Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law


The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights is a consortium of American law firms in Chicago that provides legal services in civil rights cases, with a focus on seven major projects: the Education Equity Project, the Community Law Project, the Housing Opportunity Project, the Hate Crimes Project, Voting Rights Project, Police Accountability Project and Settlement Assistance Program. Recent activity has explored avenues to promote and protect civil rights in the Chicago metropolitan area through education, healthcare delivery, the environment, and voting rights.

History

The mission of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. is to protect and promote civil rights by bringing the strength and prestige of the private bar to bear on the problems of poverty and discrimination.
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. was established in 1969 as a public interest consortium of Chicago law firms to provide pro bono legal services in significant civil rights cases. From nineteen firms in 1969, it has grown to 49 firms today. The majority of services are performed in Cook County, but the committee's influence in some projects is felt throughout the Midwest. Each year, over 18,000 hours of professional legal services, with an estimated value of approximately $8.5 million, is donated from our pool of over 1,000 volunteer lawyers.
The National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy, with the initial purpose of providing legal representation to Black people and civil rights workers in the Southern United States for whom lawyers were otherwise unavailable.
The Kerner Commission's 1968 report, concluding that the nation was "moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal," made a series of recommendations to promote racial integration and large-scale improvement in the quality of life of African-Americans. Meanwhile, by 1969, inner city riots in Chicago and other northern urban centers showed that frustration over racial discrimination was prevalent throughout the nation, and required specific, local attention.
In response, local committees of lawyers were formed in 14 large cities to help combat, through volunteer action, the problems of urban poverty and racial discrimination. In 1969, a group of local attorneys established the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to provide quality legal counsel to those clients whose civil rights cases and projects would benefit the community at large. The first board of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee believed that "the poor and the black can become full and equal participants in our economic and political systems only when they achieve the power to deal on equal terms with public and private institutions. An essential element of that power is access to expert legal resources." From 1969 to 1970, federal judge David S. Tatel was a director of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under law.
Since 1976, the Chicago Lawyers' Committee has operated as a separate, self-supporting, tax-exempt organization, although it continues to coordinate its activities with the National Lawyers' Committee and other local Lawyers' Committees throughout the country.

Significant cases

Craigslist controversy

In 2006, the Chicago Lawyers' Committee filed suit against craigslist, Inc., the company behind the website craigslist.org, alleging that craigslist, Inc. was in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act because it allowed people to post discriminatory ads. The case was decided in favor of craigslist, and in 2008, in Chicago Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law v. Craigslist, the Seventh Circuit upheld the finding that craigslist was not liable for the content of the ads.

Lewis firefighter case

The Chicago Lawyers' Committee filed a lawsuit in 1998 which argued that the Chicago Fire Department's use of a very high cut score on the 1995 firefighter entrance exam discriminated against African Americans. They filed the case on behalf of African Americans who scored between 65 and 89 on the test. There are nearly 7,000 African Americans in the plaintiff class.
In 2005, Judge Gottschall ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and found that the city's use of the 89 cutoff score on the test was discriminatory, on several counts. The plaintiffs alleged that the very high cutoff score of 89, as compared to the 65 cutoff score that had previously been stated, had a disparate impact to discriminate against African Americans, since 78% of candidates above the cutoff were white. In the ruling, Judge Gottschall held that the City had not shown that the test effectively measured the skills it was supposed to measure, like the ability to learn from demonstration. Consequently, performance on the 1995 test did not predict performance in the Fire Academy or on the job.
This case has continued to be appealed, eventually reaching the Supreme Court, who ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in May 2010. The case was then sent to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, where the City argued that plaintiffs failed to prove race discrimination when each hiring class is reviewed separately. During May 2011, the City's argument was rejected, representing a final victory for the plaintiffs on the merits of the case.
111 class members will be hired as firefighters. Seniority will be awarded to these new hires, dating back to 1995, as well as back contributions. Class members who are not hired as a result of this ruling will be compensated for this discrimination at least $5,000 per person. In total, the City of Chicago is liable for up to $50 million in reparations, as well as an additional $500,000 in lost wages for every additional month that legal activity continues.

Parker and Pierce v. New Jerusalem Christian Development Corp.

Ms. Parker and Ms. Pierce were participants in the Chicago Housing Authority's "Choose to Own" program, which allows qualified families to use their Housing Choice Vouchers for mortgage payments on homes instead of rent. New Jerusalem agreed to sell new homes to both women, but subsequently refused to finalize the sales when it learned that part of their mortgage payments would come from the City of Chicago subsidies. Specifically, New Jerusalem refused to sign the necessary CHA documents, knowing that without it, the sales could not be completed.
In February 2011, the Chicago Commission on Human Relations found that housing developer New Jerusalem violated the Chicago Fair Housing Ordinance by discriminating against Ms. Parker and Ms. Pierce based on their source of income. According to the Chicago's Fair Housing Ordinance, denial of housing based on source of income is illegal discrimination. The Commissioned ordered New Jerusalem to pay Ms. Pierce $20,000 for her emotional distress and $60,000 in punitive damages, and pay Ms. Parker $20,000 for her emotional distress and $10,000 in punitive damages, for a total of $100,000. New Jerusalem was also ordered to pay city fines, attorneys' fees and costs. CLC attorney Rachel Marks, along with Kirkland and Ellis LLP attorneys Paul Collier and Aaron Goodman, represented Ms. Parker and Ms. Pierce.

McFadden v. Board of Education for Illinois School Districts

In McFadden v. Board of Education for Illinois School District- a case involving educational inequities in the school district that includes Elgin, Illinois- federal District Court Judge Robert Gettleman issued a decision on July 11, 2013 holding that the school district has discriminated against Hispanic students in the operation of the district's gifted program. Over 40% of the students in the school district are Hispanic, but in recent years only 2% of the students in the district's elementary school gifted program have been Hispanic. This is in large part because the school district operates a separate program for gifted Hispanic students who learned English as a second language. Those students know English and are ready to participate in English-language classrooms and have been tested and found to be gifted, but are excluded from the mainstream gifted program.
As Judge Gettleman described it, this is "a separate, segregated program" that discriminates against Hispanic students, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Illinois Civil Rights Act. Judge Gettleman wrote that "there is no question that the District placed gifted Hispanic students in SET/SWAS based solely on their cultural identity." The Judge held that the school district, while not motivated by an evil or racist motive, engaged in intentional discrimination: "The `inevitability or foreseeability of consequences' permits `a strong inference that the adverse effects were desired.'"
The case will now proceed to the remedies stage in the District Court.

Projects

Employment Opportunity Project

Discrimination in hiring, pay, promotion, and termination unfairly disadvantages minorities and women from earning a reasonable wage with which to sustain their families. The Employment Opportunity Project challenges all forms of racial, national origin, and sexual discrimination in both public and private workplaces. Since 1973, EOP has pursued equality in the workplace through a variety of avenues:
Chicago remains one of the most racially segregated metropolitan areas in the United States, despite active efforts opposing it. Groups in addition to African-Americans also experience significant discrimination, including Latinos, families, and people with disabilities. The mission of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee's Fair Housing Project is to eliminate housing discrimination based on race, national origin, familial status, physical and mental disability, sexual orientation, source of income, religion, gender, and other bases, to affirmatively further fair housing in the Chicago metropolitan area.
To achieve that mission, staff and volunteers with the Fair Housing Project:
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee is part of an area-wide network called CAFHA, which works to combat housing discrimination and promote integrated communities of opportunity through research, education, and advocacy.

Hate Crimes Project

The Chicago Lawyers' Committee's Hate Crimes Project is the only comprehensive resource center on hate crime prevention and response in the Midwestern United States. The Project advocates for strong criminal prosecutions of perpetrators of bias violence, litigates civil cases for hate crime victims, mobilizes community support for them, educates community residents and professionals about applicable laws, and advocates for improved enforcement of the Illinois Hate Crime Act. A citywide Advisory Board, consisting of attorneys who have represented victims and community activists representing diverse neighborhoods and constituents, provides guidance and assistance.
The project combats hate crimes in several ways:
Staff and volunteer attorneys provide free, expert legal assistance to support community development efforts led by entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations in Chicago's most underserved communities that generally do not have the resources to pay for legal services. The project's programs include:
The Settlement Assistance Project provides pro bono representation to low-income individuals with meritous discrimination claims in federal court settlement conferences and US Equal Employment Commission mediations. Volunteer lawyers serve protected classes by assisting them in representing themselves in a court of law, allowing them to defend themselves from discrimination based on race, age, gender, immigration issues, familial status, and other factors.

Voting Rights Project

The Chicago Lawyers' Committee Voting Rights Project aims to prevent, reduce, and eliminate barriers to voting for minority and low-income residents and to increase overall participation in Democracy. The project works to protect fair elections that allow every eligible voter the opportunity to vote and to have their vote counted.
This project will address the following issues:
The Educational Equity Project promotes civil rights in education and strong educational outcomes for minority children. Poor and minority students are too frequently denied access to a quality education. This lack of access stifles the civic capacity of entire groups of people and reinforces the status quo of educational stratification. The Chicago Lawyers' Committee supports increasing all children's access to a quality education. The CLC believes that this is attainable by:
Minority groups face incarceration rates of up to six times those of their white counterparts. After incarceration, individuals are restricted in housing, employment, and government benefit opportunities, leading to increased rates of poverty and recidivism. The Project staff and volunteer attorneys seek to combat these disparities through advocacy and education both to reduce the rates of incarceration and to reduce the stigma of incarceration.

Health Disparities Project

Environmental Justice Project

Cook County has some of the most polluted air in the country. The responsible industries are concentrated primarily in low-income and minority neighborhoods, pumping chemicals, toxins and lead into the air and soil in these areas. These industries also place toxic dumps in these communities without considering their effects. This disproportionately impacts marginalized populations and creates new incarnations of racial injustice.