Building a new generation of civil rights lawyers

Hari Sreenivasan:

This week the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund launched the Marshall-Motley scholars program. It's a pipeline project that hopes to get prospective civil rights attorneys from law school to the courtroom. And a $40 million anonymous donation is making it possible.

NewsHour Weekend's Ivette Feliciano recently spoke with the LDF's associate director-counsel, Janai Nelson, about the scholarship program.

Ivette Feliciano:

So, Janai, the Marshall-Motley Scholars program has been described as a comprehensive lawyer development program that leaves nothing up to chance. What does that mean?

Janai Nelson:

That means we've taken care of tuition, we've taken care of incidentals, we are providing summer internship opportunities, we are providing a postgraduate two-year fellowship. And then we also plan to support these participants in their journey of becoming civil rights lawyers over the course of the following eight years as they build a law practice in the South.

Ivette Feliciano:

Named after Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court Justice and Constance Baker Motley, the nation's first Black woman to serve as a federal judge, the program hopes to support 50 civil rights lawyers over the next 20 years.

Janai Nelson:

So when we consider the amount of student debt that African-American students in particular hold, that was a significant reason for us to make this investment and think about how we can ensure that these students are not burdened or diverted from the path of civil rights work because of that debt.

Seventy-two percent of Black students take on student debt as compared to 56 percent of their white peers. And as many recent reports have shown, Black women bear a disproportionate burden of student debt. In fact, they bear the most burden of any other group in this country as it comes to student debt. So by investing in this new generation of civil rights lawyers who don't have to worry about that debt if they pursue a law school education, we are in many ways tackling at least part of the wealth gap and part of the gender gap as it comes to as it is as it pertains to wealth.

Ivette Feliciano:

Why is it important to launch this program right now?

Janai Nelson:

Well, for a number of reasons. I think we're coming out of a very traumatic period for our democracy. I think we've seen in very stark terms what happens when we aren't truthful about our history, when we aren't truthful with ourselves about the work that remains to be done to build our democracy. And when we aren't truthful about the ongoing harms of white supremacy and anti-Black racism and racism writ large in our society. And the work of civil rights lawyers in the past four years has shown how integral they are to maintaining our democracy and ensuring that we fulfill our ideals as a constitutional democracy.

So this could not be more fitting in the moment. This was a program that was a long time in the making, but this particular moment really emphasizes why it's so incredibly necessary.

Ivette Feliciano:

And why focus on training civil rights lawyers to serve in the South specifically.

Janai Nelson:

The South is just on fire. So many people have identified the South as a sleeping giant and certainly the South that is comprised of people of color in particular. We know that there, that the majority of Black people in this country live in the South. We know that LatinX communities and Asian communities are also growing in the South. And we also know the very fraught history of the South.

And so we want to ensure that as our population in the South continues to diversify, that we are able to meet the needs and demands of that new and diverse population with a cadre of civil rights lawyers who can ensure that there are protections and that there's fairness and equality for all.

Ivette Feliciano:

Nelson anticipates these new lawyers will focus on criminal justice, policing, and educational disparities but she says ensuring voting rights is a priority.

Janai Nelson:

We are concerned about the state of our democracy, the state of voting rights in this country.

You know, the Supreme Court said back in 1886 that the right to vote is preservative of all rights, which means that without the right to vote, all of the rights that we enjoy are in jeopardy. And we want to make sure that the growing political power in this country, particularly of people of color, is able to see change as a result of that growth. That power is actually actualized in a way that ensures that there's greater equality, that there is more opportunity, that there's less division and more inclusivity in our representative democracy.

Ivette Feliciano:

Janai Nelson, Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, thank you so much for joining us

Janai Nelson:

Thank you so much for having me Ivette.