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NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP SECURES CRITICAL VICTORY IN EFFORT TO COMBAT WHITE SUPREMACY ON FACEBOOK PLATFORM
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Facebook announced a new policy banning content that promotes white nationalism and white separatism as impermissible hate speech, following nine months of advocacy from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Facebook’s new...
The Lawyers’ Committee And The Center For Reproductive Rights, Along With Many Others Are Fighting For Reproductive Rights
On November 15, 2018, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury published two final rules that, if enacted, will deprive thousands of women of meaningful access to contraceptive health care services. The Religious Exemption Rule and the Moral...
4 Myths Fueling the Fight Over NYC’s Exclusive High Schools
Year after year, Stuyvesant High has abysmal enrollment rates for black and Latino students. But the debate over admissions reform is brimming with misunderstandings.
Civil Rights Advocates File Lawsuit to End Unconstitutional Jailing of Indigent Individuals in Washington County, OK
BARTLESVILLE, OK – Today, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Latham & Watkins LLP, and Bryan & Terrill, PLLC filed a lawsuit challenging unlawful and unconstitutional jailing of indigent individuals for nonpayment of court-imposed fines and...
Too Poor to Pay: Our Fight to End the Unconstitutional Jailing of Poor Defendants in Washington County, OK
By The Criminal Justice Project When 33-year old Amanda Ackerson Feenstra—a working wife and mother of seven from Claremore, Oklahoma—pleaded guilty to false personation, forgery, identity theft, and conspiracy charges in 2015, the presiding judge ordered her to pay...
Lawsuit alleges county in Oklahoma running debtor’s prison
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A county in northeast Oklahoma routinely jails poor people because they can’t afford to pay court-ordered fees and fines, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed Thursday against three judges.
Too Poor To Pay- How Arkansas’s Offender Funded Justice System Drives Poverty & Mass Incarceration
Prison population rates, of which the United States has the highest in the world, are often cited as a defining feature of mass incarceration. Incarceration rates in local jails, however, are a lesser known but significant catalyst for mass incarceration. On any given...
Racist Standardized Testing Is On Full Blast After Elite NYC Public Schools Admit Few Black Students
The number of Black students entering New York City’s elite public schools hit a shocking low that renewed questions about the fairness of using standardized tests as the only measure for admissions.
Debtors’ prison faces Oklahoma defendants, lawsuit states
As she was released from a juvenile detention facility in 2013, Tulsa teenager Sharonica Carter still was facing a $2,700 fine imposed when Carter first pleaded guilty in 2011. Five years and two jail stays later, the amount that Carter now owes totals $5,000. On...
Closing of Argosy University Raises Concerns About For-Profit Institutions
Washington, D.C. – Today, in response to the closing of Argosy University, a nationwide chain of for-profit schools that closed after the U.S. Department of Education pulled its eligibility for federal aid programs the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law...
New York Specialized Schools Maintain Status Quo Admissions
Students of color admitted to Specialized New York Public Schools failed to Increase Washington, D.C. – Today, in response to reports that admissions at New York City’s specialized public high schools, failed to include a larger population that reflects the diversity...
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the National Action Network Call on NY General Assembly To Tie NY Marijuana Legalization to Economic Equity Requirements
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the National Action Network issued a joint call to leaders of the New York State General Assembly in support of the State’s fight to ensure that the legalization of marijuana in...
Civil rights group again faults punitive court fines in Arkansas
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has issued a new report on the punishing nature of fine systems in Arkansas courts that impoverish and jail people trapped with never-ending payments for "process" infractions. The report is said to be based on two...
Federal Court Strikes Down GOP Gerrymander Affecting African Americans in Mississippi
The State of Mississippi must redraw district lines for a state senate district in the Mississippi Delta that was gerrymandered by the Magnolia State GOP, according to a court order issued by a panel of federal judges late Friday night.
Civil Rights Group Releases Report Alleging Focus On Revenue-Generation By Arkansas’s Criminal Justice System Increases Poverty And Mass Incarceration
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new report from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, released today, alleges that the practice of incarcerating people who owe fees and fines as a method of “forcing” payment and thereby generating revenue for municipal budgets, has...