Past Grants from The Impact Fund

Kaplan v. Chertoff
Applicant: Community Legal Services
Amount: $5,000
Class action for disabled, elderly refugees and asylees threatened with cut-off of Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

Morales-Arcadio v. Shannon Product Farm, Inc.
Applicant: Georgia Legal Services Program, Inc.
Amount: $10,000
Wage claim on behalf of 80 farmworkers under H-2A guest worker program

Darensburg v. Metropolitan Transportation Commission
Applicant: Public Advocates
Amount: $4,000
Challenge of funding of transportation system that favors whites, suburban transit users v. poor transit users of color

JK v. Gerard
Applicant: Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest
Amount: $6,000
Action to enforce settlement to improve medicaid services to children

Environmental Justice – Total given to date $68,000

Before the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division: In the Matter of the Application of Neutron Energy for an Exploratory Permit
Applicant: New Mexico Environmental Law Center
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to exploratory uranium mining permit near sacred Acoma Pueblo area

Not Filed Yet
Applicant: California Alliance to Stop the Spray (CASS)
Amount: $5,000
Challenge to proposed aerial spray in populated area of untested pesticides

Clean Water Act Enforcement; Citizen Suit for Violations of Clean Water Act Permit Violations
Applicant: Louisiana Environmental Action Network
Amount: $15,000
Clean Water Act case against sewage treatment system pollution in African American communities

New Mexico Environment Department
Applicant: Citizen Action New Mexico
Amount: $4,000
Defense of Public Records Act request for environmental documents related to nuclear and hazardous wastes at Sandia National Laboratory

Dine CARE v. Klein
Applicant: Energy Minerals Law Center
Amount: $10,000
Challenge of grant of mine permit by Office of Surface Mining Enforcement and Reclamation for open pit mine on Navajo Nation tribal lands

Native Village of Elim v. US Bureau of Land Management
Applicant: The Center of Water Advocacy
Amount: $10,000
Action to stop uranium mining exploration near traditional native village in Alaska

Chase v. Warmerdam
Applicant: California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.
Amount: $12,000
Local grower planning to apply ultra toxic fumigant pesticides 100 feet from their homes

Human & Civil Rights – Total given to date $72,000

Al-Asad Rendition Case
Applicant: Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, NYU
Amount: $5,000
Challenge to rendition and torture of Yemeni National at CIA “black sites”

Jantz v. Michael Astrue
Applicant: Disability Rights Advocates
Amount: $5,000
Nationwide employment class action against Social Security Administration for systematic discrimination against employees with targeted disabilities

Apsley v. Boeing
Applicant: Williamson Law Firm LLC
Amount: $12,000
Age discrimination class action following mass layoff of older workers

Nunn v. State of California
Applicant: Critical Resistance
Amount: $5,000
Tax payer action to block usage of $7.4 billion lease revenue bonds to fund construction of 53,000 new prison beds

Video Project
Applicant: Ginzberg Video Productions
Amount: $5,000
Special project detailing the life of Justice Cruz Reynoso

Case Not Yet Filed
Applicant: Texas RioGrande Legal Aid
Amount: $10,000
Action on behalf of unaccompanied minors from Central America held under abusive conditions in detention facilities administered by a private company

Survey
Applicant: National Jury Project
Amount: $5,000
Funding of survey regarding impact of California 's “death qualified” jury requirement in capital cases

Jamie S. v. Milwaukee Board of School Directors
Applicant: Disability Rights of Wisconsin
Amount: $10,000
Remedy stage trial in special education class action charging violation of “Child Find” provisions of special education law

Saleh v. Titan
Applicant: Burke O'Neil LLC
Amount: $15,000
Class action against US corporations involved in interrogation of prisoners at Iraq 's Abu Ghraib prison

Blunt v. Lower Merion School District
Applicant: The Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia
Amount: $15,000
Lower Merion School District routinely segregates African American students into below grade level or modified classes that provide them with a substandard education

Disability Law Center v. Massachusetts Department of Correction
Applicant: Massachusetts Correctional Legal Service
Amount: $15,000
Lawsuit seeks to prohibit the state Department of Correction from confining prisoners with serious mental disorders in segregation units

Grants Awarded (July 1, 2006 - June 30, 2007)

Total Amount Awarded this Fiscal Year
$207,000

Poverty – Total given $34,500

Situ v. Leavitt
Applicant: National Senior Citizines Law Center
Amount: $10,000
Natural class action challenging flawed implementation of Medicare part D drug benefit program for Medicare beneficiaries on Medicaid.

Case Not Yet Filed
Applicant: The Project on Economic, Social and Culture Rights
Amount: $7,500
Proposed action against Wal-Mart's Mexican operation for failing to pay child laborers.

Bzdawka v. Milwaukee Co.
Applicant: Pledl Law Office
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to low reimbursement rates for in home providers for severely disabled medicaid recipients.

Mary Carr v. Patricia Wilson-Coker, Commissioner of the State of Connecticut Dept. of Social Services
Applicant: Connecticut Legal Services, Inc. (CLS)
Amount: $7,000
Action against Connecticut for its failure to provide dental services to medical beneficiaries.

Environmental Justice – Total given $60,000

Dine CARE v. Arizona Public Service
Applicant: Dine CARE
Amount: $10,000
Action against operators of a coal-burning plant in the Navajo homeland.

Tewa Women United v. Department of Energy
Applicant: Western Environmental Law Center
Amount: $10,000
Potential case against Los Alamos Natural Laboratory for releasing contaminants into the Rio Grande and ground water.

Colonias Development Council v. Rhino Environmental Services, Inc.
Applicant: Colonias Development Council
Amount: $10,000
A challenge to a waste disposal permit in Chaparral , New Mexico , a mostly poor and Latino area.

The Community of Cleveland, NM v. Sangre de Cristo Gravel Products
Applicant: The Community of Cleveland, NM
Amount: $2,500
A challenge to the attempt to open a gravel plant in a poor, Hispanic area.

CARD v. Washington TRU Solutions, Inc.; DOE; and NMED
Applicant: Citizens for Alternatives to Radioact ive Dumping
Amount: $7,500
Environmental justice challenge to disposal of radioactive waste.

In Re: International Uranium Corp.: Revised 11(e)(2) Materials License Amendment #2
Applicant: Energy Minerals Law Center
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to license to allow processing and disposal of 32,000 tons of radioactive waste near White Mesa, Utah.

Environmental Law Foundation, Our Children’s Earth Foundation, Communities for a Better Environment v. Laidlaw Transit
Applicant: Communities for a Better Environment
Amount: $10,000
Suit against school bus operators for diesel emissions in violation of proposition 65 which requires notice of toxic exposure.

Human & Civil Rights – Total given $112,500

Heckman v. Williamson County
Applicant: Texas Fair Defense Project
Amount : $5,000
Class action on behalf of indigent criminal defendants systematically denied counsel in jailable misdemeanor case.

Estate of Rodriguez v. Drummond Co., Inc.
Applicant: International Labor Rights Fund
Amount: $12,500
Alien tort claim against Alabama-based mining company for its complicity in gross human rights abuses in Colombia.

Medina v. Station Casinos, Inc.
Applicant: Equal Rights Advocates
Amount: $10,000
Suit to protect female employees of the Thunder Valley Casino in rural Placer County, California from sexual harassment, discrimination and violations of wage and hour laws. While the Casino is Native owned, it is managed by a non-Native Las Vegas corporation.

Clark K. v. Willden
Applicant: National Center for Youth Law
Amount: $10,000
Class action against Nevada officials for failing to protect the health and safety of foster care children in its child welfare system.

Lozano v. City of Hazleton
Applicant: Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund
Amount: $5,000
Action against Hazelton's extreme anti-immigration law.

Nicolasa Ramos v. Alberto Gonzalez
Applicant: Centro Legal, Inc.
Amount: $5,000
Proposed litigation against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) for raids of Swift & Co. meat plant that resulted in unconstitutional searches, seizures and due process violation of worker's rights.

Al-haramain Islamic Foundation, Inc. v. Bush
Applicant: Steven Goldberg
Amount: $15,000
Challenge to Bush Administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program.

Jeff D. v. Kempthorne
Applicant: Belodoff Law Office
Amount: $3,000
Action to enforce a class settlement that improves community-based services to children with severe emotional disturbances.

Roubideaux v. Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Applicant: Brancart & Brancart
Amount: $15,000
Class action on behalf of female inmates in the custody of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation alleging discrimination against female inmates in the provision of facilities and services on the basis of gender.

Tapia v. Dugger
Applicant: Oficina Legal del Pueblo Unido d.b.a Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP)
Amount: $7,000
Suit against “for-profit” prison officials and US Marshals Service in western Texas, whose female inmate was raped and committed suicide.

Bowers v. City of Philadelphia
Applicant: Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project
Amount: $10,000
Class Action to challenge intake procedures for persons arrested in Philadelphia, which lead to overcrowded and inadequate jail facilities.

Potential Case to Enforce ADA
Applicant: Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago
Amount: $10,000
Action against State officials on behalf of Cook County nursing home residents denied community placements.

Orantes-Hernandez v. Smith
Applicant: National Immigration Law Center
Amount: $5,000
Defense of injunction in Orantes case which protects rights to counsel, legal materials and communication of detained assylees.

Grants Awarded (July 1, 2005 - June 30, 2006)

Poverty

Dionne v. Commissioner of the New Hampshire Division of Human Services
Applicant: New Hampshire Legal Assistance
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to State's delays in approving applications for aid to poor disabled residents.

Community House Inc. v. City of Boise
Applicant: Idaho Legal Aid Services, Inc.
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to transfer to religious ministry of homeless shelter, and subsequent exclusion of women and children from shelter, and requirement that men participate in religious activities.

McWaters v. FEMA
Applicant: Equal Justice Society
Amount: $10,000
Action against FEMA by Katrina victims denied temporary housing assistance.

Martinez v. Combs
Applicant: California Rural Legal Assistance
Amount: $2,000
Appeal to define liabilities of labor contraction for unpaid wages to strawberry workers, after employers discharged in bankruptcy.

Valdez v. Hyde
Applicant: New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to New Mexico's automated Medicaid system which automatically, and often erroneously, terminates coverage.

Cramer Hill Residents
Applicant: South Jersey Legal Services, Inc.
Amount: $12,000
Challenge to redevelopment plan that would remove 12,000 homes, including 506 units of public rental housing.

Schutz v. Northeast Mortgage Corporation
Applicant: New Haven Legal Assistance Association, Inc.
Amount: $4,500
Challenge to predatory lending policy that utilizes underwriting ratio that does not take into account ability to pay mortgage and living expenses.

Environmental Justice

Association of Irritated Residents v. Fred Schakel Dairy
Applicant: Center on Race Poverty & The Environment
Amount: $10,000
Clean air act suit to require large "factory" dairy to obtain pre-construction permit.

Appeal of “Authority to Construct” Air Quality Permit issued to Vulcan Materials
Applicant: New Mexico Environmental Law Center
Amount: $7,000
Challenge to “authority of construct” air quality permit for concrete batch plant to be located across from community center.

Citizens for the Responsible Destruction of Chemical Weapons of the Miami Valley v. Perma-Fix of Dayton
Applicant: Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. (ABLE)
Amount: $10,000
Clean Air Act Challenge to commercial wastewater facility located in poor neighborhood with substantial African American population.

Potential case against the State of New Mexico Environmental Department
Applicant: New Mexico Environmental Law Center
Amount: $2,000
Challenge to New Mexico Solid Waste Management regulations.

Human and Civil Rights

Potential voting rights litigation in Georgia
Applicant: Molden Holley Fergusson Thompson & Heard, LLC
Amount: $14,500
Voting rights action challenging Georgia’s restriction on multi-jurisdiction voter registration drives.

Razul II v. Bush
Applicant: Reprieve
Amount: $10,000
Action to seek review of incarceration of prisoners held in Guantanomo Bay, Cuba.

Gilgor v. Fletcher
Applicant: Kentucky Fairness Alliance
Amount: $6,000
Challenge to appropriation of State funds to Sectarian School of Optometry which refuses to accept gay students.

Jonathan M. v. Martinez, CA
Applicant: Disabilities Law Project
Amount: $10,000
Class action to insure children with disabilities get consistent in-home nursing care without frequent interruptions due to inadequate payment.

Jeff D. v. Kempthorne
Applicant: Howard Belodoff, Belodoff Law Office
Amount: $15,000
Action to enforce class settlement that improves community-based services to children with severe emotional disturbances.

DCEE v. PUSD
Applicant: Eric P. Swenson, Attorney at Law
Amount: $7,000
Challenge to school districts segregation of Navajo students.

Estate of Rodriguez v. Drummond Co., Inc.
Applicant: International Labor Rights Fund
Amount: $17,500
Alien tort claim against Alabama based mining company for its complicity in gross human rights abuses in Columbia.

Hoke County Board of Education v. State of North Carolina
Applicant: UNC Center for Civil Rights
Amount: $10,000
Suit to enforce right to sound, basic education in Charlotte/Mecklenburg high-poverty, urban high school.

Everybody Counts, Inc. v. Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission
Applicant: Everybody Counts, Inc.
Amount: $7,500
Challenge to transit system lack of disability access.

Francoise Sicar, Kerby Sicar i. U.S. Attorney General
Applicant: Florida International University College of Law, Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic
Amount: $8,000
Challenge to Board of Immigration appeals decision denying Haitian refugees released on their own recognizance relief under Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act (HRFA).

Charles H. Wesley Education Foundation, Inc. v. Cathy Cox
Applicant: Molden Holley Fergusson Thompson & Heard, LLC
Amount: $14,500
Voting rights action challenging Georgia’s restriction on multi-jurisdiction voter registration drives.

Aris v. Hamilton
Applicant: Southern Center for Human Rights
Amount: $14,500
Class action on behalf of prisoners denied medical care at Hamilton Aged and Infirm Correctional Facility in Alabama.

Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Applicant: Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Amount: $5,000
Support for pre-sentencing efforts in case against lawyer Lynne Stewart.

Potential litigation in Mississippi
Applicant: Innocence Project New Orleans
Amount: $2,991
Action to establish right to lawyer compensation for post-conviction proceedings.

Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma Citizenship Board, Johnson v. Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma Citizenship Board
Applicant: African Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes Foundation
Amount: $5,000
Action by Black Indians denied enrollment as citizens in Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

PURE v. Board of Education
Applicant: Parents United for Responsible Education
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to Chicago School practices that dismantle parent’s Local School Councils.

Medical Project
Applicant: Prison Legal Services of Michigan, Inc.
Amount: $7,500
Investigation into potential case regarding failure of Michigan prison to provide adequate medical and mental health care to prisoners.

Ward v. Albertson’s Inc.
Applicant: Gilbert & Sackman, A Law Corporation
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to Albertson, Lucky and Sav-on stores for failing to pay final pay to 200,000 terminated employees.

Battered Women's Habeas Project
Applicant: Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.
Amount: $5,000
Project to assist habeas corpus claims of imprisoned “battered women.”

Roger Fairley and Richard Gackowski v. Andrews
Applicant: Gessler, Hughes, Socol, Piers, Resnick & Dym, Ltd.
Amount: $10,000
Whistleblower suit by former corrections officers retaliated against for opposing brutality at Cook County Jail.

Larry Bowoto v. Chevron Texaco Corporation
Applicant: Traber & Voorhees
Amount: $12,000
Alien Tort Claims Act case charging Chevron with complicity in human rights violations in Nigeria.

Grants Awarded (July 1, 2004 - June 30, 2005)

Poverty

Hawthorne-Bey v. Reinerston
Applicant: Colorado Center on Law & Poverty
Amount: $7,500
Challenge to Colorado's inept computerized system for processing applications and benefits for public programs, which has resulted in delays and an error rate of 37%.

Frew, et al v. Hawkins, et al.
Applicant: Texas Alliance for Children's Rights, The Woodlands, TX
Amount: $10,000
Class action to enforce rights for indigent children to medical and dental services under the Medicaid program.

Salazar v. Edwards
Applicant: Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
Amount: $12,000
Action on behalf of homeless students whose schools are to be closed, to ensure minimal education disruption.

Wallace v. Chicago Housing Authority
Applicant: Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
Amount: $10,000
Action on behalf of Chicago Housing Authority residents forced to move as a result of demolition. However, they were not yet provided relocation assistance.

Environmental Justice

In re: Hydro Resources (Supplemental grant)
Applicant: New Mexico Environmental Law Center
Amount: $10,500
Action to halt uranium mining from an aquifer relied upon by the Navajo community.

Arise for Social Justice v. City of Springfield
Applicant: LCCR Under Law of the Boston Bar Association
Amount: $10,000
Voting rights lawsuit challenging use of 'at large' voting for City Council and School Committee in Springfield, MA.

SAGE Council v. Major Martin J. Chavez
Applicant: New Mexico Environmental Law Center
Amount: $10,000
This is an action for injunctive relief for further planning and construction by the defendants of a segment of the Paseo del Norte road in Albuquerque. The proposed extended road would go through an area sacred to Native Americans.

Alvarez et al v. Western Farm Services & Kirschenman Farms
Applicant: Michael Freund, Berkeley, CA
Amount: $10,000
Action to redress massive pesticide exposure of the poor community of Arvin, CA.

Neighborhood Legal Services of L.A. County
Applicant: Neighborhood Legal Services of L.A. County
Amount: $10,000
Action to challenge City of Los Angles approval of expansion of solid waste landfill in predominantly poor, Latino community of Sun Valley.

John DeCamp v. State of Nebraska
Applicant: Center for Rural Affiars, Fiscal Agent for Friends of the Constitution
Amount: $6,500
Defense of Nebraska law that limits corporate ownership of agricultural assets.

Human and Civil Rights

Frank Lopez v. City of El Paso
Applicant: Texas Civil Rights Project
Amount: $11,000
Pattern and practice ploice misconduct action arising out of beatings, pepper spray at school sanctioned demonstration.

Christensen v. Sullivan
Applicant: Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, Inc.
Amount: $7,500
Class action challenge to overcrowded jail facility and denial of mental health care.

Estate of Rodriguez iDrummond Company, Inc.
Applicant: International Labor Rights Fund
Amount: $12,500
Alien tort claim against Alabama-based mining company for its complicity in gross human rights abuses in Columbia.

Duvall v. Ehrlich
Applicant: Public Justice Center, Baltimore, MD
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to conditions of confinement for pre-trial detainees at Baltimore City Detention Center, a pre-trial detention center.

TBA v. Harris County
Applicant: Gulf Region Advocacy Center (GRACE), Houston, TX
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to Houston's "key man" grand jury system, which excludes minority and female jurors

Local 10, ILWU, et al. v. City of Oakland
Applicant: National Lawyers Guild, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
Amount: $10,000

J.P., et al v. Robert Taft, et al
Applicant: Children's Law Center, Inc.
Amount: $5,000
Class action that challenges denial of legal counsel and access to courts of juvenile detainees in Ohio Department for Youth Services.

Battered Women's Habeas Project
Applicant: Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Amount: $12,000
Project to assist habeas corpus claims of imprisoned "battered women."

Touchard, et al v. La-Z-Boy
Applicant: Strindberg, Scholnick & Chamness, LLC
Amount: $12,000
Class action suit by employees discriminated against for filing worker's compensation claims.

Potential case against Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Applicant: Asian Law Caucus
Amount: $5,000
Potential challenge to adverse impact of airport screeners' written test.

Grants Awarded (July 1, 2003 - June 30, 2004)

Poverty

Cabrini-Green Public Housing Development
Applicant: Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, IL
Amount: $5,000
Attempt to halt involuntary relocation program for public housing residents in absence of any redevelopment plan.

In re: Detroit Water and Sewerage Department
Applicant: Michigan Poverty Law Program and MPLP Support
Amount: $3,000
Challenge to termination of water to low-income households in Detroit.

Cabrini-Green Public Housing Development
Applicant: Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, IL Amount: $5,000
Attempt to halt involuntary relocation program for public housing residents in absence of any redevelopment plan.

Horn v. International Hotelier Management Corporation
Applicant: East Bay Community Law Center, Berkeley, CA
Amount: $5,000
Action to protect Asian tenants in 50 affordable housing units from eviction by landlord who had overcharged tenants and failed to re-pay a city of Oakland loan.

Tyson v. A-USA Mortgage Corporation
Applicant: Memphis Area Legal Services, Inc., Memphis, TN
Amount: $10,000
RICO action against 30 defendants alleged to have engaged in criminal conspiracy to ensnare African American homeowners into predatory mortgages.

Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition v. Tommy Thompson and Dennis Braddock
Applicant: Northwest Health Law Advocates, Seattle, WA
Amount: $7,000
Class action challenging State of Washington's attempt to charge premium payments to low-income children as condition for receipt of Medicaid.

Environmental Justice

Dotson v. Circle Four Farms
Applicant: Bruce Plenk, Lawrence, KS
Amount: $5,000
Challenge to massive hog producer for environmental degradation in the surrounding area.

Reducing Farmworkers' Exposure to Toxic Pesticides
Applicant: Farmworker Justice Fund, Inc., Washington DC
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to EPA decision to permit continued use of toxic insecticides despite high risk to farmworkers.

Clients Responsible Destruction of Chemical Weapons of the Miami Valley v. the U.S. Army
Applicant: Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. (ABLE), Toledo, OH
Amount: $10,000
Attempt to block nerve gas incinerator in poor community with substantial African American population.

Kivalina Relocation Planning Committee v. Teck Cominco Alaska, Inc.
Applicant: Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, San Francisco, CA
Amount: $9,000
Clean Water Act case against the world's largest zinc mine b the Inupiat village in rural Alaska.

Human and Civil Rights

Lori Raymond v. Governor John Rowland
Applicant: Connecticut Legal Services, Inc., Willimantic, CT
Amount: $15,000
Action to challenge Connecticut's failure to systematically identify and accommodate disabled applicants for subsistence benefits.

Mendez v. Brown
Applicant: Western Massachusetts Legal Services, Inc., Springfield, MA
Amount: $7,500
Challenge to Massachusetts' refusal to provide Medicaid coverage for reduction mammoplasty to women who are obese.

Labor Community Strategy v. the Los Angeles MTA
Applicant: Labor/Community Strategy Center, Los Angeles, CA
Amount: $8,000
Enforcement of historic "Bus Rider" Consent Decree, which has put thousands of natural gas buses in place, kept fees from rising for 9 years and reduced overcrowding.

Waivers of Rights in the San Antonio District of USICE
Applicant: LCCR Under Law of Texas
Amount: $11,000
Challenge to Department of Homeland Security's practice of seeking deportations from un-represented immigrants.

Razul II v. Bush
Applicant: Justice in Exile, New Orleans, LA
Amount: $20,000
Action to seek review of incarceration of prisoners held in Guantanomo Bay, Cuba.

In re: Colorado General Assembly House Bill 03-1256
Applicant: Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, Colorado Springs, CO
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to financing of high security prison.

Wiwa v. Royal Dutch/Shell
Applicant: Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, NY
Amount: $10,000
Alien tort claims act case charging Royal Dutch/Shell with complicity in summery execution of Nigerian activists.

Estate of Rodriguez v. Drummond Company, Inc.
Applicant: International Labor Rights Fund, Washington D.C.
Amount: $11,000
Alien tort claim against Alabama-based mining company for its complicity in gross human rights abuses in Columbia.

Marbet v. City of Portland
Applicant: Northwest Constitutional Rights Center, Portland, OR
Amount: $4,000
Challenge to Portland Police use of pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse peaceful demonstration against President Bush.

Eric Berg v. City of Los Angeles
Applicant: Cynthia Anderson-Barker, Los Angeles, CA
Amount: $9,000
Class action suit challenging Los Angeles Police use of force to break up demonstration at the Democratic National Convention.

Florida Civil Commitment Case
Applicant: Florida Institutional Legal Services, Inc., Gainesville, FL
Amount: $9,000
Challenge to State's failure to provide treatment to involuntarily committed inmates after serving criminal sentences.

W.R. v. Department of Children and Families
Applicant: Connecticut Legal Services, Inc., Willimantec, CT
Amount: $9,000
Challenge to Connecticut's failure to make residential placements for children dependent on state child care agency.

Wal-Mart Inglewood Litigation
Applicant: Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, Los Angeles, CA
Amount: $3,000
Challenge to local initiative that will allow building Wal-Mart supercenter in Inglewood, CA, without land use or environmental review.

Grants Awarded (July 1, 2002 - June 30, 2003)

Human & Civil Rights

In re: State Voting Rights Act
Applicant: Joaquin Avila, Compton, CA
Amount: $5,000
An examination of the Latino community's access to the political process and the potentially discriminatory at-large election systems in Tulane County.

Bennett v. City of Eastpointe
Applicant: ACLU Fund of Michigan, Detroit, CA
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to a predominantly white community's "bicycling while black" police stop policy.

Ngwanyia v. Ashcroft
Applicant: American Immigration Law
Amount: $10,000
Nationwide class action on behalf of asylees granted asylum in the United States, but denied permanent resident status due to failure of INS to properly administer adjustment program.

Bowoto v. Chevron (supplemental grant)
Applicant: Human, Economic & Environmental Defense, Los Angeles, CA
Amount: $15,000
Alien Tort Claims Act case charging Chevron with complicity in human rights violations in Nigeria.

Immigrant Detention Litigation
Applicant: Constitutional Litigation Clinic
Amount: $5,000
Investigation into a potential class action lawsuit brought under Alient Tort Claims Act seeking injunctive relief to prohibit INS from commingling detained immigrants with prison inmates.

Serventi v. Bucks County Technical High School and the Pennsylvania Department of Education
Applicant: Education Law Center
Amount: $10,000
Action challenging a technical high school's refusal to admit students with learning disabilities from 6 school districts to the school and to its full range of vocational programs.

Jane Doe v. Lakireddy Bali Reddy
Applicant: Altshuler, Berzon, Nussbaum, Rubin & Demain
Amount: $7,500
Lawsuit against a Berkeley landlord, his family members, and their web of family-owned companies, alleging they engaged in a multi-year conspiracy to bring Indian nationals into the United States under fraudulent visas for purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation.

Janis Harris v. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Applicant: Greater Boston Legal Services, Boston, MA
Amount: $12,500
Challenge on behalf of people with disabilities against the MBTA for failure to provide readily accessible and usable transportation as required by the ADA.

Rosie D. v. Swift
Applicant: Center for Public Representation, Northampton, MA
Amount: $15,000
Lawsuit brought on behalf of more than 3,000 children with psychiatric disabilities who need intensive home-based mental health services.

Bowoto v. Chevron
Applicant: Human, Economic & Environmental Defense
Amount: $5,000
Alien Tort Claims Act case charging Chevron with complicity in human rights violations in Nigeria.

Frank v. County of Los Angeles
Applicant: Law Offices of John L. O'Donnell, Jr., APC, Los Angeles, CA
Amount: $10,000
Class action challenging the gross disparities in wages and benefits paid to minority County Police officers.

Montana Fair Housing v. Lloyd A. Twite Family Partnership
Applicant: Montana Fair Housing
Amount: $5,000
Challenge to lack of disability access to large apartment complex.

Labor/Community Strategy Center & Bus Riders Union v. The Los Angeles MTA
Applicant: Labor/Community Strategy Center
Amount: $10,000
Enforcement of historic "Bus Rider" Consent Decree which has put thousands of natural gas buses in place, kept fees from rising for 9 years, and reduced overcrowding.

ILWU Local 10 v. City of Oakland
Applicant: National Lawyers Guild, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
Amount: $7,500
Challenge to Oakland Police's use of excessive force to break up a demonstration.

NAACP v. A.A Arms
Applicant: Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence
Amount: $7,500
Suit against handgun manufacturers' marketing and distribution practices, which facilitate easy access to guns by criminals and underage youth.

Residents of Shoreview Apartments v. AIMCO
Applicant: The Marquez Law Group, LLP
Amount: $7,500
Challenge to mold and mildew infested rental units at San Francisco's Hunters' Point.

Eric Williams v. Countrywide Home Loans
Applicant: Toledo Fair Housing Center
Amount: $5,000
Challenge to lender's policy of refusing to consider income of women on maternity leave when evaluating loan applications.

Stanley v. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
Applicant: Prison Reform Advocacy Center
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to Ohio prison's failure to treat prisoners with hepatitis C.

Poverty

Memisovski v. Garner (supplemental grant)
Applicant: National Center on Poverty Law, Chicago, IL
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to Illinois' failure to ensure that poor women and children have adequate obstetrical and pediatric care as required by Federal Medicaid Act.

Asylum Hill NRZ v. King
Applicant: Connecticut Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Hartford, CT
Amount: $7,500
Challenge to the state housing finance agency's failure to adopt low-income housing site selection that would limit racial segregation.

Felipe de Jesus de Luna-Guerrero v. North Carolina Grower's Association
Applicant: North Carolina Justice and Community Development Center
Amount: $12,000
Suit on behalf of Mexican agricultural H2A guest workers denied minimum wages and contract rights.

Michael Dubois v. Rhonda Medows
Applicant: Southern Legal Counsel, Inc., Gainesville, FL.
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to the State of Florida's failure to provide sufficient home and community based services through Medicaid to meet the needs of low-income persons with disabilities.

Environmental Justice

Lucero v. Detroit Public Schools (supplemental grant)
Applicant: NLG/ Maurice and Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice, Detroit, MI
Amount: $5,000
An action on behalf of Detroit school children, challenging site of elementary school.

Kivalina Relocation Planning Committee v. Teck Cominco Alaska, Inc.
Applicant: Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, San Francisco, CA
Amount: $15,000
Clean Water Act case against the world's largest zinc mine by Imupiat village in rural Alaska.

NYC Coalition to End Lead Poisoning v. Bloomberg
Applicant: Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, New York, NY
Amount: $5,000
This is a class-action against the city of New York's failure to enforce federal, city and state childhood lead poisoning prevention methods.

Hartford Park Tenants Association v. Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management
Applicant: Rhode Island Legal Services, Inc.
Amount: $5,000
Challenge to placement of school on former hazardous waste dump.

Northern Cheyenne Tribe v. Martinez
Applicant: Defenders of the Black Hills
Amount: $4,000
Action to stop placement of rifle shooting range at Bear Battle, a sacred Native American site.

Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration v. Department of Army
Applicant: Kentucky Environmental Foundation
Amount: $5,000
Challenges to the incineration of nerve gas and other chemical weapons near the predominantly minority town of Anniston, Alabama.

John Doe v. Unocal
Applicant: EarthRights International
Amount: $10,000
Challenge to Unocal's complicity in human rights violations in Burma.

Evelyn Frank Fund

Western Center's 2002 Health Policy Summit
Applicant: Western Center on Law & Poverty, Los Angeles, CA
Amount: $7,397.92

Family Advocates and Services Team (FAST)
Applicant: East Bay Community Law Center, Berkeley, CA
Amount: $7,937.92
Family Advocacy and Services Team Collaborative approach to welfare issues.

Grants Awarded (July 1, 2001 - June 30, 2002)

Poverty

HZA/North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation Litigation
Applicant: Oregon Law Center, Ontario, OR
Amount: $2,500
Litigation to support agricultural migrant labor rights.

Beltran Benitez v. Sea Safari, Ltd.
Applicant: North Carolina Justice and Community Development Center, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Amount: $6,070.
An action by immigrant "guest workers" in North Carolina crab processing industry for unpaid wages.

Jean Matthews & Philomenia Johnson v. City of New Orleans
Applicant: New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation, New Orleans, LA
Amount: $3,500
A defense of referendum establishing New Orleans minimum wage $1 above the federal level.

Environmental Justice

Picuris Pueblo Land Claim Project
Applicant: Western Environmental Law Center, Taos, NM
Amount: $7,000
Aboriginal land claim on behalf of Picuris Pueblo of New Mexico to protect ancestral clay gathering sites from an industrial mica mine.

Lucero v. Detroit Public Schools
Applicant: Maurice and Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, Detroit, NM
Amount: $15,000
Environmental justice action on behalf of Detroit school children, challenging the siting of an elementary school on toxic land fill.

Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health v. American Xtal Technology
Applicant: Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health, San Jose, CA
Amount: $7,500
An action on behalf of non-English speaking employees of Xtal claiming the company knowingly exposes its workers to dangerous compounds, and fails to translate warnings and hazard communications.

South Camden Citizens in Action v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
(supplemental grant)
Applicant: Camden Regional Legal Services, Camden, NJ
Amount: $15,000
An environmental justice challenge to the placement of a cement slag grinding facility in the poor, environmentally devastated community of Camden, New Jersey.

In re: Hydro Resources, Inc.
(supplemental grant)
Applicant: New Mexico Environmental Law Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Amount: $12,500
Action to stop uranium mining from an aquifer relied upon by the Navajo community.

In re: Hydro Resources, Inc.
(supplemental grant)
Applicant: New Mexico Environmental Law Center, Santa Fe, NM
Amount: $7,500
An action to stop uranium mining from an aquifier relied upon by the Navajo community.

Native Village of Eklunta v. Alaska Railroad Corporation
Applicant: Native Village of Eklunta, Chugiak, Alaska
Amount: $2,500
A native village challenge to the Alaska Railroad Corporation's mining of a sacred site.

Keith Dotson v. Circle Four Farms
Applicant: Bruce Plenk, Lawrence, KS
Amount: $15,000
A challenge to a massive hog producer for environmental degradation of the surrounding area.

Civil and Human Rights

Raygor v. Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota
Applicant: Borkon, Ramstead, Mariani, Fishman & Carp, Ltd., Minneapolis, MN
Amount: $6,500
An appeal in the United States Supreme Court of Minnesota ruling holding states immune from federal law that tolls state statues of limitation during pendency of federal lawsuit.

Morgan v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation
Applicant: Price & Associates, Oakland, CA
Amount: $2,044.50
Supreme Court appeal defining scope of "continuing violation" doctrine in a race discrimination case.

Marybeth Inch v. Indiana Family and Social Services Administration
Applicant: Stephen Gold, Philadelphia, PA
Amount: $13,365
A class challenge to state failure to allocate resources to in-home and community-based care on the same basis as to institutionalization of Medicaid recipients.

Sanchez v. Johnson
Applicant: Autism Society of Greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Amount: $10,000
A challenge on behalf of persons with disabilities to discriminatory low wages paid to community-based nurses, as opposed to those in institutional programs.

State of Washington v. Johnny Varner
Applicant: Seattle/King County Public Defender Association/Racial Disparity Project, Seattle WA
Amount: $15,000
A challenge to discriminatory practices and selective enforcement arrests by undercover Seattle police.

Radio Canyon Lake v. John Ashcroft
Applicant: NLG Center for Democratic Communications, San Francisco, CA
Amount: $2,500
A constitutional challenge to the law restricting licenses for low-power FM radio stations.

Colindres v. Quietflex Manufacturing and Goodman Manufacturing
Applicant: Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), Houston, TX
Amount: $8,000
An employment discrimination class action brought by Latino workers in segregated job classifications.

Larry Bowoto v. Chevron Corporation
(supplemental grant)
Applicant: Human, Economic & Environmental Defense (HEED), Los Angeles, CA
Amount: $12,500
Aliens Tort Claims Act challenge charging Chevron with complicity in human rights violations in Nigeria

International Action Center v. United States of America
Applicant: Partnership for Civil Justice, Washington, DC
Amount: $10,000
A challenge to the paramilitary police tactics used to break up peaceful demonstrations.

Clark iJohnson
Applicant: University of California Death Penalty Clinic, Berkeley, CA
Amount: $12,000
A petition to the United States Supreme Court to establish the right to counsel in clemency and competency proceedings in capital cases.

In re: Massachusetts Students
Applicant: Multicultural Education, Training & Advocacy (META), Somerville, MA
Amount: $8,781
A challenge on behalf of limited-English and minority students to Massachusetts high school graduation test.

Newberry v. Neel
Applicant: Tennessee Justice Center, Nashville, TN
Amount: $20,000
A challenge to Tennessee Medicaid program and HMO practice of steering disabled patients into nursing homes.

Frederick L. v. Department of Public Welfare
Applicant: Disabilities Law Project, Pittsburgh, PA
Amount: $7,500
A class action by state hospital residents challenging the failure of the state to develop community-based alternatives to hospitalization.

Lopez v. San Francisco Unified School District
Applicant: Education Law Center/Legal Society of San Francisco
Amount: $5,000
A class action on behalf of mobility and visually impaired students denied access to San Francisco public schools.

John Doe I v. Unocal Corporation
Applicant: EarthRights International, Washington, D.C.
Amount: $20,000Alien Tort Claims Act challenge to Unocal's complicity in human rights violations in Burma.

Kantaras v. Kantaras
Applicant: National Center for Lesbian Rights, San Francisco, CA
Amount: $10,000
An action to preserve the parental rights of a female-to-male transsexual, and to establish his right to be legally recognized as male.

M.A. v. Newark Public Schools
Applicant: Education Law Center, Newark, NJ
Amount: $5,000
A suit by thousands of students in Newark public schools and the State of New Jersey challenging the failure to implement a viable system for delivery of special education programs.

Joe Doe I v. Exxon Mobil Corporation
Applicant: Terry Collingsworth
Amount: $12,500, contingent upon denial of Exxon Mobil's motion to dismiss
Challenge to Human Rights abuses in Indonesia on behalf of 11 villagers in Aceh.

The Impact Fund: 125 University Avenue, Suite 102, Berkeley CA 94710
Tel: (510) 845-3473 | Fax: (510) 845-3654 | impactfund@impactfund.org