SOCIAL JUSTICE BLOG
Read and share extraordinary stories from the frontlines of social change
Love in Activism
The May 24 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas elementary school has shaken up the country, sparking intense debates where both sides of the political spectrum rose up in anger and fear. Whether it is anxiety about sending one’s kids to school or the panic of many who believe their second amendment rights will be taken away, there is a common thread of fear that underlies the country and political landscape.
Class Action Challenges San Diego's Criminalization of Homelessness
A lot is at stake in this case. Punitive approaches to sheltering in vehicles are reflective of the larger, nationwide policy shift toward criminalizing visible poverty in a harmful, expensive, and futile effort to police our way out of the growing homelessness crisis. When inherently innocent survival conduct, like sheltering, is treated as a punishable offense, the rights and freedoms of all human beings are threatened. It is critical to fight for protection of our freedoms in the courts.
Winning in Environmental Litigation: Outlast the Polluters to Defend the Environment
The PolyMet/Glencore copper-nickel sulfide mine is a dangerous project and a formidable adversary. This mine would be located in the headwaters of the St. Louis River, the largest U.S. tributary to Lake Superior, upstream of the Fond du Lac Reservation and Minnesota’s third largest city, Duluth. The PolyMet/Glencore mine would destroy more than 1,000 acres of wetlands¾the largest wetlands destruction ever approved in the history of our U.S. Army Corps region. The project would release sulfate and toxic metals into waters already impaired due to mercury, contaminating drinking water, decimating wild rice, and increasing toxic mercury contamination of fish. Unfortunately, the Minnesota Legislature has taken PolyMet’s side for more than a decade, sweeping away laws that would pose hurdles in permitting and spending millions in taxpayer funds for outside mining-industry lawyers to represent the agencies granting PolyMet permits.
Pursuit of Water Protection: Clean Water Access for Communities in the San Joaquin Valley
The Clean Water Project, which spanned our legal, training, and grantmaking programs, focused on bringing communities together to advocate for and gain access to potable water and on funding impact cases that address clean water issues faced by residents of unincorporated communities in the San Joaquin Valley in California. Although we have distributed all the Clean Water Project funds, the Impact Fund remains committed to funding environmental justice cases through our Just Earth program. We will continue to fund cases working to ensure that people’s right to clean water is protected.
Youth Plaintiffs' Suit For Climate Justice Heads To Historic Trial In Montana
“Going to trial means a chance for me and my fellow plaintiffs to have our climate injuries recognized and a solution realized. It means our voices are actually being heard by the courts, the government, the people who serve to protect us as citizens and Montana’s youth. Knowing that we have the dates for the first youth constitutional climate case ever, I feel hopeful that finally our government may begin to serve our best interests.”
Class Action Brings Justice and Healing to Foster Children in Kansas
I remember talking to children and families early in our work in Kansas and being shocked by the stories they told. How children were regularly dropped off at a new foster home night after night without being offered so much as a warm meal or a shower before being picked up the next morning. They would then spend their day in a case worker’s office with nothing to do. Some children cycled through upwards of ninety placements due to this horrifying practice. This is an experience that we know devastates youth emotionally and psychologically, and interferes with child brain development. It was impossible for me to fathom how we could be doing that to any child.
Class Action Hall of Fame, Class of 2022: Title IX Champions for Equality in Women's Sports
As the case worked its way through the legal system, my teammates and I learned more and more about the history of women and sports, Title IX, the promises that had been made yet not fulfilled and the injustices that exist(ed) everywhere. We realized that this case was about much more than just getting our gymnastics team back. We became Title IX warriors.
SCOTUS Should Not Allow Students To Be Pressured To Pray To Play!
Joseph Kennedy was an assistant football coach at Bremerton High School, a public school in the State of Washington. For years, Kennedy led his team in prayers, both before and after games. When the School District learned what he was doing, it asked him to stop. The District made sure to let Kennedy know that it would find ways to accommodate his religious practice that did not make students feel pressure to participate. But Kennedy’s lawyers made clear that he would accept nothing less than capitulation by the School District: He must be allowed to continue to pray at the 50-yard line at the end of every game, joined by students. The district court and Ninth Circuit rightly rejected that demand—twice—but the Supreme Court has now granted cert.
Victory for Unhoused People in Ocala, Florida - Court Rules City Ordinance Unconstitutional
After Patrick McArdle’s eighth arrest in early 2019 for sleeping on public property in Ocala, Florida, he could no longer accept the injustice of being arrested merely because he was unhoused. When he was unable to make bond, he decided to spend his time in jail in the library, researching constitutional caselaw about sleeping ordinances. When he stumbled upon Martin v. Boise, he felt vindicated — he was now sure the City’s efforts to arrest and incarcerate unhoused residents in Ocala for sleeping outside were, like Boise’s, in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
LGBTQ+ Veterans Still Suffer Harms From “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Ten Years After Repeal
The repeal of DADT was a cause for celebration, but those service members subject to it still must contend with a loss of valuable benefits, bureaucratic intransigence, and stigmatization. Today, tens of thousands of LGBTQ-identifying veterans are still foreclosed from receiving the benefits they deserve. As the tenth anniversary of DADT’s repeal approaches, there is new movement to address these harms. If you or someone you know is a former service member who served in any branch of the U.S. armed forces, were separated from service for being openly LGBTQ—or because others thought you were—and received anything less than an honorable discharge, please contact us.
Just Earth Celebrates Three Years of Success Championing Environmental Justice
In the three years since the creation of Just Earth , the need for funding for environmental justice has only increased. After receiving generous seed funding from the Mosaic collaborative, Just Earth is poised for the next chapter. As of today, Just Earth has awarded more than $500,000 by way of 26 recoverable grants. With each of our grants, we aim to effect positive change by funding environmental justice litigation: environmental cases that dually aim to empower and cultivate justice for Indigenous and other underserved communities. All too often, environmental racism and discrimination on the basis of class and race are linked with significant ecological harm.
Can Britney Vote?
The plight of Britney Spears, the pop star who has been under a conservatorship for the past 13 years, has plastered the news headlines recently. While even a quick skimmer of the Britney saga suggests the potential for financial abuse, like how much she pays the people who continue to benefit from her conservatorship, and restrictions on her reproductive rights such as whether she can stop using birth control, we don’t know if Ms. Spears can vote. If she is like thousands of other people whose voting rights are curtailed through a court-ordered guardianship (called conservatorship in California), she may have been disenfranchised without any consideration of whether she in fact remains capable of voting. Categorical bans on voting by people subject to guardianship or conservatorship exist in at least a dozen states and may be ripe for legal challenge.
After Years of Suffering By Low-Income and BIPOC Communities, Court Orders Houston to Obey Clean Water Act and Invest $2BN on Major Upgrades to Sewer System
The Houston Chronicle reported lower-income communities and communities of color are “most likely to feel the consequences of Houston’s long-running struggle with sewer overflows.” We identified thousands of illegal overflows that had occurred across the City’s massive sanitary sewer system and had polluted our local bayous and creeks, as well as neighborhood parks and school playgrounds. This led us to serve the City of Houston with a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Water Act.
Who Buys 87 Guns At Once? Brady Holds Gun Manufacturer, Distributor, and Dealer Accountable!
Who buys 87 guns at once, or 180 guns in a few months? Traffickers who intend to resell guns on the criminal market. No one should have been surprised when a gun trafficker drove these Saturday night specials into New York--a state with much stronger gun laws than Ohio--and sold them to criminals. One of these guns was later used to shoot Daniel.
Combatting COVID-19 In Psychiatric Hospitals: When The Only Thing You Can Do Is Go To Court
Some might ask what business civil rights lawyers had bringing litigation against the state when the entire world was trying to contend with a novel coronavirus. My response is this: our clients, afraid of dying, called us and asked us to help. We approached the state on behalf of our clients asking them to change their ordinary course of business when the first positive tests were announced. When the Department announced the first death of a patient in its custody, the press release included their “thoughts and prayers.” Our clients needed more: they needed infection control and prevention, including PPE used properly; they needed reduction in census so that social distancing measures could be implemented; they needed isolation and quarantine protocols.
Fighting to Protect Residents From an Industrial Animal Agriculture Giant’s Wasteful Water Use
While residents face water shortages that adversely impact their quality of life, Foster Farms’ Livingston chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant use vast amounts of water for a particularly wasteful and inhumane method of slaughter that also results in diminished water quality in the region. The Impact Fund is standing up for Livingston residents by providing critical funding to the Animal Legal Defense Fund in support of its groundbreaking lawsuit challenging Foster Farms’ excessive water use. The lawsuit seeks to enjoin the company from using its current water-wasting slaughter method, based on a provision in the California Constitution that states that the right to water “shall not extend to the waste or unreasonable use or unreasonable method of use.”
Civil Rights Hero, Artie Lashbrook, Posthumously Inducted to Impact Fund Class Action Hall of Fame
Artie fulfilled his duty as a class representative despite tremendous adversity in his personal life. During the course of the negotiation, Artie experienced periods of homelessness, living with his partner in their minivan. He also faced serious health problems requiring hospitalization, the amputation of his other leg, and extended stays at rehabilitation facilities. Artie could have easily given up on the case. But he didn’t.
I Wanted Them To Have Justice, To Be Heard And Healed
I thought no one would believe me if I told anyone what happened that day. He was a doctor, I was a 22-year-old student. My real horror that day was guilt. After he assaulted me, over the next 25 years, he assaulted thousands of other women.
Nationwide Class Action Affirms Immigrants’ Rights to their A-Files
This litigation has yielded an unprecedented victory. On December 17, 2020, Judge Orrick issued an order vindicating immigrants’ right to timely receive their A-Files. Finding an “unmistakable history of failing to make timely determinations on A-File FOIA requests,” the court granted declaratory relief that USCIS, ICE, and DHS have a pattern or practice of violating FOIA’s statutory deadlines. This violation, the court wrote, “undermines the fairness of immigration proceedings, particularly for the vast number of noncitizens who navigate our immigration system without assistance of counsel.” Recognizing the need for enforceable and longstanding relief, the court permanently enjoined USCIS, ICE, and DHS from further violations, and ordered defendants to reduce the backlog of A-File FOIA requests within sixty days and release quarterly compliance reports.
Broken Promises and Shattered Dreams - Seeking Economic Justice for the St. Clare’s Pensioners
on July 15, 2020 the Hon. Vincent Versaci of Schenectady Supreme Court denied the motion, holding that the pensioners had sufficiently shown both that the corporation had breached its duties to the plaintiffs and that that the diocese might be liable. Based on the judge’s ruling, we are moving forward with discovery, bringing the St. Clare’s pensioners one step closer to their day in court. We recognize that this is only the first battle and that there is a long road ahead, but we are honored and privileged to be fighting for justice for the St. Clare’s pensioners.