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Volume 11 No 4
Affirmative Action Litigators Conference
The LCEF has continued to work with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights' (LCCR) Affirmative Action Task Force and Americans for A Fair Chance (AFC) to conduct briefings and provide information for organizations and individuals working at the local level on this critical civil rights issue. In September, 2000, LCEF partnered with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, LCCR and AFC to co-host an affirmative action litigators conference. This conference convened litigators from across the country involved in active affirmative action cases and activists involved in policy advocacy on the state and federal level to discuss current and developing obstacles and opportunities in defending and securing race, national origin and gender-conscious relief. The Conference also provided the opportunity for civil rights lawyers to come together and discuss strategies that can be employed to defend affirmative action, ways to coordinate with each other in affirmative civil rights litigation, and to explore the political context in which we litigate these cases.
Conference attendees included representatives from a variety of civil rights organizations, such as: the Advancement Project, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National Women's Law Center, to name a few. Celinda Lake of Lake, Snell, Perry and Associates provided insights on public opinion research on affirmative action.
Other conference discussions focused on contracting issues such as federal, state and local government affirmative action programs and access to capital and credit; affirmative action programs throughout our education system, including testing and admissions criteria; and strategies to respond to anti-affirmative action initiatives. The second day of the conference was devoted exclusively to issues in employment, contracting and education litigation and issues in anti-affirmative action challenges.
  
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