Civil and Human Rights Law

Emory Law’s Center for Civil Rights and Social Justice and The Carter Center will host “Advancing the Rule of Law in U.S. Elections.” This symposium will launch a partnership between the CCRSJ and the Center that aims to increase support for civil rights and social justice in the legal community.

Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), to give 2023 MLK Day lecture.

Two recent Emory Law graduates have been awarded national public interest fellowships based on proposals for two-year projects they designed to address as yet unmet legal needs.

The new center will enhance the law school’s already rich focus on issues of civil rights, human rights, and social justice.

A new Gallup poll shows 70% of people polled support same-sex marriage. In 1996, only 27% supported it. Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Tim Holbrook, a long-time advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, says it's because more people now openly identify as LGBTQ+. "I think that it means that the queer community just becomes part of the tapestry of American culture and American life in a way that is inclusive and welcoming," he said.

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown was interviewed on the Economic Policy Institute's podcast, "The State of Working America." She spoke with the institute's Eve Tahmincioglu and provided "a cross-disciplinary analysis exposing the racism of the American tax system."

Talking with MSNBC's Chris Hayes on the anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre that burned "Black Wall Street" to ash, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown notes that dozens of similar assaults on Black excellence occurred across the country and that white U.S. citizens still benefit "in the 21st century from systemic racism that is not too distant past."

While the "Pot Brothers" legal advice to invoke the Fifth Amendment during a traffic stop may be correct, Assistant Professor Kamina Pinder says that could play out differently for people of color. In an interview with Vice about two attorneys' approach to never talking to police after identifying yourself she says, "If you are a person of color, specifically Black or Latinx, you cannot just reach into your wallet and snap out, "This is the only information you're going to get from me.'"

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown was a guest on "The View" to discuss how the tax code subsidizes white wealth and penalizes Black Americans, even when they participate in the exact same behaviors.

"A typical white family has eight times the wealth of a typical Black family in the United States,” Dean Obeidallah writes for Salon. The why behind that racial wealth gap has, until recently, overlooked one driving reason: The U.S. tax code. “That's why Dorothy Brown … wrote her compelling new book, 'The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans — and How We Can Fix It.'"

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and 22 of his national counterparts have started a coalition to prevent DC from becoming a state. They say they're defending the Constitution. Emory Law Professor Alexander Volokh said the issue is how it could dilute voting power of existing states. "Whenever a new state is admitted that dilutes voting power of every existing state, so that means if you are concerned about the power of your state to shap'e the destiny of America, you can welcome new states," he said. "But on the other hand you can say, No, if we're going to dilute voting power it should be valid,'" Volokh said.

The tax code is designed to build white wealth, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law tells New York Magazine. "If you're a Black American, going, 'What am I doing wrong?' The answer is nothing. The system is what's wrong."

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy Brown, author of "The Whiteness of Wealth," was featured on the New Yorker Radio Hour to explain how the seemingly race-neutral tax code compounds inequalities and prevents Black people from building wealth.

While Emory has worked hard to eliminate racism and anti-semitism, its Yerkes National Primate Research Center is named for Robert Yerkes, Professor George Shepherd writes in an op-ed for the Emory Wheel. He says the University should stop honoring a man who was a racist proponent of eugenics, instrumental in the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, which excluded millions of Jews from the U.S. in the years before World War II.

The school to prison pipeline, that was recently halted during the COVID-19 pandemic, is especially pronounced for Black and Latinx students and students with disabilities and in schools serving impoverished communities, explained Sarah Vinson, M.D., and Randee Waldman, J.D., in a commentary published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health.

The nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has generated discussion about the future of Roe v. Wade, Professor Timothy Holbrook writes in a CNN op-ed. However, "Roe is not the only precedent at risk," he writes. "Marriage equality may be too." He discusses recent statements by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas that "make clear that the vitality of Obergefell is in doubt."

Professor Dorothy Brown discusses critical race theory, systemic racism, over-policing in black communities and "the disparate impact of the law on Black America," with Mohamed Younis, editor-in-chief of Gallup's digital news team. The podcast discusses how systemic racism affects U.S. courts and workplaces. "The easy answer is that the law is not colorblind in America," Brown says.

Corporate America has responded to nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd with a wave of public statements condemning racism, or by contributing financially to support to Black Lives Matter. But there's an underlying assumption, Professor Dorothy Brown tells Marker, that failing to make promised changes around race gets a pass--unlike failing to make promised changes around revenue or profits. CEO payouts or bonuses could be tied to keeping those promises. "Some CEO needs to lose their job because they failed at this," Brown said. "Make CEO pay dependent upon Black employee lives mattering."

Professor Timothy Holbrook was among several Georgia attorneys asked by the Daily Report to comment on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that extended workplace discrimination protections to the LGBTQ community. "My initial reaction is surprise both at the outcome and at the vote. I thought the court would reject protections for the LBGT community," Holbrook said. "We now have national, non-discrimination protection for LBGTQ persons. It has always been the concern that our protections were patchwork depending on the states and cities. That’s no longer the case."

In an essay for Foreign Affairs, Professor Mary L. Dudziak views the current Black Lives Matter protests, and the world's shocked response to George Floyd's killing through the lens of the Civil Rights protests in the 1960s. "And as they did then, U.S. foreign policy leaders today have looked at the global response and considered the effect of the crisis on U.S. foreign relations--worrying that the protests and violent police response, coming on top of the United States' handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn, threaten to undermine American strength in the world,” Dudziak writes.

Professor Deborah Dinner says the LaFleur pregnancy discrimination case decided by the Supreme Court in 1974 "deserves a far more prominent place in our constitutional history and canon." It led to the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 which added pregnancy bias to federal employee laws. "The context of these pregnancy-dismissal policies is that they were routine and widespread across the country," Dinner told Education Week. "My default intuition about any teacher who says she was fired for this at the time is that she was correct."

30 years after Ann Hopkins won a Title VII workplace discrimination case at the Supreme Court, the court is again considering whether discrimination laws protect LGBTQ freedom of gender expression, in two cases brought by gay and transgender employees. Associate Professor Deborah Dinner is quoted by the Washington Post: "... discriminating on the basis of somebody's gender identity or on the basis of their sexual orientation, what an employer in fact is doing is discriminating on the basis of a gender stereotype."

Emory Law Professor and CSLR Senior Fellow Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, author of "Islam and the Secular State," is interviewed by UNESCO on how concept, content and context affect meaningful changes in human rights, and also, his "The Future of Sharia," project.

Senior Lecturer in Law Kathleen Cleaver was interviewed for the ABC News Australia "Sunday Extra" program, "1968: A Fractured America," along with historian Marc Leepson. The 50-year retrospective examines "a nation fractured, along political, racial and generational lines." Demands for civil rights and an end to the Vietnam War intensified during the year Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.

Emory Law Professor Kathleen Cleaver was interviewed along with fellow historian Peniel Joseph for C-SPAN's series, "1968: America in Turmoil."

Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission asks whether a wedding baker can deny service to a same-sex couple on the basis of religious convictions against gay marriage. In an amicus brief filed with several other legal scholars, Emory Law Professor Barbara Woodhouse writes, "To permit business owners to engage in sexual orientation discrimination would ostracize and stigmatize children because of their relationship to or association with their LGBT parents--an outcome inconsistent with the foundational understandings of legal and social equality in the United States."

The Internet Research Agency--a Russian "troll factory"--used social media and Google during the 2016 electoral campaign to deepen political and racial tensions in the United States, the Atlantic reports. Except for the technology used, however, these tactics are not exactly new. The Cold War coincided with the beginning of the civil rights movement, and the two became intertwined in how the Soviets used the racial strife. "Early on in the Cold War, there was a recognition that the U.S. couldn't lead the world if it was seen as repressing people of color," Emory Law Professor Mary Dudziak says.

North Carolina's refusal to back down on its "bathroom law" requiring transgender citizens to use restrooms aligned with their birth gender has led to a rare drawing of lines in the sand, Emory Law Professor Tim Holbrook told the Wall Street Journal. Republican leaders say they will not respond to recent notice by the U.S. Justice Department that the law is a civil rights violation.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal says he aims for middle ground on pending religious exemptions legislation. "It is important that we protect fundamental religious beliefs," Deal said. "But we don't have to discriminate against other people in order to do that. And that's the compromise that I'm looking for." Emory Law Assistant Professor Alexander Volokh reviewed the bill and said, "If your goal is to not sign anything that allows for discrimination, you have to veto this bill. At the very least, it allows faith-based organizations to refuse to serve whoever they want for religious reasons."

CNN's John Blake interviewed Emory Law Senior Lecturer Kathleen Cleaver about the continuing influence of the Black Panther Party, a half century since its founding. Cleaver isn't surprised some of the same battles the Panthers fought 50 years ago still exist, Blake writes. "The use of extralegal brutal violence and terrorism against black people seems to be a key part of the American experience," Cleaver says. "It didn't end with the Civil War, World I, or Vietnam. I'm not surprised that it hasn't ended now."

Senior Lecturer in Law Kathleen Cleaver is featured in an edition devoted to alumni who came of age and distinguished themselves during the civil rights era. The story details Cleaver's journey including growing up in segregated America, her work as communications secretary of the Black Panther Party and continuing career in law.

The Khartoum government is likely to escape further censure and scrutiny at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva this week after its officials met secretly with the United States' delegation, says a story in Africa Confidential. "The only consistency in the work of the UN Human Rights Council is its unfailing capacity to disappoint the lowest of expectations," said Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Abdullahi An-Na'im, alluding to an increasing number of alleged human rights abuses by the National Congress Party government.

As we await the U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, Professor Tim Holbrook talked with Creative Loafing about the effects of Georgia's present 2004 law, which bans such unions. Georgia LGBT couples would still have to travel to states where same-sex marriage is legal to marry, and when they return their marriages wouldn't be recognized. That affects issues including ease of adoption and medical visitation rights, for example.

Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im was a guest panelist for a recent talk sponsored by the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust, on past and current human rights abuses. Other panelists included British Consul General Jeremy Pilmore-Bedford, publisher M. Alexis Scott, and Holocaust survivor Norbert Friedman. The event was held at the Center for Civil and Human Rights.

When Indiana Gov. Michael Pence signed his state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), he apparently did not anticipate the resulting uproar. Many of Indiana's businesses fear that the law could be used to allow store owners to deny service to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons.

In his latest work, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Director Stanley Nelson doesn't rewrite history so much as he reveals a parallel story of a Black Panther Party that was more complex--and well-intended--than was portrayed during the group's tumultuous history. Among others, it gives voice to Emory Law Professor Kathleen Cleaver, the influential wife of Eldridge Cleaver, the Panthers' minister of information.

Professor Kathleen Cleaver, who was the Black Panther Party's communications secretary and wife of party leader Eldridge Cleaver, discusses the new film "The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution," with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman. The film's director, Stanley Nelson, was also interviewed on the occasion of the film's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Atlanta's fire chief was dismissed by the mayor after writing a book in which he said homosexuality is "vile." He has filed a federal discrimination complaint against the city in a case that is testing the issue of religious expression in the workplace and mobilizing Christian conservatives to his defense. Professor Mark Goldfeder told the Los Angeles Times it was too early to decide whether the chief had a strong legal case. Americans have the right to express their personal beliefs and Title VII requires reasonable accommodation to do so in the workplace. "But what it doesn't protect is imposing your beliefs on somebody else or making people feel uncomfortable," Goldfeder said.

In the Cold War, images of blacks' treatment in the U.S.--including armed soldiers blocking nine African American students from entering a schoolhouse in Little Rock, Ark.--made headlines across the world. "The issue caused people from other countries to wonder whether the U.S. had a commitment to human rights," Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary Dudziak tells Time. One Soviet newspaper wrote of American police "who abuse human dignity and stoop to the level of animals." The recent decisions to not prosecute police in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner have led to similar criticism from North Korea, Iran and the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary Dudziak discusses how wartime laws and policy often live beyond the present conflict, to have lasting effects upon civil liberties. Starting with World War I, she examines how overseas wars can deeply affect individual rights at home, in a Q & A with Carnegie Council Associate Editor for Ethics & International Affairs Zach Dorfman.

As the turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri, unfolds, questions about the United States' commitment to human rights are once more headlining news coverage around the world. The uncomfortable international spotlight on such domestic problems should not be surprising. American racial inequality regularly dominated foreign news coverage during the 1950s and 1960s. Strong presidential leadership was needed to address earlier civil rights crises. It helped repair the damage to the American image, and undercut the argument that the United States was hypocritical in promoting human rights. Then, as now, protecting rights serves U.S. international relations.

Van der Vyver shares his memories of Nelson Mandela's presidency and leadership through reconciliation.

When the Supreme Court on Monday sent Fisher v. University of Texas, an affirmative action case, back to the lower court for a second look, supporters of race-conscious policies breathed a sigh of relief.