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Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Wednesday offered the state’s historically black colleges and universities up to $100 million to resolve a 12-year-old lawsuit over inequality in public higher education.

For Myesha Braden, Director for the Criminal Justice Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, who is working on similar issues in Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana, Guest’s involvement in the fines and fees collection business is unsettling. It is a reminder that personal financial interests can run counter to the rising political will to reform the criminal justice system throughout the region.

Kristen Clarke, executive director for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, gave an impassioned response on how the president has managed to completely divide folks across racial and more lines.

“In every respect with President Trump — his words, his actions, his policies his appointments — all we’ve seen is the politics of division,” Kristen Clarke said. “I think there is no president who has done more in recent times to divide our country. . . . He has taken our country back decades and we have a tremendous amount of work to do when the chapter is closed to repair our country.

It is time for everyone who cares about justice to join the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus and other allies of the HBIs to help defeat the State’s attempt to turn back the clock on civil rights protections for HBIs, because, #BlackCollegesMatter.

Kristen M. Clarke ’97, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, gave the keynote speech at the conference, arguing public service affords an important way to respond to the current political climate.

A civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security for failing to release information connected to President Donald Trump’s now-disbanded voter fraud commission.

Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a group that targets societal inequality, issued a statement that said low-income people who are denied traditional bank services “are left vulnerable to costly check-cashing outlets, pawnshops, and other predatory services.”

“The commission was an unprecedented attempt to make it harder for ordinary Americans to vote and have their voices heard,” said Kristen Clarke, head of the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights, which sued alleging the commission violated laws requiring transparency.

“One of the strengths of the movement is solidarity,” said Nadia Aziz, program manager of the Stop Hate Project run by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “There are a lot of organizations like ours that have been around for 50 years or more. We’ve been fighting to secure equal justice for racial and ethnic minorities for a very long time.”