Civil Rights Movements & the Law

"Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative a human rights organization in Montgomery Alabama. Under his leadership EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing exonerating innocent death row prisoners confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults."

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"The SPLC is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation education and other forms of advocacy the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality."

The recent, well-publicized tragic deaths of African Americans at the hands of police officers have generated a public debate about race and policing. This is not the first time police violence against African Americans has been the predicate for a nationwide conversation about race. Likely, it won’t be the last.

As anti-Asian attacks continue, three victims come forward to share their experiences and the change they hope to inspire.

Our communities stand united against racism. Hate against Asian American Pacific Islander communities has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, we can stop it. Support Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay Visit our Act Now page for more information. × Dismiss alert Act Now Latest News Latest Reports

By Jennifer Mendez What is Latinx (or Hispanic) Heritage Month? Each year, Americans observe National Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, c…

EJI challenges racial and economic injustice and provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in jails and prisons. Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has asked the state Court of Appeals to overturn his conviction for the 2020 murder of George Floyd, according to an appeal filed Monday.

Implicit racial bias remains widespread, even among individuals who explicitly reject prejudice. One reason for the persistence of implicit bias may be that it is maintained through structural and historical inequalities that change slowly. We investigated the historical persistence of implicit bias by comparing modern implicit bias with the proportion of the population enslaved in those counties in 1860. Counties and states more dependent on slavery before the Civil War displayed higher levels of pro-White implicit bias today among White residents and less pro-White bias among Black residents. These associations remained significant after controlling for explicit bias. The association between slave populations and implicit bias was partially explained by measures of structural inequalities. Our results support an interpretation of implicit bias as the cognitive residue of past and present structural inequalities.

Hack The Gates: Radically Reimagine Admissions aims to critically examine current structures and gatekeeping functions in college admissions, and to propose innovative solutions to dismantle barriers to access and participation in higher education for low-income and students of color. Through partnership, we have brought together practioneers and researchers to rethink higher education from multiple perspectives. In addition, Hack the Gates facilitates urgently needed honest conversations among college admissions stakeholders about the roles we play as gatekeepers to opportunity, perpetrators of race and class inequities, and transformative leaders in designing equitable college access and enrollment processes. Through online learning, creative brainstorming, and policy analysis, Hack the Gates: Radically Reimagine Admissions will be a catalyst for a complete transformation of the college admission process.

J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, two of the former Minneapolis Police officers convicted of federal charges in the fatal arrest of George Floyd, were sentenced to 3 years and 3.5 years in prison, respectively, on Wednesday.

To overcome the obstacles of measuring racial attitudes, Pew Research Center conducted an Implicit Association Test (IAT), a technique that psychologists say measures subconscious or “hidden” bias by tracking how quickly individuals associate good and bad words with specific racial groups.

Racism occurs between individuals, on an interpersonal level, and is embedded in organizations and institutions through their policies, procedures and practices. In general, it may seem easier to recognize individual or interpersonal acts of racism: a slur made, a person ignored in a social or work setting, an act of violence. However, "individual" racism is not created in a vacuum but instead emerges from a society's foundational beliefs and "ways" of seeing/doing things, and is manifested in organizations, institutions, and systems (including education).

Everywhere you look someone is worried that America has gotten too woke, writes W. Kamau Bell. For the premiere episode of the new season of 'United Shades of America,' Bell delves into the war on 'woke' in the state he refers as 'desert Florida.'

Asian-Americans tend be held to high expectations in the U.S. Terms such as “Asian advantage” and “model minority” are the cultural expectations placed on Asian-Americans as a group that each individual will be highly intelligent, wealthy, self-reliant and obedient, and live the “American dream.” Not living up to these stereotypes and expectations places a great burden on the individual and often makes her/him feel inadequate. Perceived racial discrimination has been associated with several negative mental health outcomes, including higher psychological distress, suicidal ideation, state anxiety, trait anxiety and depression. The facts are that Asian-Americans are a diverse group of individuals, with diverse experiences.

‘Rather than solidarity, Desi feels like an imposition.’

Philadelphia has apologized for experiments conducted on mostly Black men incarcerated in the city's now-inactive Holmesburg Prison, which exposed subjects to herpes, skin blistering chemicals, radioactive isotopes, and poisonous chemicals used during the Vietnam war.

This glossary describes terms related to structural racism and terms used to promote racial equity analysis. It was created by the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change, a group that worked with leading innovators to produce strong and reliable frameworks for successful and sustainable community change and development.

Explore or reconstruct the lives of individuals who were enslaved, owned slaves, or participated in the historical trade.

Five Memphis police officers are facing murder charges over Nichols’s death.

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The story of Black History Month begins in Chicago during the summer of 1915. An alumnus of the University of Chicago with many friends in the city, Carter G. Woodson traveled from Washington, D.C. to participate in a national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation sponsored by the state of Illinois. Thousands of African Americans travelled from across the country to see exhibits highlighting the progress their people had made since the destruction of slavery. Awarded a doctorate in Harvard three years earlier, Woodson joined the other exhibitors with a black history display. Despite being held at the Coliseum, the site of the 1912 Republican convention, an overflow crowd of six to twelve thousand waited outside for their turn to view the exhibits. Inspired by the three-week celebration, Woodson decided to form an organization to promote the scientific study of black life and history before leaving town. On September 9th, Woodson met at the Wabash YMCA with A. L. Jackson and three others and formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH).

The city of Minneapolis has reached settlements totaling more than $8.8 million in two civil lawsuits that accuse former police officer Derek Chauvin of using excessive force in two incidents that happened nearly three years before he killed George Floyd during an arrest.

The Journal of Hate Studies is an annual peer-reviewed publication of the Gonzaga University Institute for Hate Studies.The Journal of Hate Studies is an international scholarly journal promoting the sharing of interdisciplinary ideas and research relating to the study of what hate is, where it comes from, and how to combat it.  It presents cutting-edge essays, theory, and research that deepen the understanding of the development and expression of hate.View the complete list of issues by theme.

Includes: Healing Action Toolkit, Chapter Conflict Resolution Toolkit, Healing Justice Toolkit, Trayvon Taught Me Toolkit: For Black and Non-Black POC Organizers, #TalkAbout Trayvon: A Toolkit for White People, and #TrayvonMeEnseñó.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered Alabama officials to redraw the state’s congressional map to allow an additional Black majority district to account for the fact that the state is 27% Black.

Creating a just and inclusive society where all have the opportunity to succeed

A recent study suggests that denying AI decision makers access to sensitive data actually increases the risks of discriminatory outcome. That’s because the AI draws incomplete inferences from the data or partially substitutes by identifying proxies. Providing sensitive data would eliminate this problem, but it is problematic to do so in certain jurisdictions. The authors present work-arounds that may answer the problem in some countries.