Racial Justice Advocacy Workshop - Fall 2017

Racial Justice Advocacy Workshop - Fall 2017

Racial Justice Advocacy Workshop

Course description

Litigation and legal advocacy play a critical role in movements for racial justice. Across a range of cutting edge issues legal advocates work closely with movement leaders to mobilize litigation as one of the tactics deployed to combat structural racism.

This Workshop will give students exposure to litigation and advocacy on cutting edge issues in racial justice such as: voting rights, police violence, privatization of parole, criminal justice debt, access to clean water, ending mass incarceration, and decriminalization of sex work. 

The Workshop will bring leading advocates working on racial justice related to the topics listed above to speak at the law school every other week during the semester.  These sessions will offer students the opportunity to discuss with civil rights advocates the role of law in larger social movements, the notion of “success without victory” (how losing a lawsuit can still mark success by raising, framing, and advancing the underlying issues that were at stake in the case), the relationship of litigation to strategies based in the Freedom of Information Act, community organizing, legislative hearings, media campaigns, and direct action.

Students will be expected to attend every session of the Workshop, prepare written questions in advance of the sessions with outside speakers, and write a 10 page final paper in which they critically evaluate the role of legal advocacy in racial justice movements.

Please note that some assignments will be adjusted as the semester progresses and that the order of topics and some reading assignments may shift depending on guest-speaker availability.

Course Readers/Materials

For copies of any of the course materials listed below, contact Liz Boylan, Associate Director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law, at [email protected], or 212.854.0167.

Course Schedule and Syllabus
 

September 5th: Introduction to the Workshop

September 12th: Different Modes of Work – Early Paradigms in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement

  • Thomas Hilbink, The Profession, The Grassroots and the Elite: Cause Lawyering for Civil Rights and Freedom in the Direct Action Era, in Cause Lawyers and Social Movements (Sarat and Scheingold eds., 2006)

September 19th: Different Modes of Work - Mapping Approaches

  • Michael Grinthal, Power With: Practice Models for Social Justice Lawyering, 15 U. Pa. J. L. & Soc. Change 25 (2011)

September 26th: Different Modes of Work – Turning the System Against Itself

  • Paul Harris, Black Rage Confronts the Law (1997), To Use or Not Use the Black Rage Defense (Chapter 7)

  • Paul Harris, Black Rage Confronts the Law (1997), A Survey of Black Rage Cases (Chapter 9 - optional)

  • Brenna Bhandar Strategies of Legal Rupture: The Politics of Judgment, 30 Windsor Y.B. Access to Just. 59 (2012)

  • Michelle Alexander, Op-ed., Go to Trial: Crash the Justice System, N.Y. Times, Mar. 11, 2012

  • Jules Lobel, Success without Victory: Lost Legal Battles and the Long Road to Justice in America (2003), Introduction

October 3rd: Lumumba Akinwole Bandele, Senior Community Organizer, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund

October 10th: Climate Change and Racial Justice

  • Bond Graham, Darwin. “The New Orleans That Race Built: Racism, Disaster, and Urban Spatial Relationships.” Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race and Public Policy Reader. Eds. Manning Marable and Kristen Clarke. Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. Pages 17-32.

  • Bergin, Kathleen A. “Witness: The Racialized Gender Implications of Katrina.” Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis Race, and Public Policy Reader. Eds. Manning Marable and Kristen Clarke. Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. Pages 173-190.

  • Selections from Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis Race and Public Policy Reader

  • Quigley, Bill. “Katrina, Climate Justice and Fish Dinners: Social Justice Lawyer Colette Pichon Battle.” HuffPost Blog. April 4, 2016, Updated April 5, 2017. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/katrina-climate-justice-a_b_9610128.html.

  • Sen, Basav. “The Brutal Racial Politics of Climate Change and Pollution.” Commondreams.org. September 21, 2017. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/21/brutal-racial-politics-climate-change-and-pollution.

Optional Reading:

October 17th: Colette Pichon Battle, Executive Director U.S. Human Rights Network  Climate Change and Racial Justice

  • Opinion, in Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corporation; US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Filed September 21, 2012.

October 24th:  Readings related to Browne Dianis talk

  • Owens, Jody. “How Prison Stints Replaced Study Hall: America’s problem with criminalizing kids”.  Politico.com. March 15, 2015. Accessed April 11, 2017. URL: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/criminal-kids-juvenile-ju...

  • Advancement Project, Title VI Complaint Filed Against DeSoto County School District and DeSoto County Board of Education for Discrimination of Black Students, April 28, 2015  

  • Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, Response to Advancement Project’s Complaint, March 10, 2016

  • Advancement Project, Miami-Dade County Public Schools: The Hidden Truth, October 18, 2017

October 31st: Racial Justice and Voting Rights
Judith Browne Dianis, Executive Director, Advancement Project

For Students from Fannie Lou Hamer HS:

For Columbia Law School Students:

November 7th: Readings related to Sanneh talk

For Students from Fannie Lou Hamer HS:

  • Equal Justice Initiatives. Report: All Children are Children

For Columbia Law School Students:

  • Equal Justice Initiatives. Report: All Children are Children

  • Equal Justice Initiatives. Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Miller v. Alabama

November 14th: Sia Sanneh, Senior Attorney, Equal Justice Initiative

For Students from Fannie Lou Hamer HS:

For Columbia Law School Students:

November 21st: Reform of the NYPD

For Students from Fannie Lou Hamer HS:

  • $3 Million Deal In Police Killing Of Diallo in ’99, New York Times, January 7, 2004

  • Daniels, et al. v. the City of New York - CCR Summary of the Case

  • Floyd v. City of New York - Case Timeline

  • Landmark Decision: Judge Rules NYPD Stop and Frisk Practices Unconstitutional, Racially Discriminatory, CCR Press Release, August 12, 2013

  • Catalysts for Collaboration

For Columbia Law School Students:

  • $3 Million Deal In Police Killing Of Diallo in ’99, New York Times, January 7, 2004

  • Daniels, et al. v. the City of New York - CCR Summary of the Case

  • Floyd v. City of New York - Case Timeline

  • Landmark Decision: Judge Rules NYPD Stop and Frisk Practices Unconstitutional, Racially Discriminatory, CCR Press Release, August 12, 2013

  • Catalysts for Collaboration

  • Opinion and Order in Floyd v. City of New York - United States District Court - Southern District of NY. Filed August 12, 2013.

November 28th: Vince Warren, Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights: The CCR's Use of FOIA as a Tool of Resistance

  • Human Rights Attorneys Sue FBI, DHS for Docs about Surveillance of the Movement for Black Lives. CCR Press Release, October 20, 2016. 

  • Color of Change and CCR v. Department of Homeland Security. Complaint

December 5th: Wrap Up/Workshopping of papers