Civil Rights

Twenty-two years. That’s how long Tom Mela ’68 and his colleagues fought the Boston Public Schools in a class-action lawsuit over huge backlogs in providing special education to students with disabilities.

Benjamin B. Ferencz ’43, known for his role as chief prosecutor in the Nuremburg Trials and for his work promoting an international rule of law and the creation of an International Criminal Court, has been awarded Harvard Law School’s highest honor: the Medal of Freedom.

Mary Bonauto, director of the Civil Rights Project of the Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), spoke Tuesday at a brown-bag luncheon at Harvard Law School, during which she was interviewed by Dean Martha Minow and fielded questions from students in the audience.

In August, the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Charitable Service Trust significantly increased an existing grant to expand its support of the Veterans Legal Clinic and other veterans’ advocacy program at Harvard Law School’s WilmerHale Legal Services Center.

On Wednesday, Oct. 22, Martha Minow hosted a Q&A session with Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Nancy Ramirez at an event sponsored by the Black Law Students Association, La Alianza and The Journal on Racial and Ethic Justice.

“Our justice system has become inaccessible to millions of poor people and so every day, we violate the ‘equal justice under law’ motto engraved on…

In a panel discussion at Harvard Law School in October commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Professor Kenneth W. Mack, characterized the legislation as…

On September 12, Justice Albie Sachs, who served on South Africa’s inaugural Constitutional Court from 1994 through 2009, visited Harvard Law School for a screening and discussion of “Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa” with filmmaker Abby Ginzberg.

Anita Hill, along with her former legal adviser, Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, and Nan Stein, senior research scientist at Wellesley’s Centers for Women, came together at Harvard Law's Wasserstein Hall to view a screening of the 2013 documentary “Anita,” and to talk about what has changed since she started a national conversation about sexual harassment in 1991.

Michael A. Stein '88, co-founder and executive director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, received the American Bar Association’s Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights in August.

A panel convened by Harvard Law School Professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr., director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, reflected on what the recent crisis in Ferguson, Mo. means for broad policy issues, including racial discrimination, political disenfranchisement, policing, and the criminal justice system.

Margaret H. Marshall, Harvard Law School senior research fellow and lecturer on law, will receive the American Bar Association’s 2014 Thurgood Marshall Award. A retired chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Marshall is being recognized for her long-term contributions to advancing civil rights, civil liberties and human rights in the United States.

Equity advocates from around Greater Boston gathered at Harvard Law School on July 11 for a discussion about the region’s key priorities in promoting opportunity for people of all backgrounds. The event included speeches, panels and the release of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council’s “State of Equity in Metro Boston” Policy Agenda.

Five Harvard Law School professors presented a sampling of their innovative ideas in late May at the 2014 Harvard Law School Thinks Big lecture, an annual event that challenges faculty to explain those big ideas in short talks.

Until last month, scores of destitute people—virtually all of them African Americans— languished in the city jail of Montgomery, Ala., for unpaid traffic tickets they…

On May 14, 2014, Harvard Law School Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin, along with Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School and Steven Calabresi of Northwestern Law School participated in a discussion at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia titled “The Civil Rights Movement: Redefining the Meaning of Equality.”

The author of the award-winning book “Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement,“ sees education as the civil rights frontier.