer fights racism in death row cases

There’s a steadfast cheeriness to Christina Swarns as she talks rapid fire about the contours of her day. There are the rigors of her end-to-end Manhattan commute, how rarely she dresses like a grown-up and the usual challenges of the professional working mom. But that changes when the conversation turns to the role of race […]

Washington Post: Court hears challenge to Voting Rights Act

Conservative legal activists are set to renew their campaign to overturn the nation’s landmark Voting Rights Act, arguing before a federal district judge in Washington on Wednesday that states and local jurisdictions should no longer be forced to justify voting changes to the Justice Department or a federal court. The lawsuit, brought by officials in […]

Washington Post Reports on LDF Letter Condemning Surplus Weapon Transfers to Public Schools

In the Washington Post’s article “School police across the country receive excess military weapons and gear” Janel George explains “This isn’t just about the weapons, it’s also about inserting these weapons in school climates that are already fraught with tension and hostility between students of color and school police. It’s about inserting that and exacerbating […]

Washington Post Editorial Board Urges Passage of VRAA

In a strongly worded editorial, The Washington Post calls on Congress to pass the Voting Rights Amendment Act in the wake of the Supreme Court’s devastating decision in Shelby County, Alabama vs. Holder. “The ruling hobbled a law that for decades has offered meaningful political representation to minority Americans by preventing discriminatory tricks from limiting […]

Washington Post Columnist Lauds LDF amicus brief in Defense of Marriage Act case

Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart writes a glowing article about LDF’s amicus brief in U.S. v. Windsor, the case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act. In that brief, LDF argued that claims brought by gays against the statute that would deny federal benefits to same-sex married partners, should be reviewed by the Supreme Court using heightened […]

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s Criminal Records Policy – Criminal Records & Employment

Recent surveys of human resource managers show that the vast majority of employers now rely on criminal background checks as part of their applicant screening process.  While employers may consider a wide array of information when evaluating applicants, in some cases, employers can sometimes violate federal and state antidiscrimination laws if they consider an applicant’s […]

Was Trayvon Martin’s Killing A Federal Hate Crime?

Civil rights groups cheered the news that the Justice Department would look into the case of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teen shot by a man on neighborhood watch in Sanford, Fla. But the bar for the Justice Department to make a federal case is high. Ultimately, it has few options at its disposal when […]

Walter Jean-Jacques

Walter Anthony Jean-Jacques is a Notre Dame Public Interest Law Fellow. He graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 2020, where he was a Graduate Affiliate of the Klau Center for Civil and Human Rights of the University of Notre Dame. He is a recipient of the David T. Link Award for outstanding service in the […]

Waller County Modestly Expands Early Voting in Prairie View, LDF’s Suit Still Pending

In response to public pressure and a lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), election commissioners in Waller County, Texas yesterday took a modest but important step forward to provide equal opportunities to vote through early voting at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU), a historically Black college in Waller County. […]

Waldon v. Cincinnati Public Schools

Gregory Waldon had been a hard working, valued employee of the Cincinnati Public School system (CPS) for nearly 30 years. Mr. Waldon, who is African American, was looking forward to retiring in a few years with full benefits and spending time with his wife, children and grandchildren. But his supervisors at CPS told him he […]

Voting with a Felony Conviction in FL

On May 24, 2020, the federal district court issued a 125-page decision, based on a 10,000-page record, following an eight-day trial in the consolidated case Jones, et al. v. DeSantis, et al. Jones is a lawsuit challenging provisions within Senate Bill 7066 of 2019 (“SB7066”) that require people with felony convictions to pay “fines,” “fees,” […]

Voting with a Felony Conviction in FL

Voting Rights Organizations Send Letter to Texas Secretary of State about Expanding Vote-by-Mail Eligibility in Response to COVID-19

Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) joined twenty-six other voting rights organizations in sending a letter to Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughes urging the expansion of vote-by-mail eligibility in response to COVID-19. State law says that a voter qualifies to vote by mail “if the voter has a sickness or […]