“As a pro bono attorney, I’m there because they don’t have anyone and can’t afford anyone,” says Giel. “I like pro bono work because it is so personal - on a pro bono case you change someone’s life.”
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For more than a year, community members in Lansing, Illinois sat in secret meetings mediated by the Department of Justice to negotiate a set of reforms with municipal and police department officials. Now, they are speaking out about the agreement they won, and the challenges ahead.
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Growing up in a small Georgia town, Jordan Hall was always interested in learning law - he just didn’t know how he’d get there.
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Today, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights welcomes our new class of summer fellows and interns as they embark on important civil rights projects, ranging from housing discrimination to community equitable development and the school-to-prison-pipeline.
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Voting Rights Project intern Alexandria Boutros shares her journey uncovering voter disenfranchisement in the criminal justice system.
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“Janet’s expertise, patience and kindness has helped make a potentially overwhelming process manageable, and most importantly, it allows NAMI affiliates to provide quality and efficient services and achieve the mission of supporting, educating and advocating for all those affected by mental health conditions.”
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AVR was enacted in 2017 in Illinois, with unanimous bipartisan support in the House and Senate. Yet it appears that Illinois will not meet the July 1, 2018 deadline written in the law for establishing opt-out voter registration at Driver Services facilities, the cornerstone of AVR and the tool that would actually make registration “automatic”.
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April 2018 marks 50 years since the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act. In light of this historic milestone, six organizations are convening a one-day community summit at Roosevelt University on April 28 called Our Chicago: The Fight and Future of Fair Housing at 50. We recently took a step back from the logistical work to reflect on the significance of the occasion with our colleagues, Amrita Narasimhan and Barbara Barreno-Paschall.
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In October 2017, 14-year-old Kejuan Franklin was suspended from Rowe Middle School for an off-campus incident that nobody could verify. After a hearing that had no witness testimony, no person representing his interests, nor even his mother's knowledge that it was taking place, Kejuan was expelled.
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Yesterday, Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and partner organizations submitted testimony before the Illinois House Elections & Campaign Finance Committee in support of two important bills under consideration: SB 2273 and HB 4469.
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Our infographic shows you everything you need to know about voting in the upcoming LSC elections on Wednesday, April 18 and Thursday, April 19.
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Last Thursday, the Education Equity Project together with members of the Transforming School Discipline Collaborative convened more than 150 educators, policy makers, administrators, student organizers, and advocates to reflect on progress since the passage of SB100, a bill that was intended to transform school discipline practices in Illinois and weaken the school-to-prison pipeline.
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hese meetings will be important opportunities for community members to learn about the new law, get their questions answered, and advocate for strong, timely, and community-centered implementation of AVR.
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One eligible voter called us after an election judge told him, "You can't vote today, just come back in November." That just shouldn't happen in Illinois.
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The south suburbs of Chicago, whose demographics have changed rapidly in recent years, are home to many families struggling with the cost of housing.
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Our pro bono spotlight story this quarter is about Greg Schweizer, who has co-counseled two cases with our Hate Crime Project.
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We are thrilled to welcome a new class of talented law students and undergraduates from across the country to intern this winter at Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. This week, we asked about each person's inspiration in 2017.
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Former President Obama, who served on our board as a young civil rights attorney, sounded the alarm in a recent speech in Chicago: “We have to tend to this garden of democracy or else things could fall apart quickly.”
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The complaint asks the court to declare the Cook County Assessor’s assessment system unlawful, and to order Berrios’ office to adopt and implement a fair, accurate, transparent, lawful, and nondiscriminatory system. It also seeks the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee the process.
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“The FBI’s reporting system for hate crimes is like a sieve; it’s full of holes,” says Julie Justicz of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee Hate Crime Project. “Unless we know which neighborhoods and people are impacted by hate crime, we can’t fully analyze or fund tools to combat it. And I fear this problem will continue to get worse.”
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