The CRC is a 21st Century firm. Certainly, the CRC pays homage to Civil Rights Organizations that have come before the CRC such as the Union League (UL) which is arguably the first organization that promoted and sought some measure of preservation of voting rights, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) which as civil rights organizations did and most do, evolved seeking to advance and protect voting rights for all citizens, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which have done invaluable work to advance civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights in America.

Unlike those organizations, the CRC is not a not-for-profit organization. The challenges of the 21st century are so challenging that alone, the efforts of newly minted not-for-profit civil rights organizations are so numerous that they threaten such organizations’ continued existence. Rather, the CRC is a public interest organization with a primary mission to assist underrepresented people or causes in furtherance of advancing civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights, rather than making a profit. Therefore, working in association with the Civil Rights Consortium Research & Legal Fund, Inc. (“CRC – Legal Fund”), which is a not-for-profit organization, the CRC is able to provide representation at markedly reduced rates, far lower than market rates, ensuring that litigants have access to legal representation for meritorious legal claims.

Faced with violations of one’s civil rights/civil liberties/human rights, even with a well-paying job, the cost of legal representation can be stifling. Not many working-class people can afford to pay $275 an hour or more, for a vindication of their civil rights/civil liberties/human rights. Although the U.S. Congress and many state legislatures have enacted statutes that would provide for the payment of costs of legal fees after successful legal representation, the reality is that the vindication of individual civil rights/civil liberties/human rights ordinarily does not pertain to significant monetary relief at the end of the case. In fact, often the vindication sought is injunctive, not monetary. That creates the reality that somebody must ordinarily pay for civil rights/civil liberties/human rights representation either in the first instance or period, or risk not being able to find legal representation on issues for which it may be impossible to obtain for-profit legal representation for the amount one is willing or able to pay.

21st Century Challenges

Twenty-First Century America illustrates the great strides America has made in diversity, inclusiveness, and overall equality. Nonetheless, with an intervention of modern technology into the lives of everyday Americans, the country’s shortcomings in diversity, inclusiveness, and overall equality could not be more glaring. The inequality of the 40s, 50s, and 60s are infamous transgressions that are now a thing of the past, in the classic sense. With each passing decade the laws and socially acceptable norms used to regulate overt acts of discrimination become more and more effective to the point that until the election of Mr. Trump as president of the United States, widespread occurrences of such behavior had been seemingly eradicated. That led many to openly debate whether we were now living in “a post-racial era.” Under those circumstances, many contended that bigotry, discrimination, and other infamous biases were a thing of the path. However, as it turned out, the fact of the matter is that such laws and social norms regulating overt acts of discrimination were not nearly as effective as we perceived them to be. Mr. Trump’s ascension to the presidency has prompted a great many to express the infamous biases, bigotry, etc. more openly. Many previously contended that such behavior had been eradicated and that laws regulating such behavior and activities (e.g., voting rights) were excessive and undue acts of regulation. Such laws and social norms merely declared that acts of overt discrimination are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

The problem is, and always was, that simply drawing the line as to overt acts of discrimination was never enough because it merely declared to the discriminator that to get away with discrimination he or she or it merely needed to provide an alternative explanation for an act that would otherwise be discriminatory. It was a science-fiction that for a time appeared to have played to an increasingly dwindling group of people. However, in the same instance, discrimination became more and more institutionally based. In Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160 (1976), the nation’s high court reached the conclusion that essentially declared that private discrimination (e.g., institutional discrimination) needed to be regulated as much as public discrimination.
The Runyon decision certainly seemed to make sense; if we are to be successful in rooting out discriminatory conduct, we cannot limit the practical tools necessary to combat evolving forms of discrimination. Thirteen years later in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164 (1989), a conservative Supreme Court overruled its decision in Runyon, limiting the regulation of private discrimination. The U.S. Congress would later codify Runyon, thereby effectively overruling the highest court’s Patterson limitation. However, the damage had been done. Institutionalized or structural discrimination is so baked into the cake that looking to root out traditional forms of overt discrimination is analogous to being on the proverbial wild goose chase.

Gone are the days (for the most part) when a white employer engaged in overt acts of racial discrimination against a particular race or ethnicity; or where a male supervisor overtly engages in gender discrimination. In the 21sth century, an employer’s racially discriminatory policies against blacks or Hispanics is carried out by blacks and Hispanics against blacks and Hispanics. Similarly, an employer’s gender discriminatory policies against women are carried out by a woman. Do those facts make the discrimination permissible? Certainly, it does not make discrimination lawful, simply because it has become institutionalized or structural. The laws were not created to regulate a particular race or gender; they were enacted to be outcome determinative in efforts to stop inequitable treatment based on race, ethnicity, color, disability, or sexual orientation. It makes absolutely no difference who the alleged discriminator may be.

During U.S. Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the Republican Senate hired a woman to question a woman. It was an extraordinary act to the public. However, it is how discrimination has worked increasingly over the decades, as it has become institutional and structurally based. To many members of the public, the Republican’s act of hiring a woman to question a woman merely made obvious the lawmakers’ discriminatory bent. The CRC enters the 21sth Century with an understanding of how to effectively combat discrimination. It doesn’t use 19th and 20th Century techniques to remedy 21st-century legal violations. Discrimination has evolved, so too must the methods used to combat such inequity evolve.