Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs

2006 Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients

Equal Employment Opportunity
Fair Housing
Public Accommodations
Disability Rights
Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Special Programs
Public Education

Equal Employment Opportunity

Covington & Burling

The firm of Covington & Burling joined the Committee in the litigation of three significant EEO cases over the past year. In one of these matters – a race and retaliation case against USAID – a final settlement and monetary payment have been made following a trial court victory and appeal. In a second matter, involving disability discrimination claims against a local university, Covington was able to negotiate a swift settlement even before discovery began. In the third matter, a class action challenging the failure of the U.S. Postal Service to provide appropriate sign language interpreters to thousands of deaf employees nationwide at critical meetings, including meetings following the anthrax crisis in 2001, an intensive discovery schedule has just been completed. The excellent work of Covington attorneys has been instrumental in the progress achieved in each of these cases.

Heller, Huron, Chertkof, Lerner, Simon
& Salzman, PLLC

In a case that raised critical issues for the growing immigrant community in the Washington Metropolitan area, the Committee along with the law firm of Heller, Huron, Chertkof, Lerner, Simon & Salzman brought and successfully resolved a suit on behalf of Jesus Romero, an immigrant from El Salvador. Mr. Romero was a dishwasher at a large hotel chain for fifteen years before the hotel instituted an illegal English fluency requirement. As a result of the new policy, Mr. Romero was summarily fired, even though he had always performed his job well. Setting a precedent for employers around the area, the settlement of this case included not only $50,000 in back pay and damages for Mr. Romero, as well as attorneys’ fees, but also an extensive consent decree that prohibits the defendant from imposing English fluency rules, requires the training of management on national origin discrimination and the impact of English fluency rules, and requires the distribution of non-discrimination policies in Spanish as well as English to hourly employees. In this way, the settlement helped ensure economic opportunity for the increasing number of people in this community whose native language is not English and whose jobs do not require English fluency, but who are often penalized based on their national origin.

Fair Housing

Gilbert Heintz & Randolph LLP
Relman & Associates

The firms of Gilbert Heintz & Randolph and Relman & Associates served as lead co-counsel representing the National Fair Housing Alliance and several regional fair housing groups, including the Equal Rights Center, in two cases raising serious allegations of racial discrimination in the provision of homeowners insurance by a major national company. At the conclusion of several years of intense litigation, the cases were settled to the satisfaction of all parties. These cases are part of a series of groundbreaking challenges to discrimination in connection with homeowners insurance brought by NFHA in recent years. Taken together, these cases have had a profound impact on correcting a longstanding national problem.

McDermott Will & Emery LLP

Demonstrating long-time commitment to the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, and pro bono service to the community, a team of lawyers from McDermott, Will & Emery, led by Melvin White and William Hagedorn successfully settled the largest Section 8 “Source of Income” discrimination matter to date. The lawsuit alleged that Sawyer Realty Holdings and its affiliates engaged in discriminatory conduct in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act by refusing to rent otherwise affordable housing in the District of Columbia to holders of Section 8 vouchers. The McDermott, Will & Emery team obtained an Agreed Settlement Order from the defendants prohibiting future discrimination against voucher holders, requiring notice of vacancies in affordable housing to fair housing organizations, the implementation of a company-wide anti-discrimination policy by the defendants, and a $130,000 payment to the plaintiff, the Equal Rights Center.

Public Accommodations

Hogan & Hartson L.L.P.

A team of Hogan & Hartson lawyers joined the Committee in representing the NAACP and its Conway branch in a series of lawsuits challenging the failure of three leading restaurants in Myrtle Beach to serve African-American customers during Black Bike Week. As a result of the firm’s vigorous advocacy, far-reaching settlements have been reached in each of these cases, guaranteeing non-discriminatory treatment for African-American customers and payment of substantial monetary damages.

Steptoe & Johnson LLP

As the result of a nearly three-year legal struggle waged on behalf of the NAACP, a team of Steptoe & Johnson lawyers secured a landmark settlement on February 4, 2006, requiring the City of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to end a longstanding policy of racial discrimination affecting thousands of African-American visitors attending an annual Black Bike Week event. The result was achieved after one of the most vigorously contested lawsuits in the Committee’s history, during which Steptoe & Johnson won a preliminary injunction holding that race was a motivating factor in the City’s decision to adopt a restrictive traffic policy for Black Bike Week.

Disability Rights

Hogan & Hartson L.L.P.

Last year, Hogan devoted countless hours and resources on two remarkable cases with the Disability Rights Project, both of which resulted in landmark settlements that provide critically important and precedential guidance on the obligations of retailers to people with disabilities.

The first of these cases produced two settlements addressing for the first time nationally the emergency evacuation needs of persons with disabilities from places of public accommodation. Under two high-profile agreements, the major discount retailer Marshalls will provide accessible evacuation routes for shoppers with disabilities in each of its 697 stores nationwide, and a local mall will do the same. The settlements were preceded by a ground-breaking decision in the case declaring that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that places of public accommodation, including landlord malls and tenant stores, consider the needs of people with disabilities in developing emergency evacuation plans. The importance of this decision and these settlements on the safety of people with disabilities nationwide cannot be overstated.

Hogan also assisted in the negotiation of an historic settlement with RadioShack, one of the nation’s leading electronics retailers. The settlement applies to the more than 5,000 stores owned and operated by RadioShack nationwide, and is the first to address a crucial new issue in disability rights – access to interactive electronic displays, such as displays for camcorders, PDAs, music keyboards, wireless phones, internet centers, digital cameras and laptop and desktop computers. This pioneering settlement will go far to ensure that individuals with disabilities can enjoy access to this important new retail device in RadioShack stores nationwide, and will also serve as a model for other electronics retailers.

Howrey LLP

Howrey LLP served as co-counsel with the Disability Rights Project in a case resulting in a milestone settlement with the Washington Hospital Center, the District’s largest hospital serving the general public. The case alleged that patients with disabilities had been unable to access standard medical treatment due to the inaccessibility of Washington Hospital Center’s medical facilities, such as patient rooms, examination rooms, examination tables and other medical equipment, as well as inadequacies in policies and procedures to ensure that patients with spinal cord injuries and other disabilities received the assistance they needed to eat, drink and otherwise care for themselves. Under this settlement, the Hospital Center will greatly increase the number and quality of accessible patient and examination rooms, purchase accessible examination tables for every Department, survey all of its equipment and purchase additional accessible equipment, and promulgate procedures and policies, including specific procedures for patients with spinal cord injuries. The tremendous impact of this settlement, one of the first in the country to address access to hospital facilities and equipment, is underscored by the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice intervened at the settlement, and will monitor compliance with the settlement terms.

Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Heller Ehrman LLP

Last fall, attorneys from Heller Ehrman responded to an urgent appeal for a legal analysis of immigration and Virginia law for Reston Interfaith, a northern Virginia nonprofit social services organization supporting the operation of a center for day laborers in Herndon, Virginia. In the face of widespread community opposition, the town ultimately approved the center, which opened at the end of 2005 despite legal challenges to the expenditure of tax money for the center. Heller Ehrman continues to serve as legal counsel to Reston Interfaith regarding an ongoing lawsuit and compliance issues at the center.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Since 2003, attorneys from the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton have gained asylum for twelve refugees and derivative asylum for three more refugees from Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Liberia, Cameroon, Colombia, Somalia and Nepal. Cleary Gottlieb attorneys currently represent eight other refugees before immigration judges, the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Fourth Circuit, and other jurisdictions. In 2004, the firm’s lawyers won primary and derivative asylum for a Guinean family who had opposed the imposition of female genital mutilation (FMG) on the daughters in the family and had been threatened because of their involvement in anti-FMG educational efforts. The firm now is helping a family to establish a nonprofit organization to provide information and assistance to African women in the U.S. confronting FMG and other issues. In 2005, Cleary Gottlieb attorneys successfully litigated the case of a young woman from Liberia, establishing that she suffered severe past persecution during the Charles Taylor regime and that an exception to the one-year filing deadline applied, despite the fact that the Taylor regime was no longer in power. Overall, since 2003, Cleary Gottlieb’s Washington office has devoted more than 10,000 hours to pro bono immigration matters.

Goodwin Procter LLP

Attorneys from Goodwin Procter have devoted hundreds of hours in representing asylum seekers from Cameroon, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). After attending the Project’s political asylum training, a Goodwin Procter attorney successfully represented a Sudanese medical student. The Arlington Asylum Office granted asylum to the young woman, who was targeted by the government because of her participation in a prohibited political party. Subsequently, the attorney mentored a colleague who gained asylum from the Arlington Asylum Office for a young man from Cameroon. Recently, through the efforts of a Goodwin Procter attorney, a student from DRC threatened because of her Rwandan ethnicity received a final grant of asylum.

Winston & Strawn LLP

Winston & Strawn attorneys have represented several asylum seekers over the past two years and secured asylum for persons from Cameroon, Ethiopia and Rwanda. In 2005 the Board of Immigration Appeals granted asylum to one client, a student from Rwanda who was arrested because of his alleged anti-government views as well as his uncle’s involvement in an opposition party. The Immigration Judge had earlier denied asylum, citing credibility issues. His successful appeal resulted in the reversal of the immigration court decision and an immediate grant of asylum. Two other attorneys from the firm gained asylum for a former government employee from Ethiopia who was arrested because of so-called anti-government activities. A team of attorneys obtained asylum from the Arlington Asylum Office for a Cameroonian activist who had been arrested and tortured on account of his advocacy for the rights of the English-speaking minority.

Public Education

Baker & McKenzie LLP

When asked what Baker & McKenzie meant to his school, Principal Dennis Homesley says, “Everything. Whatever we need, they are there to help us.” Whether it is providing school uniforms, personal hygiene kits for all of the 6th grade girls, visits to the firm for a Halloween party, money for trips, school supplies, or sponsorship of Grandparent Appreciation Day, the firm has made a tremendous impact at Payne Elementary School. The firm’s generous contributions from its Bake Sale “auction” are a welcomed resource at Payne. When a kindergarten student was lost in a fire that destroyed the family’s home, the firm stepped in and supported the family, touching not only the lives of that one family, but an entire school community and sealing an already strong friendship.

Sidley Austin LLP

Sidley Austin has played the leading role in the drafting of and advocacy for an education rights amendment to the District of Columbia’s Home Rule Charter, the D.C. equivalent of a state constitution. The proposed provision would guarantee the District’s children the right to high quality public schools. Lawyers at Sidley have devoted hundreds of hours in advocacy for the measure. Their efforts have included the preparation of extensive legal memoranda, appearances at public meetings, and the delivery of testimony before the D.C. Council. The Charter Amendment is a direct outgrowth of earlier work greatly aided by lawyers at Fulbright & Jaworski and a team of law students at the American University Law School, which resulted in the publication of a special report, “Separate and Unequal, the State of the D.C. Public Schools Fifty Years After Brown and Bolling.”