The History of the The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law 1963-2003
by Charles T. Lester, Jr.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights - The Making of a Public Interest Law Group
By: Ann Garity Connell, Ph.D.

The History of the The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law 1963-2003
by Charles T. Lester, Jr.

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Creation of the Committee.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was created at the request of President John F. Kennedy in the summer of 1963 following a meeting of 244 lawyers in the East Room of the White House. President Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy spoke at the conference and urged the lawyers to use their training and influence to move the struggle for the protection of civil rights from the streets to the courts. The 244 lawyers who attended were from throughout the United States and included, leaders of state bars and the ABA, and 50 African American lawyers. President Kennedy had held similar meetings with representatives of business, education, and the clergy, but the decision to call a meeting with the lawyers and the timing of the meeting was born of a sense of urgency about the absence of the organized bar in the civil rights movement.

During the summer of 1963, civil rights groups were demonstrating and taking other collective public actions to call attention to and to end discrimination and segregation in education, employment, voting participation and public accommodations throughout the South. Alabama Governor George Wallace had vowed to hold the line against court-ordered desegregation of the University of Alabama. The confrontation between the Justice Department and the United States Marshals and Governor Wallace was scheduled for June 11, 1963. Bernard Segal, a corporate attorney in Philadelphia (later a President of the ABA), after a comment from his wife about why there was no stance from the bar about the position taken by Governor Wallace, contacted a number of lawyers throughout the United States and prepared a statement critical of Governor Wallace’s position. The statement was published as an advertisement in the Birmingham papers with a list of 46 lawyers who supported the statement, which called for elected officials to defer to the “rule of law.” The statement received favorable editorial comment from the Birmingham papers and others. Burke Marshall and Louis Oberdorfer traveled with Attorney General Kennedy to the South to try to get a better understanding of the problems presented and as a result of the article contacted Mr. Segal to ask his help in developing a list of lawyers, including minority lawyers for the White House meeting. On June 21, President Kennedy asked Mr. Segal and Harrison Tweed of New York to chair the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and to assemble a group of lawyers to carry forth its mission.

The Committee also received the support and endorsement of President Johnson who met with its leaders including Harrison Tweed, Bernard Segal, Lloyd Cutler, Cecil Burney, Berl Bernhard and John Doyle in May 1965. The objectives of the Committee were: to marshal the resources of the private bar, including its leadership for public policy advocacy; to educate the public and the bar on civil rights; to enlist the skills of lawyers as negotiators and mediators to help resolve disputes; and to provide pro bono legal assistance to victims of discrimination. The Committee thought of themselves as “missionaries to the bar” and it was only after unsuccessful efforts to involve lawyers in the South in the protection of civil rights that the Committee became more proactive. For many years the Committee considered itself to be a temporary organization. It initially resisted opening an office, working instead from the offices of its Co-Chairs, and was ambivalent about hiring an Executive Director and sufficient staff. Its co-chairs served simultaneous two-year non -staggered terms, and executive directors served very short terms. It was only as the Committee matured that it realized that the nation’s civil rights problems were more intractable and the solutions more long term.

1963-1973: Jackson, Mississippi, Cairo, Illinois, Southern Africa Project, and Founding of Local Lawyers’ Committees.
The Lawyers’ Committee was always involved in public policy advocacy. President Kennedy introduced civil rights legislation, which ulti-mately became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on June 19, 1963, two days prior to the meeting in the East Room. The Committee urged passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Committees’ efforts in Jackson, Mississippi began in 1963 when a group of clergyman from the National Council of Churches working in Mississippi during the summer as civil rights organizers, requested legal assistance. Robert Lunney, a lawyer from a New York firm went to Mississippi and worked with the clergy, negotiating with local officials over permits and representing marchers and demonstrators when they were denied permits or when they were arrested. The National Council of Churches asked for additional Lawyers’ Committee help in 1964 and the Committee opened an office staffed by 18 volunteers, serving two week terms, from leading law firms in New York, Philadelphia and Washington. The initial focus for the volunteers was to encourage the Mississippi Bar and its lawyers to shoulder their responsibilities to represent blacks, but when those efforts failed, the volunteers went to work representing clients throughout Mississippi, mostly in criminal cases. The Mississippi office opened with full time staff on June 14, 1965 and shortly thereafter hundreds of demonstrators were arrested in Jackson for protesting restrictive voting bills that had been under consideration by the Mississippi Legislature. The Lawyers’ Committee, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Lawyers’ Constitutional Defense Committee collaborated in a Federal Court suit challenging the constitutionality of parade ordinances.

Over time, the Mississippi office made a major shift away from individual defensive representation to major impact cases, such as voting rights cases, particularly after Frank R. Parker joined the office in 1968. Also, the focus of legal service delivery shifted from staff and individual volunteer lawyers to the co-counsel relationship of participating law firms serving pro bono with staff lawyers. The work included important litigation dealing with voting rights, personal freedom, education, employment discrimination, prison reform, and jury selection.

The Committee established the rights of blacks as a class, challenged discriminatory jury venires, changed the way the courts treated blacks, and helped to make Mississippi accountable to the rule of law. The Committee, in response to the 1968 Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder and Unrest following the assasinations of Dr. King and Senator Robert Kennedy, began its Urban Areas Project, which enlisted long term financial support from the Ford Foundation and other resources to organize and staff local lawyers committees in Atlanta, Beverly Hills/Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington. Not all of the locals survived, but they all had substantial success with issues of discrimination in their communities. The Colorado Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was opened in 1976 in Denver. The locals are dynamic organizations supported by staff and hundreds of volunteer lawyers from major law firms.

The Committee operated an office in Cairo, Illinois from 1969 to 1972 to address the violence against blacks in that city. The Cairo office lawyers were successful in obtaining several injunctions against police suppression of demonstrations. Lawyers who were working in the office observed gunfire, and blacks struck with bricks. One of the groups opposing the efforts to end discrimination organized a run on a local bank because a lawyer for the Lawyers’ Committee was the bank’s lawyer. The Committee had to contact corporate leaders and state officials to generate enough money to stave off the failure of the bank.

In 1967 and 1968, the Committee began providing assistance for human rights problems in the Union of South Africa. The initial efforts provided support to a hand full of South African lawyers brave enough to resist apartheid and represent political dissidents in court there. The Southern Africa Project continued for more than 30 years up to and through the liberation of Namibia from South Africa’s illegal occupation and the end of apartheid in South Africa with the free and open elections in 1994.

Meanwhile, in 1969, the Supreme Court in Alexander vs. Holmes County Board of Education reversed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and ruled that continued operation of segregated schools in Mississippi was no longer permissible. Louis Oberdorfer argued that case.

The Second Decade: 1973-1983 – National Trend Continues.
The work of the Lawyers’ Committee continued the trend set by the Urban Areas Project and was more national in scope with major matters in forums other than the South. Public policy continued as an important component of the work, and included affirmative positions on the extension of the Voting Rights Act in 1975 lead by Nicholas Katzenbach and Frank Parker, the 25-year extension of that Act in 1982, and on the Attorneys Fees Awards Act of 1976. Policy advocacy also included defensive work because the federal judiciary and federal administrations were more hostile to the protection of civil rights. This defensive advocacy urged defeat of proposed constitutional amendments to prevent bussing to desegregate public schools and sought to protect IRS rules that resulted from a Lawyers’ Committee case (Green v. Connally), denying exemption to private schools that were segregated on the basis of race.

The Committee was active in school desegregation in Boston, employment discrimination in Houston, resisting a shipbuilding plant on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida. One of the most important cases handled by the Committee was Claiborne Hardware Co. v. NAACP. The case arose out of a boycott in Claiborne County Mississippi. Several businesses sued the NAACP and individuals in state court and obtained a large judgment that would have made the NAACP insolvent. Lawyers’ Committee lawyers, represented the NAACP in the trial court, obtained stays in federal court, and Lloyd Cutler successfully argued in the U.S. Supreme Court that the judgment violated the First Amendment.

South Africa matters included contesting new U.S. routes sought by South Africa Airways – for the Congressional Black Caucus and others (not successful); filing an action with the Customs Commission to block the import of coal from South Africa – for the United Mine Workers and Alabama contending under a tariff preventing the importation of products produced with indentured labor – which caused the repeal of criminal penalties for breach of labor contracts by blacks; assistance to attorneys defending officials of the Christian Institute accused under the Suppression of Communism Act; providing Dean Bamberger as an observer for the “trial” of Rev. Sithole in Rhodesia; sending Dean Pollak to observe the inquest for the death of Steve Biko; the director of the Project to observe sedition trials, and Father Drinan to observe the trial of four Lutheran pastors, which resulted in the dismissal and reduction of charges.

President Carter hosted a reception at the White House on the Fifteenth Anniversary of the founding of the Committee and praised it for its work. The Co-Chairs and William L. Robinson (the first long term executive director, 1979-1988) met with Attorney General William French Smith in 1981 to discuss civil rights enforcement and the extension of the Voting Rights Act.

The Committee had many success stories for its clients. In employment the Committee successfully sued Western Electric, won a suit against the Civil Service Commission that successfully attacked the entrance exam requiring the defendants to show that the test was job related, obtained a Supreme Court decision that federal employees were entitled to a trial de novo, obtained consent decrees against the mandatory maternity leave polices of Pan American and American Airlines, won a $20 million suit against J.P. Stevens, obtained a consent decree against the General Services Administration and a consent decree with back pay for employees of fire and police departments in Houston, obtained back pay against Jefferson County, Alabama and the Federal Department of Energy. In voting, the Committee persuaded the Supreme Court to use Section 5 to eliminate potentially discriminatory voting procedures (City of Port Arthur, Texas v. United States) and successfully eliminated discriminatory multimember districts in Virginia (Cosner v. Dalton). In education it secured remedial education for children who suffered past practices of de jure segregation (Milliken v. Bradley).

1983-1993 – Struggle at Home and Success in South Africa.
The third decade provided challenges and opportunities at home and abroad. After nearly 20 years of operations in Jackson, Mississippi, the Committee closed the office in 1984, but not the work, which continued out of the national office. Committee representatives testified in opposition to the nomination of William Bradford Reynolds as Associate Attorney General, who was confirmed. The Committee formally opposed the nomination of William Lucas as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, based on his lack legal experience and knowledge of the basic civil rights laws. He was not confirmed. The Committee also made analyses of the record of three U.S. Supreme Court nominees, provided them to the Senate Judiciary Committee, opposed the nominations of Judge Robert Bork, who was not confirmed, took no position on the nomination of Justice David Souter, and opposed the nomination of Justice Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed.

In the policy area the Committee contributed to the development and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1990, which was vetoed by President Bush and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which the President signed and which was designed to correct six rulings by the Supreme Court that restricted employment discrimination claims. Leaders of the Committee met with Attorney General Thornburg to explore areas of collaboration and cooperation and communicated and worked effectively with John Dunne the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights who was confirmed after the Lucas nomination failed. Barbara Arnwine became the Executive Director in February of 1989, succeeding Bill Robinson, who left to become the first dean of the District of Columbia Law School after 10 years of service. The Committee added separate Fair and Affordable Housing and Environmental Justice Projects to meet client needs.

The Southern Africa Project of the Lawyers’ Committee was a key player in the successful evolution to majority rule in Namibia and South Africa.

Namibia. The Project initiated legal action in the Namibian courts that resulted in the release of 128 people known as “Cassinga Captives,” who had been held for 6 years. In 1988 the Project began a study of human rights in Namibia to document the effect of the civil war during South African occupation of Namibia. While that study was underway, elections to select a constituent assembly to draft a constitution under UN Security Council Resolution 435 were scheduled for November 1, 1989. The Project sent its staff attorneys and consultants as monitors in May and organized a Commission for Independence composed of 31 prominent Americans to make one-week visits to observe the election process. Nearly 97% of 700,000 registered voters cast their ballot, 40% for the first time. The 72-person Assembly that was selected produced a constitution in 80 days. The first democratically elected government took office March 21, 1990.

South Africa. The Project endorsed the “Free South Africa Movement” and provided legal observers for daily demonstrations at the South African Embassy. Judge Nathaniel Jones, sent as an observer of proceedings in the South African Supreme Court against 16 people charged with treason, was arrested and charged with violation of an Emergency Order when in route to the funeral of a defense lawyer killed outside her home. The Project prepared a detailed analysis of the 1988 municipal elections in South Africa to outline the structural injustices in the process and explain their political and social context. The Project published a 53-page report to document 130 assassinations or disappearances of anti-apartheid workers to bring international pressure to stop government sanctioned death squads. The “Red Ribbon Campaign” instituted by the Project brought public attention to the death penalties of the “Sharpeville Six” and caused their ommutation to long jail sentences. The Project funded legal assistance for defense of politically related cases, lawsuits challenging restriction orders on anti-apartheid activists, rent and housing cases, and representation of rent-boycotters in the townships. The Project prepared reports for Members of Congress and human rights groups when President de Klerk announced changes in the apartheid system and lobbied the State Department to keep the pressure on South Africa to live up to its promises.

The Project Director, Gay McDougall, served on the welcoming committee for Nelson Mandela’s trip to the United States and as the master of ceremonies at the event in Washington, DC. The Project funded legal representation at commissions of inquiry for the families of victims of shootings by police during a protest over rent, housing and employment at Songela Gate, and on the activities of death squads. The Project presented conferences and workshops on constitutional rights and self government as the time for open elections approached, including conferences on the right to counsel, gender equality, and open government. The Project launched The South Africa Voting Rights, Education and Monitoring Project to provide technical assistance to groups working to report violations to the Independent Electoral Commission. Nelson Mandela was elected president, and Gay McDougall was the only American who served on the Electoral Commission.

Major litigation success was achieved in voting rights where the Committee successfully challenged Mississippi congressional districts in Brooks v. Winter and allowed Mike Espy to become the first black congressmen from Mississippi in 100 years; and successfully challenged municipal and county redistricting in Greenville, and Jackson, Mississippi, Annapolis, Maryland, and Petersburg, Virginia. The Committee also won or settled cases in Springfield, Danville, and Peoria, Illinois, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Norfolk, Virginia (Affirmed in the Forth Circuit in Collins v. City of Norfolk) over at-large municipal elections and in Mississippi (Martin v. Mabus) over at-large election of state court judges, which resulted in the election of 8 black judges. The Voting Rights Project held a conference to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and a conference on redistricting after the 1990 census.

For the Employment Project success was achieved against adverse trends, as decisions of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts allowed reverse discrimination claims and the Justice Department changed positions in consent decrees. Some of the problem cases were dealt with in the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The Employment Project’s work included direct representation, technical assistance to other employment lawyers and advocacy in amicus briefs. The project secured back pay for clients in litigation against the Mississippi State Employment Service, Travenol Laboratories, and the Sheriff’s Department of Harris County, Texas. The Project has had more success in challenges to employment tests, including the Nassau County Police Department, and City of Buffalo.

In Fair Housing the Committee in cooperation with the Boston Committee settled litigation with the Boston Housing Authority for a class of 1,600 tenants, who were denied housing opportunities in predominately white neigh-borhoods. In another important case the Lawyers’ Committee obtained a seizure order from a U.S. District Court judge for evidence of discrimination involving a decade old racial coding system, used to deny private apartment housing to 6,000 African American and Hispanic clients in Miami, securing a $3.4 million settlement. (Givens v. Hamlet Estates).

1993-2003 – New Strategic Directions, Lawyers for One America, UN Conferences on Women and Against Racism. In 1993, the Committee celebrated its 30th Anniversary that included a reception at the White House hosted by President William Jefferson Clinton. In the early 1990’s with support from the Ford Foundation, the Lawyers’ Committee expanded its law firm and board resources by initiatives in U.S. cities where it had limited or no support. It created the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of Texas in San Antonio, the first new local affiliate in two decades. In Atlanta, it added board representation and organized a steering committee. With success in Atlanta it followed up with visits in Miami, Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham/Greensboro, New Orleans, St Louis, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Portland (Oregon), and Seattle. To assist in this national expansion, the Committee added Regional Vice-Chairs beginning with four and adding regions and vice-chairs within regions, bringing the total to 13 at present. This new position has been effective in the national expansion and has had the side benefit of providing the leadership training and opportu-nities such that six of the last seven co-chairs were regional vice-chairs. In 1995 imposing on Herbert Hansell to serve three years, the Committee moved the co-chairs to staggered two-year terms.

Under the leadership of Paul Saunders and Marc Fleischaker, with the support of the Executive Committee and major drafting efforts by the staff and Jack Londen, the Lawyers’ Committee undertook a strategic planning process, which included the first national Board and Staff Retreat in 1997. The retreat produced in 1998 a seven-year Strategic Plan, which was instrumental in strengthening the Committee’s capabilities to address the current and changed civil rights landscape. Among its new directions, the Plan recognized the need for the Committee to broaden its work in light of demographic changes in the United States, to strengthen its public policy capability, especially in media and public education, to seek more opportunities for pro bono transactional work, and to explore ways to expand its agenda to address the health care and criminal justice needs of our clients. Many aspects of the Strategic Plan were implemented in record time and a revised plan was adopted at a 2002 Board and Staff Retreat for the continued mission of the Committee.

The Lawyers’ Committee, as a follow up to President Clinton’s Race Initiative, wrote the President and suggested that he issue a “Second Call” to the bar to promote diversity in the profession and pro bono work for communities of color. The Committee leadership worked with a number of organizations to develop a collaboration for a one-year effort, beginning with a meeting in the East Room of the White House in July 1999. The Committee supported and promoted the effort, which was known as the Lawyers for One America Collaboration.

In the 1990’s, a rash of arson caused the destruction of black churches at various locations mostly in the South. With the cooperation of the National Council of Churches, the NAACP, and the strong coordination of Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn, the Committee mobilized 30 law firms to help congregations with insurance, construction, zoning and other issues in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New York, Texas, and Washington.

In the international arena, the Lawyers’ Committee made important contributions to the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing. It presented a seminal National Conference on African-American Women and the Law for 1,000 people in forums about the impact of dual discrimination of gender and race for women of color, and participated in the Non-Governmental Organization (“NGO”) Forum in Beijing in August of 1995. The Committee presented a similar conference at Howard University Law School in 2000 as a prelude to the NGO Forum held in New York for the five-year review of the Declaration and Plan For Action of the Beijing Conference on Women. Lawyers’ Committee representatives were also participants in the Forum. Committee representatives participated in planning conferences in Geneva and Santiago, Chile in preparation for the U.N. World Conference Against Racism, in Durban, South Africa. The Lawyers’ Committee presented a conference for NGO’s in Washington in June 2001 to prepare their representatives for the conference, and Lawyers’ Committee staff and Board members attended the conference in Durbin in August and September 2001. Committee representatives made contributions to the text of the forum reports and the Plan for Action.

The Lawyers’ Committee has worked tirelessly to defend affirmative action in all phases of its work. It urged President Clinton to support affirmative action, leading to his “mend it, don’t end it” public address to the nation on July 19, 1995. It worked to meet and overcome the limits placed on affirmative action programs by cases such as Adarand Contractors, Inc. v. Pena and City of Richmond v. J.A. Corson, Co. The Committee supported the affirmative action admission policies of institutions of higher learning with amicus briefs in circuit courts of appeal and the Supreme Courts. The Committee, with the support of former Judge and Board member Joseph Hatchett, helped keep off the ballot a confusing anti-affirmative action referendum in Florida.

The Committee’s policy activities included support for the Voter Registration Act of 1993 (“Motor Voter”), hate crime legislation, and pushing for a better version of the Helping America Vote Act of 2002. The Committee developed the framework for President Clinton’s Executive Order on Environmental Justice. The Committee commented on proposed rules, such as the amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for class actions, and the Community Reinvestment Act rules for financial institutions. The Committee with the leadership of Board members Norman Redlich and Sidney Rosdeitcher and the support of many law firms prepared an extensive analysis of the trend in U.S. Supreme Court cases that has restricted the power of Congress to legislate in areas of importance to the civil rights community. The cases have protected state rights under the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments, eliminated the use of the Commerce Clause as a constitutional basis for abrogating a state’s immunity, and limited the use of Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to abrogate sover-eign immunity and allow suit against states. The cases impose very specific and often burdensome obligations on Congress whenever it seeks to abrogate state immunity. The Committee monitors developments in this area, has written amicus briefs on the issue in the Supreme Court, and has developed a paper and made a presentation on the issues.

The Committee has had an impressive set of successful litigation matters in its most recent decade. In nvironmental Justice, it secured relocation for a community of 358 families adjacent to two Superfund sites in Pensacola, Florida, and with the cooperation of the Housing and Community Development Project, obtained relocation for an African-American public housing community contam-inated with lead in Portsmouth, Virginia. (Washington Park Lead Committee v. EPA). The Committee helped secure a decision from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”) that staff consider the socioeconomic impact of siting a uranium enrichment facility in two African-American communities in Homer, Louisiana that caused the company to withdraw its application. In Leesburg, Florida, the Committee represented a local branch of the NAACP in litigation over discriminatory practices by the city and the local hospital, its largest employer, for minority communities in Pine Street, Carver Heights and Mont Clair. The claims were for zoning, municipal services, and building code enforcement and were based on Title VI and the Fair Housing Act. A consent decree will provide funds to a community development corporation for community improvements using innovative tax increment financing with a 30-year income stream. (Tri-City Branch NAACP v. City of Leesburg). The Committee obtained approval for a consent decree provid-ing over $100 million in funding to desegregate and redevelop section 8 housing in Dade County, Florida. (Adker v. HUD). The Committee also obtained $26 million in federal Community Development Block Grant funds for desegregation and revitalization of seven African American communities in Pennsylvania. (Sanders v. HUD). Of note, the Fair Housing and Community Development Project also initiated a financial literacy and minority home ownership program in 2002.

In Voting, the Committee had three successful cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996-7. Young v. Fordice held that a dual registration system for the motor voter registration had to be precleared under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act; Lawyer v. U.S. upheld a settlement plan that preserved a state senate district in Florida with a majority of Hispanic and African American voters; and King v. State Board of Elections approved a Hispanic-majority district in Illinois. The project also protected against attack Congressional districts and state Senate districts on behalf of black citizens in Florida (Fouts v. Harris; Chandler v. Harris); and preserved voting districts of county commission and school board members in Dooley County, Georgia. (Sanders v. Dooley County, Georgia). The Voting Rights Project held a conference in anticipation of the 2000 census, fought unsuccessfully to allow the Census Bureau to use estimates to more accurately reflect the count for redistricting purposes, and worked with other civil rights organizations to encourage minority participation in Census 2000. The Committee was called into action during the 2000 elections by numerous calls about voting abuses. There were many complaints about Florida. After a thorough investigation the Committee filed suit against Florida officials for voting abuses with particular emphasis on the aggressive exclusion of minority voters for claims that they were convicted felons. That suit, NAACP v. Harris, was settled in 2002. The Committee also sued Florida over its felon disenfranchisement laws. The trial court dismissed the case, but the appeal from that order is pending before the Eleventh Circuit.

Employment cases of note include NAACP v. New Jersey Department of Public Safety, Division of State Police, where a court-approved consent decree allowed 2,000 black and Hispanic applicants who were rejected to reapply; Pigford v. Glickman, the black farmers class action against the Department of Agriculture, where the Committee with others appealed to secure court ordered compliance with the settlement by the Department; Phillips v. Hooters of America, where the Committee obtained a circuit court ruling allowing our client to pursue a sexual harassment claim in federal court in the face of an arbitration agreement in her employment contract that caused Hooters to discontinue to use arbitration agreements; and Dowdell v. Ona Corp. and Brewer v. Miller Brewing Co. where the Committee obtained $2.5 million and $2.7 million settlements, respectively, for racial harassment of our clients. In Education the Committee resisted a declaration of unitary status in Allegheny County Pennsylvania (Hoots v. Pennsylvania) and negotiated $300 million in state funding to implement reforms in Prince Georgia’s County, Maryland (NAACP v. Prince George’s County, Maryland Board of Education).

Conclusion. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has a rich and dynamic history of service, seeking to secure for all the rights that are the ideals on which our country was founded. The Committee’s staff, its lawyer volunteers, its supporting law firms, the foundations, corporations, law firms, lawyers and individuals who provide financial support, the staff and lawyer volunteers of the Local Committees and the clients who we all serve, can be justifiably proud of our accomplishments. Much remains to be done to defend the progress we have made and to make the ideals of our nation a reality. Our future agenda will involve responding to challenges, such as attacks on affirmative action in university admissions and other race based remedies, redistricting cases, Supreme Court vacancies, extension of the Voting Rights Act in 2007 and many others. While we must not be complacent, the lessons of the past should serve us well as we begin our fifth decade of service.

Charles T. Lester, Jr. is a partner at Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan LLP. He served as Southeastern Regional Vice-Chair from 1996 to 1999 and as Co-Chair from 1999 to 2001. Mr. Lester currently serves as Chair of the History Committee for the Lawyers’ Committee.

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