On Feb. 3rd. Beacon Press released my book On the Courthouse Lawn:  Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century.  I hope you’ll take a look at it. Using as a case study the last two lynchings that took place in the Eastern Shore region of Maryland, I trace the ongoing effect of these acts of racial terrorism on blacks and whites in that region, and explore the possibility of using techniques modeled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the legacy of lynching.  I learned about these lynchings while representing a small black community on the Eastern Shore in a civil rights case in the 1990s.  I was amazed at the vivid “memories” that blacks – even those who weren’t born when the lynchings occurred in the early 1930s – had of these events.  Their descriptions of the lynchings were startlingly accurate.  I was likewise struck by the insistence of most whites living in these small towns, that they didn’t know of anyone who’d seen the lynchings.  Later in my research it became clear that many whites – including prominent leaders in the community who were the fathers, uncles, mothers and aunts of the whites I spoke with – witnessed the 1931 lynching of Matthew Williams.  Nearly 2000 witnessed the lynching of George Armwood 2 years later.

    Recently community activists, clergy, educators and local elected leaders served on the first-ever truth and reconciliation commission in the U.S.  The Greensboro, North Carolina Truth & Reconciliation Commission undertook, over 18 months, a searching, public examination of the 1979 murders of several labor activists by Klansmen, a defining event for many Greensboro residents.  Despite several trials, no one was ever convicted of the murders. To learn about the process undertaken in Greensboro and to read the final report of the Commission, go to www.greensborotruth.org.   Southern Truth and Reconciliation (STAR) has brought together community activists from throughout the South who support local efforts to confront the legacy of lynchings and civil rights-era racial murder, including the 1946 lynching of 2 black men and their wives at the Moore’s Ford Bridge in Walton County, Georgia (go to www.mooresford.org).   The FBI has recently agreed to re-open an investigation into the murders.  . 

    My book attempts to look closely at the long-term corrosive effect of the shame, fear and silence that routinely followed lynchings, and encourages communities to engage not only in truth-telling, but in collective efforts to identify meaningful forms of reparation that can address the particular and unique legacy of these events in the communities where they occurred.

12:22 AM | books | Permalink | Read Comments (16) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1817, in Tuckahoe, Maryland. Because his slave mother, Harriet Bailey, used to call him her "little valentine," he adopted February 14th as his birthday, not knowing the exact date of his birth.

He knew very little about his mother since she was employed as a field hand on a plantation some twelve miles away, and she died when he was eight or nine years old. Douglass knew even less about his father, but it was rumored that he was the son of his White slave master, Aaron Anthony.

Douglass always struck me as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  He came off smooth, polished, and palatable to the masses.  And yet, I always got the sense there was something explosive within him, lying just beneath the surface.  Reflect upon some of the things he said, like:

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake (July 4, 1852), or

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will (Aug. 3, 1857), or 

At a time like this, scorching iron, not convincing argument, is needed (July 4, 1852).

Douglass was a man often championed for his grace and dignity.  But I like to remember him for the fire in his belly. For the audacity of his rhetoric (remember the times in which he lived).  For living his life and engaging the world around him like a fist inside a velvet glove.

I'd like to think that, despite achieving great heights of sucess, Douglass never lost touch with the pervading sense of racial desperation experienced by everyday people.

And, more importantly, he never lost the passion to do something about it.

Happy Birthday, Frederick Douglass.

03:11 PM | Permalink | Read Comments (80) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

In what seems like an interesting moment in pop culture, Jennifer Hudson is on the cover of the March Vogue. Taken by the usually great Annie Leibovitz, this isn’t the most flattering photo I’ve seen of Jennifer Hudson, who is strikingly beautiful (as graphic design the cover is much too busy - almost like it's saying "buy this magazine despite the big black woman on the cover.") Blogger Clay Cane has this interesting photo spread of black women who’ve graced the cover of Vogue. Most have been light skinned and wispy thin.

In other J-Hud news, some show business people have suggested that she better enjoy her moment right now, because there are few parts for women who look like her. I thought about this on Monday when I attended a screening hosted by Cathy Hughes, the black woman who owns Radio One and TV One. Hughes said she was inspired to become a media mogul after she led a boycott of the Washington Post magazine because it presented too many negative images of blacks. She realized later it wasn’t the job of the Post to present positive images of blacks- that’s work that people who care about community should do. People like her. She is now the first black woman to run a publically traded company.

There are lots of curvy chocolate skinned women in the African American community. If the black audience doesn’t create a demand for performers who look like Jennifer Hudson - especially someone with her talent - what would that say about the community?

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University of Arizona Professor  Gabriel “Jack” Chin has a new article that argues that past injustices resulted not from discrimination against an African American minority, but by democratic failure that allowed a Jim Crow minority to disenfranchise an African American majority.  The abstract is below, and you can download the full piece by clicking here.   

The Tyranny of the Minority: Jim Crow and the Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty

When analyzing the consequences of and remedies for discrimination against African Americans, courts and scholars characterize African Americans as a minority.  This Article shows that the traditional approach is wrong: When it mattered, when the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were enacted and for decades after, African Americans were a majority or controlling plurality in the states where most lived.

African American-backed majoritarian governments controlled the South after the Civil War; while in power, they enacted strong civil rights laws and created a public education system. These policies were reversed, and segregation imposed, not because African Americans were a minority, destined to lose in the majoritarian political process, but rather through elimination of democratic politics and imposition of minority rule.  African Americans and their white allies were stripped of their electoral majority through fraud, violence and illegal disenfranchisement.

This Article argues that the most important harm African Americans suffered was something that the law has until now overlooked: Loss of the right to control the governments of several Southern states.  This injury means that current African Americans disadvantage likely rests on a constitutional violation; Jim Crow could not have happened had democracy functioned as provided in the Constitution.

Consideration of African American majority status also sheds new light on the counter-majoritarian difficulty.  In reviewing measures oppressing African Americans, the Court did not have to balance majority rule against minority rights; instead, majority rule and constitutional rights both militated toward invalidation of laws passed by a minority to oppress the majority.   

10:17 PM | race | Permalink | Read Comments (26) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

1)  At Saturday’s “State of the Black Union”  -- the annual race-talk and idea fest hosted by Tavis Smiley -- Dr. Cornell West, offered a provocative commentary on Barack Obama’s announcement in Springfield, Illinois.  West suggested that it was not a coincidence that Obama’s handlers selected the day when the long-planned State of the Black Union would be happening in Jamestown, Va. (where African slaves first arrived on the shores of North America) to have Obama announce his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois (hometown of Abraham Lincoln).  The better to show white voters that Obama is not that kind of Negro? (Those are my words, not Dr. West’s).  Hmmmm.  I’ll admit it was a strange moment when C-Span interrupted its all day coverage of the State of the Black Union to bring us “live” the announcement of the candidacy of Obama.  Initially I was kinda juiced that black folks were on C-Span “in sense-surround” so to speak, but it was strange . . .   After West spoke, Tavis Smiley informed the audience that Obama had called him on Friday night to express regrets.  Obama wanted to be at the State of the Black Union meeting, but well, he was already booked.  Both the State of the Black Union meeting and Obama’s announcement can be found at www.c-span.org.

2)  The symbolism of Obama announcing his candidacy in Lincoln’s birthplace was lost on historian Dr. Lerone Bennett (also at the State of the Black Union meeting), whose book Forced into Glory:  Abraham lincoln’s white dream (2000), critiques the idea  of President Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator.” He contended that Lincoln would have been appalled at the thought of Obama or any other black man running for president.

09:25 AM | politics & voting rights | Permalink | Read Comments (68) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

When watching the ongoing (lack of) debates in the Congress concerning the future of the Iraq War, I’ve noticed that both major parties routinely claim that “politics ends at the nation’s shores,” with the implication that on foreign affairs issues Americans of all stripes and backgrounds have the same interests. Of course, the Iraq War is perhaps just the most recent demonstration that politicians (on both sides) play politics with war.  Nevertheless, I am curious whether the underlying implication is true, particularly as it relates to African Americans.  Is there such a thing as an “African-American” foreign policy position?   And if so, is it based more on our position in the United States (say because disproportionately more African Americans are in the military) or instead on our relationship (political, economic, or imagined) with other countries?  Would it differ qualitatively from other diasporas?  And what do the recent records of Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell tell us about the value (or lack thereof) that African-Americans substantively add to the development of foreign policy?

11:00 AM | culture | Permalink | Read Comments (63) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Over at taxprof Paul Caron published this compendium of information about law professor salaries. Among the interesting factoids: the average law professor salary is about $137,000 (this is based on the nine month academic year; many professors receive additional payment for summer work - usually somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000). There is no way of knowing how reliable this figure is; other than at public universities, professor salaries are not made public. At most schools, people don’t even know what their colleagues make.

Law professors out-earn other professors by a fairly wide margin.  Taxprof earlier published this chart of average professor salaries in several disciplines, including business and computer science. 

It would be interesting to know how the average salary for minority professors compares to the overall average. I suspect that the practice of keeping salary information private harms rather than benefits minority professors.

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You’ve probably received an email with a link to “A Girl Like Me,” by now.  If not, I encourage you to visit http://www.reelworks.org/watch.php.   This short film was created by an African-American high school student named Kiri Davis.  The film begins with several teenage girls speaking about their struggles with conceptions of beauty.  One speaks of her mother’s objection to wearing her hair in a natural.  “You look African” her mother complains.  Another speaks of a relative who uses bleaching skin cream on herself and her young daughters.

But the most heartbreaking part of the video involves young Ms. Davis’ recreation of Dr. Kenneth Clark’s famous experiment in support of the NAACP LDF’s Brown v. Board of Education litigation.  To prove that segregation had a deleterious effect on African-American boys and girls --- that separate was not, in fact, equal --- Dr. Clark gave children black and white dolls and asked them which they preferred.  Overwhelmingly, the children selected the white dolls.   Ms. Davis recreated the experiment with 21 Harlem pre-schoolers -- fifteen of whom preferred the white doll.  The most haunting image is the beautiful child who, when asked which doll is bad, selects the black doll.  When asked later which doll looks like her, she picks the same one.

I was shocked by the results of Ms. Davis’ experiment.  How could it be that in 2007, young African-American children are still growing up thinking that black is ugly, bad and shameful?  After Shirley Chisolm and the Black Panthers and “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud?”  And then, I was shocked that I was shocked.  Other than Alek Wek and Iman, the media isn’t exactly full of images of glamorous, beautiful, dark-skinned African-American women.  And, The Flavor of Love can’t be helping African-American girls’ self-esteem.  Or boys' for that matter.

I have spent my career as a civil rights lawyer – attacking the laws and challenging the systems that support the suppression of people of color.  But how do we sue low self-esteem?   How do we attack the systems that keep that particularly insidious foot on our neck?

09:59 PM | Permalink | Read Comments (85) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Professor Lee Harris of the University of Memphis Law School has written an important piece of scholarship on the influence of race on cash assistance for the poor.  The abstract and link to the article appear above.  The article will be published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.

03:19 PM | Permalink | Read Comments (15) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

I find it befuddling that folks often cite the accomplishment of racial pioneers as evidence of substantial social progress on race matters.  Tony Dungy, the first African-American head coach to win a Super Bowl, now stands as purported evidence of race-neutrality in professional football.  Orlando Patterson told us in the New York Times that the election of Deval Patrick, the strong showing of Harold Ford, Jr., and the ascendancy of Barack Obama, portends the irrelevance of race to Black political empowerment.  And many commentators report that the towering achievements of giants from Ann Fudge and Richard Parsons to Oprah and Ruth Simmons further reveal the emasculation of race prejudice in the varied institutions constituting the vanguard of American cultural, social, and economic power.

But as significant as the accomplishments of racial pioneers might be, I suspect the continuing power of race prejudice is most evident in the experiences of the average and unremarkable.  That is, I’ll be convinced that race no longer matters when people of color can be as mediocre as White folk, and achieve, on a race-neutral basis, just what average White folk achieve.  I submit that the test of racial advancement isn’t measured by the breakthroughs of uniquely talented racial pioneers — folk whose supreme talent often can be denied only by the most conscious racists among us — but by the treatment of those ordinary folk who sometime require the benefit of the doubt or the understanding that a mistake isn’t always, or even often, a reflection of capacity.

I applaud the accomplishments of the racial pioneers.  Not too long ago, even the promise of the abnormally talented was handcuffed by the rigidity of race prejudice.  But we cannot lose the forest for the trees: how we treat the ordinary ultimately reveals more about our character than how we treat the exceptional.  And, by that score, we haven’t defanged racism until mediocre people of color have the same opportunity set as mediocre White folk.  Unfortunately, we’re not there yet.

06:56 PM | culture race | Permalink | Read Comments (91) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

 

According to USA Today, Virginia is moving forward on something like--but not quite--an apology. "A proposal in the state Senate expressing 'profound contrition' won unanimous approval from a subcommittee Monday," the paper reports. A standard explanation for why an explicit apology is unlikely is that it would create legal liability.Another explanation is the sense among people who are not black (and among some blacks as well) that blacks need to "get over" slavery and that an apology would interfere with that (healing?) process. Of course, one could put forth other explanations--and I invite you to do so. For me, the foregoing two (which are reproduced in the attached USA Today article ) are unsatisfying.

Continue reading "Another Racial Apology (of Sorts)" »

01:51 PM | history race | Permalink | Read Comments (36) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

My colleague at Washington University, Prof. Kimberly Jade Norwood, recently published an interesting essay over at Black Commentator critiquing commentators who have questioned presidential candidate Barack Obama's racial authenticity.

Norwood compares and contrasts the racial authenticity gamesmanship regarding Tiger Woods and Barack Obama, observing that "We are upset with Tiger for not claiming his blackness, upset with Obama for claiming his" -- despite that fact that both were born to interracial couples.  Norwood writes:

"Remember Tiger Woods?  When he refused to label himself Black, many in Black America were visibly upset.  "How dare he" was the cry heard in the Black community after community.  His father is Black so that was enough to demand that he [Tiger] claim his blackness.  Now, we have Obama, who also has a Black father.  Indeed, Obama's father is really Black!  You don't get more authentic than Black African blood!  He wants to claim his blackness but some of us are saying no!"

Norwood also points out the absurdity of many commentators who suggest that Obama is not sufficiently black, and that the "the test for blackness" advanced by such commentators appears to turn on whether one is "a descendant of West African slaves and only West African slaves."  Norwood continues:

"Excuse me?  Are you sure you want that test?  If that's the test then others you have traditionally excluded, like Clarence Thomas, like Ward Connerly, like Condoleezza Rice get in . . . . This is so pathetic that is it laughable.  And it is further proof that we don't need anyone else tearing us down.  We do a pretty good job ourselves." 

The full essay can be found here. 

12:20 PM | Permalink | Read Comments (60) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

I’m writing a book about generational change, and the tendencies of old ideologies to grow outdated and prevent growth.  The book is about generational change in political thought generally, but I often think about how the concepts apply to the African-American community. 

Here’s my question of the day:  To what extent does Black backlash against past discrimination contribute to continued racial disparities? 

Here are some examples: 

1. Academic achievement is deemed to be “White” among some Black folk, is frowned upon, and those who do so are deemed to be “oreos.”  

2.  When Whites dominated urban cities, public projects often displaced African American neighborhoods (“Urban renewal means Negro removal”).  Now that African Americans control many urban cities, similar concerns about regentrification persist, and change and growth has evaded many urban areas.   

3.  Whites are deemed too culturally insensitive to adopt Black children, and tens of thousands of black children go unadopted.     

4.  Black slaves in Haiti overthrow white masters, and the experience causes them to enact restrictions on immigration, foreign investment, and trade.  The stagnant nation eventually descends into chaos.  The Dominican Republic, which shares the same island, doesn’t have such strong reaction to slavery, welcomes immigration, trade, and foreign investment, and is currently doing much better than Haiti.  

My point is not to look down on self-reliance and self-awareness, or to suggest that black folk should just “loosen up” and forget about the past because “prosperous whites no longer exploit less fortunate blacks.”  I’m not saying that African Americans should blindly trust establishment voices or ignore history.  My point is to raise some questions.   

QUESTION SET 1:  WHAT SHOULD BLACK FOLKS DO?  What opportunities for growth have African Americans missed due to this skepticism?  What pitfalls have African Americans avoided due to the skepticism?  How much energy does the skepticism require?  Is there any way to hone the skepticism so that it is less sweeping and more precise—so that it more accurately blocks the pitfalls but allows us to take advantage of the opportunities?

QUESTION SET 2:  WHO SHOULD BEAR THE COSTS OF SKEPTICISM?  Are the opportunities for growth missed by Black folks as a result of this skepticism a cost of past discrimination, and if so, should all Americans accept this as a problem and work to address it?   Or are Black folks themselves responsible for their skepticism, and should the costs of any missed opportunities that result be borne by Black folk alone?

06:45 AM | race | Permalink | Read Comments (48) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

February 7, 2007 is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Below is a 5 minute podcast that presents some important, and underappreciated, data and recommendations regarding HIV/AIDS in the Black Community.

HIV/AIDS is destroying our community. We owe it to ourselves to get educated, and seize control of this epidemic. For more information, visit www.blackaidsday.org.

11:08 AM | Permalink | Read Comments (15) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Earl Ofari Huthinson is a veteran black political commentator and author.  Below is his rather sobering analysis of Barack Obama's presidential prospects.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0129/p09s02-coop.html

02:38 AM | history politics & voting rights race | Permalink | Read Comments (19) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Last week, the Washington Post published an interesting article concerning racial profiling in Georgetown and Adams Morgan, two predominantly white neighborhoods in Washington DC.  The article reported findings of a consultancy group that found “that a ‘limited, yet significant’ number of D.C. police officers are acting ‘in a manner consistent with the definition of racial profiling.’”  Consequently, “the report urged police to bolster training and monitor police activities at the intersections, particularly those where most pedestrians are white.”  The link is http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/detail.jsp?key=24521&rc=me. 

Just last month, I, too, was subject to such profiling in Georgetown, which was quite a surprise for me.  First, I had always associated racial profiling with the South since I grew up in Arkansas and experienced it there the most.   Second, I had always thought that eventually I would “grow out of it.”  For some reason, I assumed that once I got a bit older and wiser, I would fit less the stereotype and I would escape what is unfortunately a perverse rite of passage for young black men.  At any rate, the article, along with my personal experience, made me put on my domestic policy hat to reflect on the issue and brainstorm possible solutions.

The report cited in the Washington Post suggests that better monitoring of police officers is vital.  This seems rather obvious.  The more important question for me, however, is just how should such monitoring be effectuated.  To only have police monitor themselves seems naïve.   Organizations tend to protect their own members and leadership is often beset by cognitive dissonance problems and incentives against enforcement.   As a result, it seems to me that empowering communities affected by profiling would very useful.  Perhaps a nationwide website could be established whereby people who felt that they had been targeted could complain.   The website could track badge numbers and names of police officers on a graph, and help identify those police officers most cited by the public as engaging in profiling.  Sure, the legal weight of such data would be limited.  You would not, for example, be able to get the data into courts due to hearsay problems.  Still, the data could prove useful for the police and help supplement their own internal monitoring by tracking the frequency and location of stops.  Moreover, they could provide a kind of shaming mechanism for those police who dishonor themselves and their colleagues by targeting motorists based on their skin color.   

06:03 PM | criminal justice | Permalink | Read Comments (62) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

After his Indianapolis Colts won the Superbowl, Tony Dungy said:

"I'm proud to represent the African-American coaches and to be the first African-American to win this . . . It means an awful lot to our country . . . Lovie Smith and I are not only the first two African-Americans, but Christian coaches, showing that you can win doing it the Lord's way, and we're more proud of that . . ."

As Dungy talked about race, I thought about the skeptics who might be thinking “Why does it always have to be about race?”  When he turned to faith, I thought of a different group of skeptics who might be saying “Why does he have to proselytize after a football game?” 

After the pain and glory of losing his son to suicide and winning a Superbowl, however, Dungy’s words command more respect than most—and he didn’t waste his 15 minutes. 

Which raises a related legal issue.  “Colorblind” advocates often claim that race has no place in public discourse because it is divisive.  Those who discourage public acknowledgment of faith make a similar claim.  The first group relies on the 14th Amendment to try to constitutionalize its perspective, whereas the second group relies on the 1st Amendment’s Establishment Clause. And yet, as evidenced by Tony Dungy’s comments, both race and faith are important parts of our identity—of who we are as individuals, and of our freedom of association.   

Now, I’m not suggesting that we go back to racial segregation, or that we use religion as an excuse to burn “witches” at the stake, enslave people, or blow up buildings.  I am suggesting, however, that a society that completely suppresses heritage and faith fails to acknowledge important components of who we are as people.  Rather than grapple with the tensions that arise from difference, it refuses to work through them, claims “victory,” and proceeds to ignore de facto segregation and socioeconomic disparities, or the fact that so many people organize their lives around faith. 

I don’t profess to have a simple answer, but a knee-jerk rejection of race and faith in the public sphere creates problems rather than solves them.  Subordination is bad and should be be viewed as a public threat, including when race and faith are used as tools to subordinate.  But race and faith themselves are not synonomous with subordination.

09:27 AM | religion | Permalink | Read Comments (74) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

In some prior entries, I have mentioned the rainbow nature of some of the Democratic party candidates – Obama, Richardson and Clinton.  We should not leave out the Republicans. For the last several years, we have heard of a draft Condoleeza Rice for president movement. I have visited one of the sites, Americans for Dr Rice http://www.4condi.com/. It stresses her foreign policy experience as compared to Democratic candidates like Hillary.  Rice has apparently pooh-poohed the idea of running in the past. How many of our readers think that the Republicans will encourage Condie to get into the mix? Will I see Condie shaking hands in Iowa country kitchens?   Will she be brought in to support the shaky race/gender credentials of the various  Republican candidates? Will the Republicans come up with anyone other than the standard white males? Does it really matter?

08:54 AM | politics & voting rights | Permalink | Read Comments (21) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

The 7 minute video is below.

11:41 AM | film | Permalink | Read Comments (73) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Virtually every felony conviction carries with it a life sentence.  Upon being released from prison, ex-offenders face a vast and increasing maze of mandatory exclusions from valuable social programs and employment opportunities that impede their hopes of success in the free world.  These exclusions range from restrictions on the ability to get a driver’s license to a lifetime ban on eligibility for federal welfare.  By adopting these civil disabilities, federal, state and municipal governments have endorsed a social policy that condemns ex-offenders to a diminished social and economic status, and for many, a life of crime.

To reduce recidivism by ex-offenders, the government should, instead, facilitate their transition back to their communities.  This transition requires access to the tools necessary to navigate a changed and often hostile society. Yet, each year an increasing number of ex-offenders are released, then denied access to the social service programs, educational assistance, and employment opportunities that could help them become self-suffiient.  Saddled with collateral consequences, ex-offenders often return to the illegal practices that initially led to their convictions.

Collateral sanctions reach beyond the individual ex-offender to have profound economic and social repercussions for their families and communities.  Parents, spouses, children, and communities suffer punishments at the hands of the system for crimes they did not commit. Failed reintegration results in added costs for public health, child welfare, and criminal justice. Collateral sanctions also disproportionately jeopardize public safety in low-income communities by erecting virtually insurmountable hurdles for ex-offenders to survive through legitimate means.  Many of the consequences of collateral sanctions are especially critical in the African American community. Nationwide, African Americans are incarcerated at 8 times the rate of whites. The racial disparities in the prison population are only exacerbated by the war on drugs, as African Americans are disproportionately represented among those arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison for drug offenses.  

To dismantle this crippling web of collateral sanctions and to restore ex-offenders to full citizenship, advocates must engage in a comprehensive litigation attack on reentry barriers, with litigation under state law theories providing the most effective hope for relief in light of hostile federal law. Legal advocates that provide services to ex-offenders use litigation and other advocacy tools to ensure that individual clients are able to obtain the necessities of life, but less often bring strategic impact litigation directly challenging the policies.  These efforts undoubtedly provide an invaluable service to the individuals that must live with these barriers every day.  However, unless resources are directed at actually changing these policies wholesale, collateral sanctions will continue to have a crippling effect on individuals and our communities.  

10:06 PM | Permalink | Read Comments (136) | Post a Comment | TrackBacks (0)