Rights into Action: Public Interest Litigation in the United States
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Description
This chapter examines the Ford Foundation’s support of groups that use litigation to promote equality and justice for racial minorities, women, and immigrants in the United States. Since becoming a national foundation in the 1950s, Ford has played an important role in supporting the efforts of inspired civil rights lawyers to develop a network of organizations dedicated to using law to improve conditions and to promote equality for historically marginalized groups. Through seed funding, core financial support, and capacity-building grants, the Foundation has helped to sustain these organizations during the changing political climate of the late twentieth century. Although the Foundation supports a broad set of strategies in its U.S. law programming—including public education, community organizing, and coalition building— this case study focuses on Ford’s support of litigation to effect social reform. Moreover, although Ford’s promotion of law-based work spans the nearly half century of the Foundation’s history, this case study focuses on the 1980s and 1990s, and is current as of mid-1999. Ford’s support of groups undertaking public interest litigation in the United States draws on a moral commitment shared by the Foundation and its grantees to social justice and to rule of law values. It also rests on the pragmatic view that judicially precipitated reform can help to remove discriminatory barriers, to expand opportunities, and to improve conditions for historically underrepresented groups. The Foundation recognizes, however, that the concept of social change is ambiguous; the literature on public interest litigation offers no single definition of “success.” Some commentators criticize public interest litigation as a failed strategy that short-circuits the political process and produces few, if any, long-lasting successes. Reading the same evidence, other commentators declare victory for civil rights litigation, but urge a refocusing of effort on public education, legislative reform, and political mobilization. Still others point to litigation’s unintended adverse consequences—including bitter political opposition—and emphasize the need for consensual solutions to divisive social problems. Finally, some observers recognize the limits of court-initiated reform, but recommend its continued support as part of a multipronged strategy to expand social justice and to preserve victories against erosion and assault. This case study addresses many of these concerns. Looking at the work of some of the Foundation’s grantees over the last two decades, the study illustrates the process of public interest litigation in the United States and identifies some of the factors framing its strategic use. The study does not claim to be scientific or comprehensive; it does not discuss, for example, Ford’s significant support of legal services for the poor during this period. Nor does the case study provide an audit of grantee work. Rather, through a sampling of the Foundation’s law grantees—in women’s rights, minority rights, and immigrant and refugee rights—the authors glean lessons from the use of litigation to change public policy; to enforce, implement, and monitor change; and to mobilize and empower members of historically disadvantaged groups. The authors conclude that public interest litigation has been and remains integral to a holistic social change strategy that may also include community mobilization, leadership and economic development, media outreach, policy analysis, and empirical research. The chapter first provides a brief institutional history of Ford’s support of civil rights litigation in the United States and then describes the adjudicative campaigns of particular grantees in such diverse fields as school finance reform, reproductive choice, and land-use planning. Within specific U.S. contexts, the study then discusses the strengths and weaknesses of litigation as a social change strategy and explores how grantees have used media and other public education activities to mitigate some of the potential risks and disadvantages of court-based activities. Finally, the study draws some general lessons that may be of use to advocates, donors, and policy analysts in considering when, whether, and how to use public interest litigation as a way to support social change. The chapter concludes with a brief look at future challenges, emphasizing the need for continued and sustained philanthropic support of public interest litigation as part of a social change strategy for historically marginalized groups.
Source Publication
Many Roads to Justice: The Law-Related Work of Ford Foundation Grantees Around the World
Source Editors/Authors
Mary McClymont, Stephen Golub
Publication Date
2000
Recommended Citation
Hershkoff, Helen and Hollander, David, "Rights into Action: Public Interest Litigation in the United States" (2000). Faculty Chapters. 774.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/774
