Racial Justice Project

About the Project

The Racial Justice Project is a legal advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the constitutional and civil rights of people who have been denied those rights on the basis of race and to increase public awareness of racism and racial injustice in the areas of education, employment, political participation, and criminal justice. The Racial Justice Project’s advocacy includes litigation, training, and public education.

The Project is actively engaged in three initiatives:

Collateral sanctions resource guide: Upon being released from prison, ex-offenders face “collateral sanctions”—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. The collateral sanctions resource guide compiles these consequences and discusses how they could impact the ex-offender. The guide is intended as a resource for both ex-offenders and advocates.

Education litigation: The Project has joined as co-counsel with the National Legal Department of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation to challenge educational inequality and the school-to-prison pipeline. The Project assists the ACLU with the development, filing, and prosecution of the suit. Click here for more details or to view documents related to the Project's litigation efforts.

Street Law project: This year, the NYLS Racial Justice Project teamed up with the non-profit organization, Groundwork, Inc. (www.groundworkinc.org)–which identifies small areas with high rates of poverty within Brooklyn and develops programs to serve the youth that live there–to bring law students and inner-city middle and high school students together. The law students will share their knowledge about the law and educate the younger Groundwork students about their legal rights. Further, the New York office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver, and Jacobson LLP has partnered with the Law School as well in an effort to teach the middle and high school students about the legal profession. The purposes of the Street Law program include teaching practical law as it affects laypersons in their daily lives; developing a positive attitude on the part of students toward law and the legal system; improving critical thinking and problem solving skills; examining moral and ethical values; and exposing students to vocational opportunities within the legal system. The substantive focus of this year's curriculum is the Fourth Amendment. In particular, the curriculum addresses the protections afforded to youth both in the public domain and within the walls of a public school. More then twenty-five New York Law School students have trained as Street Law volunteers, and they made their first visit to the Groundwork site in East New York on Friday, March 28.

For further information on the Project, please contact the Project's Director, Deborah Archer, at darcher@nyls.edu. For information on the Justice Action Center generally, please contact the Center at jac@nyls.edu.