Impact Fund Sets New Grantmaking Record In Support Of Communities Seeking Justice

Sanjana Manjeshwar, Grant Program Associate

In our summer grantmaking cycle, we granted $203,650 to support nine impact cases brought by communities confronting injustice. This is the highest amount we have ever granted in one quarter, and an exciting end to our largest grantmaking year so far, with a total of $690,150 granted to support 27 communities across the U.S. and Canada seeking their day in court. 

Our new grantees this quarter are doing amazing work on behalf of LGBTQ+ students, immigrants, Indigenous people, people with disabilities, unhoused people, and incarcerated people. We are so grateful that we can help support these important cases. Here are the inspiring stories behind them. 

Challenging Rights Violations by State Governments  

Two of our grantees this quarter are challenging state government actions that restrict basic freedoms.   

In a civil rights lawsuit against the state of Montana, the ACLU of Montana is challenging SB 99, a state law that restricts the discussion of reproductive health and LGBTQ+ identities in public schools. The law requires K-12 public school educators to provide parental notification before discussing topics that relate “in any way to human sexuality, sexual orientation, or gender identity.” Due to this broad language, the law could be used to suppress not only sex education, but also the discussion of books, historical figures, current events, and anything else that alludes to issues of gender and sexuality.  

Montana's SB 99 restricts the discussion of reproductive health and LGBTQ+ identities in public schools.

According to the students, educators, and organizations bringing the case, SB 99 has effectively become a “Don’t Say Gay” bill that has further stigmatized LGBTQ+ youth, who already face high rates of bullying and harassment. In a time of increased hostility towards LGBTQ+ students, this case aims to ensure that all students can go to school without feeling that their identity is a taboo subject.  

Another one of our grantees, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, is trying to protect a nonprofit’s right to provide food, clothing, and temporary shelter to immigrants who have just crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Earlier this year, the Texas Attorney General demanded that Annunciation House, a nonprofit associated with the Catholic diocese in El Paso, hand over all of its documents—including identifying information—of everyone it had ever helped. When Annunciation House asked for more time to review this request, Texas attempted to revoke the organization’s nonprofit status, which would force it to shut down.  

Annunciation House serves hundreds of asylum-seekers and refugees, including many families, every day. Its closure would cause immeasurable harm to these communities and could also endanger the ability of other nonprofits and faith-based organizations to help people in need. In an exciting update to this case, a district court judge recently dismissed Texas’s efforts to shut down Annunciation House. However, the Texas Attorney General has appealed this decision, which means that the litigation is still ongoing.   

Defending and Expanding Indigenous Sovereignty 

Two grantees are bringing lawsuits related to the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on the unceded land of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in Canada.  

The Gidimt’en and Likhsilyu Clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, represented by the public interest law firm Chantler & Company, are suing the Canadian police and the pipeline company for surveilling, intimidating, and violently harassing Indigenous land defenders resisting the pipeline. In 2018, the land defenders established a checkpoint near the pipeline construction site to observe and protest its construction. In the years since, police officers have arrested with brutal force the land defenders, community elders, journalists, and legal observers at the checkpoint.  

According to the lawsuit, the police have used military counterinsurgency tactics to harass and intimidate the protesters.

According to the lawsuit, the police have used military counterinsurgency tactics to harass and intimidate the protesters—for example, trying to cause chronic sleep deprivation by shining bright lights into residences and tents between midnight and 5 a.m. The land defenders describe the police’s actions as a severe violation of their civil rights, and they are seeking accountability for the ongoing violence they have suffered, which has included psychological trauma and property damage.  

We also made a grant to public interest law firm Ng Ariss Fong, Lawyers, to support a case brought by the Unist’ot’en House of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. Unist’ot’en is making a strategic claim for Aboriginal title and governance on its territories, which include the area where the Canadian government granted Coastal GasLink permission to build the pipeline. The lawsuit seeks to establish that Unist’ot’en has the right to regulate third-party activity (such as pipeline construction) on its territories, a ruling that could benefit all First Nations across Canada, as well as Indigenous peoples in other parts of the world.  

Advancing Disability Rights Through Class Actions 

Three of our grantees are seeking to protect and strengthen the rights of people with disabilities.  

We supported a class action brought by public interest law firm Northern Justice Project, LLC, against the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, Alaska’s second largest school district, for restraining and isolating students with disabilities as a form of discipline. The school district has been accused of physically injuring students and confining them to a small locked room in response to behavioral issues that are often associated with their disabilities.  

Alaska schools are restraining and isolating students with disabilities as a form of discipline.

Students with disabilities make up 98% of the children inappropriately restrained and secluded in the district. In many instances, the district did not inform parents that their children were restrained and isolated at school. In one example, a seven-year-old boy was physically restrained and dragged into a seclusion room, but his parents were told that he had tripped and fallen to explain his visible injuries. The students and parents bringing the case are asking the district to end the use of restraint and seclusion and implement a less restrictive form of discipline.  

The Elder Law and Disability Rights Center is bringing a class action against the city of Riverside, California, for unlawfully taking and destroying the property of unhoused people, many of whom have physical and/or psychiatric disabilities. Although shelters in the city have little to no availability, Riverside has passed “anti-camping” ordinances that ban people from sitting or sleeping in public places. While enforcing these ordinances, the city seizes and throws away unhoused peoples’ possessions, including essential items such as medication and identification. 

Some unhoused people with disabilities in the city experienced seizures and hospitalization due to losing their medication, and they were prevented from attending necessary medical appointments because they no longer had any form of identification. The case seeks to stop the city’s practice of taking unhoused peoples’ property and to compensate the people whose possessions were taken.  

New York City's paratransit system is very difficult to use. People cannot schedule same-day rides, vehicles often do not arrive on time, and passengers are often sent on unnecessarily long routes.

Another grant was made to public interest law firm Vladeck, Raskin & Clark for a disability rights class action challenging the inaccessibility of New York City’s transit options. Public transit is the primary mode of transportation for most New York City residents, but many people with mobility-limiting disabilities are unable to safely use subways or buses.  

While the city offers a “paratransit” system that allows people to request a van to pick them up and drop them off at a specific location, this system is very difficult to use. People cannot schedule same-day rides, vehicles often do not arrive on time, and passengers are often sent on unnecessarily long routes into adjoining boroughs. The case is asking the city to provide a paratransit system that is truly comparable to the subway and bus service, as it is required to do under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  

Protecting the Rights of Incarcerated People 

Finally, two of our grantees are bringing cases to protect the rights of people incarcerated in jails and prisons.  

Georgia public interest law firm Mitchell Shapiro Greenamyre & Funt is suing the Gwinnett County Jail in Lawrenceville, Georgia, for restricting incarcerated people’s access to books. The jail has an “authorized retailer” policy that only allows a few pre-approved booksellers to supply books for sale, which prevents people from mailing free books to their incarcerated loved ones.  

Books are one of the few means of education available to the 35,000 to 37,000 people incarcerated at the jail in any given year. These individuals—the majority of whom are Black and low-income—have not yet been convicted and are awaiting trial; many are only at the jail because they are unable to afford bail. This lawsuit seeks to prevent the censorship of books by declaring the jail’s current policy unconstitutional under the First Amendment.  

For years, the only gynecologist at Lowell Correctional Institution, the largest women’s prison in the nation, has sexually assaulted incarcerated women who seek medical care.

We also made a grant to Florida Legal Services to support a civil rights lawsuit brought by survivors of sexual violence at the Lowell Correctional Institution, the largest women’s prison in the nation. For years, the only gynecologist at the prison has sexually assaulted incarcerated women who seek medical care. According to the women bringing the case, there is a culture of tolerance of sexual abuse at the facility that continues to this day. Many complaints have been made about the doctor, but he continues to work at the prison and has not faced any consequences. Women at the prison are unable to access care if they refuse to see this doctor, which has resulted in a number of serious untreated medical conditions.  

The case is being brought against the doctor, as well as the prison medical care provider for failing to protect patients from abuse. The goals of this case include removing the doctor from the facility, ensuring that people can see another clinician for reproductive care, and improving trainings for prison staff on addressing sexual abuse. 

Our new grantees’ cases demonstrate the incredible potential of litigation as a tool for social change across a wide range of important and timely issues. We are so excited to follow the progress of these cases in the coming years.  

Each quarter, we make grants to support impact litigation in pursuit of economic, environmental, racial, and social justice. To learn more about our grant program and upcoming grant application deadlines, check out the “Apply” page of our website or contact us here.