IMPACT FUND REACHES $8M MILESTONE IN GRANTMAKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

New Grants to Support Litigation on Behalf of Black Lives Matter Protesters, Native Americans, Unhoused People, and Incarcerated People with Disabilities

Berkeley, CA 03.30.21 – The Impact Fund, the nation’s only charity providing broad support to advance the use of impact litigation as a tool to achieve economic, environmental, racial, and social justice, has just made recoverable grants totaling $55,000 in its spring cycle to fund four lawsuits protecting the rights of marginalized communities threatened by uncaring corporate interests and small-minded government.

Since its founding in December 1992, the Impact Fund has made 715 grants and the most recent round pushes the cumulative total to just over $8M.

“When the Impact Fund was founded just over 28 years ago, nobody dreamed that we’d still be here today, stronger than ever,” said Impact Fund Executive Director, Jocelyn Larkin, adding: “The fact that we are proves that impact litigation remains one of the most effective tools to make real social change.”

In its most recent round of grantmaking, the Impact Fund made grants to support four cases, which reflect the broad scope of the issues and communities within the organization’s mission.

The first case, NAACP v. City of San Jose, brought by attorneys Alexsis C. Beach & Rachel Lederman, arises from protests across the nation in response to the May 25, 2020, murder of George Floyd. In San Jose, thousands took to the streets on a daily basis 9, 2020, to make their viewst known that police brutality and institutionalized racism must end. But like demonstrators in many other cities across the country, the San Jose demonstrators were met with brutal and racially targeted repression. The San Jose Police fired impact munitions into the bodies of unarmed, predominantly peaceful demonstrators, observers, and journalists without justification; threw explosive flashbang and stinger grenades at them; used chemical weapons on them; and beat them with batons. Two of the plaintiffs were shot in the eye (one completely losing his eye, the other with permanent damage), and four were shot in or near the groin. Arrestees were held on buses in COVID-unsafe conditions and then driven to another city, where they were released late at night after buses had stopped running. 

In the second case, Fund for Empowerment v. City of Phoenix, the Fund for Empowerment is challenging the city’s practice of ticketing and fining persons who are unhoused on the streets of Phoenix, as well as seizing and destroying their property—a practice that has been found unconstitutional in a wide variety of court rulings. By continuing to enforce these ordinances, the city of Phoenix is penalizing people for the unavoidable human activity of sleeping and migrating in the United States.  The city is also creating barriers for homeless persons to benefit from housing and jobs because of the collateral consequences of criminal convictions and loss of property, particularly identifying information and paperwork related to pending benefits applications. The case aims to develop, and potentially extend, the state of the law in the Ninth Circuit with regards to stopping the criminalization and inhumane treatment of unsheltered people in Arizona. 

The third grant is to Midwest Environmental Advocates). The organization has joined with several local, statewide, and Indigenous partner organizations to prevent the rerouting of Enbridge’s Line 5, an outdated oil pipeline transporting Canadian oil through the Great Lakes. This challenge represents a critical stand for climate and environmental justice because the rerouting would facilitate the continued operation of an outdated oil pipeline in environmentally and culturally sensitive areas, including land directly upstream of an Ojibwe Reservation and through an area where the tribe retains treaty rights to harvest plants and medicines. Line 5 is well beyond its expected lifespan and has spilled over a million gallons of oil since first coming online. The continued operation of Line 5 means that all the communities and natural resources along the pipeline routing will remain under threat of a potentially catastrophic oil spill. 

The fourth case funded is Baxley v. Jividen. The grantee, Mountain State Justice, is litigating a class action addressing West Virginia’s failure to provide basic minimum health services and disability accommodation to individuals in West Virginia jails. Inmates with diagnosed medical and mental health disorders that require immediate and ongoing treatment are denied this treatment or are required to wait extensive periods of time before the jail provides them with their prescribed medications and adequate care. One of the named plaintiffs, Mr. Baxley, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and another named plaintiff, Mr. Spiker, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Both men were denied their prescribed medications upon detainment and were placed on suicide watch instead of receiving a medical evaluation or adequate medical attention. As a result, Mr. Baxley entered a psychotic state, to which correctional officers responded with force. Mr. Spiker attempted suicide multiple times until a medical evaluation was performed, and then was transferred to a psychiatric hospital. The litigation seeks to require the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation to implement policies and procedures to ensure the provision of medically necessary services and medication immediately upon an individual’s processing into a state jail. 

Helen Kang, chair of the Impact Fund’s Grant Advisory Committee said: “The grants reflect the movements and developments that have converged in the last year: calls for reform as a result of centuries-long racial injustice, the economic chasm, and the deepening climate crisis. I’m grateful that the Impact Fund will continue to support litigation that’s critical to human rights and to Earth’s survival itself.”

Letters of inquiry for the Impact Fund’s summer grantmaking cycle are due April 6.