Page 21 - NYLS Magazine • 2014 • Vol. 33, No. 1

Mildred Morillo 3L (Evening), a Justice Action Center
associate, asks the members of Panel I about their
perception of the progress of the civil rights movement.
Yale Law School Professor Stephen “A lot of young people are unnerved by

Bright, who since 1982 has fought against what happened,” he said.
capital punishment and inhumane prison

conditions, said criminal courts “look
“With a lawsuit in hand, a lawyer can
like slave ships, with African American change the world—in 10 years, maybe,”

[defendants] in chains and shackles, and said Kim Keenan, general counsel of
uniforms—not even the dignity of regular the NAACP. “But the courts are an

clothes.”
uneven remedy. When people take to the
streets, if there’s a bloody march, that’s

Judges in state courts, he said, “care more when [the general public] realizes it’s a
about the next election than they do ‘real’ problem, not just ‘their’ problem.”

about the Constitution. You know that Speaking to the scores of NYLS students
the judge isn’t going to read [your brief ]. in the audience, she added, “Loving the

he important thing is to have the media law means challenging the law. I challenge
read it.”
you to do that.”

he uninished business of civil rights, Dorothy E. Roberts of the University
said Steven Shapiro, legal director of the of Pennsylvania, where she holds Nevertheless, the 61-year-old Canada
spoke with wonder about attending a
American Civil Liberties Union, depends appointments in the Law School as well
“not so much on legal doctrine as in as the Departments of Africana Studies
White House summit on education issues,

restoring a sense of moral outrage.”
and Sociology, spoke of the profound two weeks prior to the seminar: “If you
challenge presented by the 1967 case Loving come from my generation, you look at it

In March 1965, Mr. Adegbile noted, v. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court like, ‘Damn! We have a black president!’”
President Lyndon B. Johnson gave voice invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial
Relecting on that day when the civil rights
to the American public’s moral revulsion marriage. In the lead-up to the high court
over police violence in Selma, Alabama. decision in Loving, Professor Roberts said, movement gathered steam that inspired
the country’s better angels, NYLS Trustee
At that time, state troopers assaulted the litigation was considered “trivial.”
peaceful marchers, both white and black, Professor David Schoenbrod spoke of his
being among the quarter-million people
as they attempted to cross the Edmund “But it struck at the bedrock of racial
Pettus Bridge en route to Montgomery. classiication,” she said. “It was the capstone gathered on the National Mall at a time
when racial injustice seemed to be what he
Congressman John Lewis of Georgia was blow by the Supreme Court, toppling the
nearly clubbed to death that day, known inal pillar of de jure racial segregation.”
called an “immovable object.”

to American history as “Bloody Sunday.”
But then Dr. King spoke of his dream:
Lauren Kay Robel, Provost and
In an address from the White House two Executive Director of Indiana University “[T]hat my four little children will one
day live in a nation where they will not be
weeks later, President Johnson voiced Bloomington, also encouraged students
the signature civil rights rallying cry, “We to take up civil rights law: “he work
judged by the color of their skin, but by

shall overcome.”
is just as urgent now as it was in 1963.” the content of their character.”
Professor Robel, former Dean of Indiana’s
Professor Jones said of that unscripted,
“And how did LBJ get to that place?” Maurer School of Law and president of
Mr. Adegbile asked. “By people in the the Association of American Law Schools electrifying moment, “As he began to speak
ordinary words that I had heard him say
streets, by the hearts and minds of the challenged the audience: “You must
people. hey were more important than formulate new ways into legal theories to before, ... it was as if some transcendental,
cosmic force had come and taken over his
lawyers.”
open up space for civil rights litigation.”
body.... Dr. King spoke in a way I’d never
Today, said Mr. Adegbile, “We need to heard him speak before.”
“I grew up watching people being beaten
diligently have a conversation about where and cursed because they were black,” said
we want to go, collectively, as a society.
“Washington was much more of a
keynote speaker Geofrey Canada, who Southern city [then] than it is today,
If you’re not having a conversation, your observed that these were the same people
[courtroom] victories may be insecure.”
with thousands and thousands of nearby
whom university admissions oicers largely bigots,” said Professor Schoenbrod. “But
ignored ive decades ago. Mr. Canada is
With reference to the February 2012 the day was paciic, and I felt in my heart
death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed president and chief executive of Harlem that this irresistible force would overcome
Children’s Zone, the nationally renowned
black teenager gunned down in Florida this immovable object.”
agency that prepares youngsters for college.
by a self-appointed neighborhood
guardian later acquitted of murder and “America today is not what it was,” he Reading again from the text Professor Jones
prepared, Dr. King said, “Nineteen sixty-
manslaughter charges, Mr. Adegbile said added, “but it’s also not what Dr. King
that conversation is occurring.
wanted it to be.”
threeisnotanend,butabeginning.” •

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