Probably the most famous case in the history of LDF was
Brown v. Board of Education, the
landmark case in 1954 in which the
United States Supreme Court explicitly outlawed
de jure racial segregation of
public education facilities. During the civil rights protests of the 1960s, LDF represented "the legal arm of the civil rights movement" and provided counsel for Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., among others. •
1940:
Chambers v. Florida, overturned the convictions—based on coerced
confessions—of four young black defendants accused of murdering an elderly white man. •
1944:
Smith v. Allwright, a voting rights case in which the Supreme Court required
Texas to allow African Americans to vote in
primary elections, formerly restricted to whites. •
1946:
Morgan v. Virginia,
desegregated seating on interstate buses. •
1947:
Patton v. Mississippi, ruled against strategies that excluded African Americans from
criminal juries. •
1948:
Shelley v. Kraemer, overturned
racially discriminatory real estate covenants. •
1948:
Sipuel v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla., reaffirmed and extended
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, ruling that
Oklahoma could not bar an African-American student from its all-white
law school on the ground that she had not requested the state to provide a separate law school for black students.
1950s •
1950:
McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, ruled against practices of segregation within a formerly all-white graduate school insofar as they interfered with meaningful classroom instruction and interaction with other students. •
1950:
Sweatt v. Painter, ruled against a Texas attempt to circumvent
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada with a hastily established inferior law school for black students. •
1953:
Barrows v. Jackson, reaffirmed
Shelley v. Kraemer, preventing state courts from enforcing restrictive covenants. •
1954:
Brown v. Board of Education, explicitly outlawed
de jure racial segregation of public education facilities. •
1956:
Jackson v. Rawdon, required desegregation of Mansfield High School, outside Fort Worth, Texas;
see also Mansfield school desegregation incident. •
1956:
Browder v. Gayle, overturned segregation of city buses;
see also Montgomery bus boycott. •
1957:
Fikes v. Alabama, a further ruling against forced confessions. •
1958:
Cooper v. Aaron barred
Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus from interfering with the desegregation of
Little Rock's
Central High School;
see also Little Rock Nine.
1960s •
1961:
Holmes v. Danner, began the desegregation of the
University of Georgia. •
1962:
Meredith v. Fair, won
James Meredith admission to the
University of Mississippi. •
1963: LDF attorneys defended Martin Luther King Jr. against
contempt charges for demonstrating without a permit in
Birmingham, Alabama.
See Letter from Birmingham Jail. •
1963:
Watson v. City of Memphis, ruled segregation of
public parks unconstitutional. •
1963:
Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, ended segregation of
hospitals that received Federal construction funds. •
1964:
Willis v. Pickrick Restaurant, ruled against segregation in public facilities such as restaurants;
Lester Maddox closed his restaurant rather than integrate. •
1964:
McLaughlin v. Florida, ruled against
anti-miscegenation laws. See also on this issue,
Eilers v. Eilers (argued by James A. Crumlin, Sr.) – details in
NAACP in Kentucky. •
1965:
Williams v. Wallace, made court order to allow a voting-rights march in Alabama, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which had previously been stopped twice by state police. •
1965:
Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, overturned all convictions of demonstrators' participating in civil rights
sit-ins. •
1965:
Abernathy v. Alabama and
Thomas v. Mississippi, reversed state convictions of Alabama and Mississippi
Freedom Riders on the basis of
Boynton v. Virginia. •
1967:
Quarles v. Philip Morris, overturned the practice of "departmental seniority", which had forced non-white workers to give up their seniority rights when they transferred to better jobs in previously white-only departments. •
1967:
Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, ruled that "freedom of choice" was an insufficient response to segregated schools. •
1967:
Loving v. Virginia, ruled that state laws banning interracial marriage ("
anti-miscegenation laws") in Virginia and 15 other states were
unconstitutional because they violated the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. •
1968:
Newman v. Piggie Park, established that prevailing
plaintiffs in civil rights act cases are entitled to receive
attorneys' fees from the losing
defendant. •
1969:
Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, ruled that 33 Mississippi school districts must desegregate "at once" thereby ending the era of foot-dragging in school desegregation permitted under the "all deliberate speed" doctrine of
Brown v. Board of Education •
1969:
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, ruled against using the
parade permitting process as a means of suppressing
First Amendment rights. •
1969:
Thorpe v. Housing Authority of Durham, ruled that low-income
public housing tenants could not be summarily
evicted. •
1969:
Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., required
due process for the
garnishment of wages. •
1969:
Allen v. State Board of Elections, guaranteed the right to a
write-in vote.
1970s •
1970:
Ali v. The Division of State Athletic Commission, restored
Muhammad Ali's
boxing license. •
1970:
Carter v. Jury Commission, approved Federal suits over discrimination in the selection of juries. •
1970:
Turner v. Fouche, overruled a requirement in
Taliaferro County, Georgia that
grand jury and
school board membership be limited to owners of
real property. •
1971:
Kennedy-Park Homes Association v. City of Lackawanna, forbade a city government from interfering in the construction of low-income housing in a predominantly white section of the city. •
1971:
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld intra-district
busing to desegregate public schools. However, this issue was contested in the courts for three more decades. In the most recent related cases, the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2002 refused to review
Cappachione v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education and
Belk v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, in which lower courts had ruled in favor of the school district. •
1971:
Haines v. Kerner, upheld the right of
prisoners to challenge prison conditions in federal court. •
1971:
Groppi v. Wisconsin, upheld the right of a criminal defendant in a
misdemeanor case to a venue where jurors are not biased against him. •
1971:
Clay v. United States, struck down Muhammad Ali's conviction for refusing to report for military service. •
1971:
Griggs v. Duke Power Company, ruled that tests for employment or promotion that produce different outcomes for blacks and whites are
prima facie to be presumed discriminatory, and must measure
aptitude for the job in question or they cannot be used. •
1971:
Phillips v. Martin Marietta, ruled that employers may not refuse to hire women with pre-school-aged children unless the same standards are applied to men. •
1972:
Furman v. Georgia, ruled that the death penalty as then applied in 37 states violated the
Eighth Amendment prohibition of
cruel and unusual punishment because there were inadequate standards to guide judges and juries making the decision which defendants will receive a sentence of death. However, under revised laws, U.S. executions resumed in 1977. •
1972:
Wright v. Council of the City of Emporia and
U.S. v. Scotland Neck City Board of Education, ruled against systems' avoiding public school desegregation by the creation of all-white "splinter districts". •
1972:
Alexander v. Louisiana, accepted the use of
statistical evidence to prove racial discrimination in the selection of juries. •
1972:
Hawkins v. Town of Shaw, banned discrimination in the provision of municipal facilities. •
1973:
Norwood v. Harrison banned government provision of school books to segregated private schools established to allow whites to avoid public school desegregation. •
1973:
Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, addressed deliberate
de facto school segregation, ruling that where deliberate segregation was shown to have affected a substantial part of a school system, the entire district must ordinarily be desegregated. •
1973:
Adams v. Richardson, required federal education officials to enforce Title VI of the
1964 Civil Rights Act, which requires that state universities, public schools, and other institutions that receive federal money may not discriminate by race. •
1973:
Ham v. South Carolina, ruled that defendants are entitled to have potential jurors
interrogated about whether they harbor racial prejudices. •
1973:
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, ruled that courts should hear cases of alleged unlawful discrimination based on the "minimal showing" that a qualified non-white applied unsuccessfully for a job that either remained open or was filled by a white person. •
1973:
Mourning v. Family Publication Service, upheld the
Truth in lending Act, requiring disclosure of the actual cost of a
loan. •
1975:
Albemarle v. Moody, mandated back pay for victims of job discrimination. •
1975:
Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, upheld the
Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed during
Reconstruction, as providing an independent remedy for employment discrimination. •
1977:
Coker v. Georgia, banned capital punishment for
rape, the most racially disproportionate application of the death penalty. •
1977:
United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh v. Carey, provided that states
may consider race in drawing electoral districts if necessary to comply with the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 by avoiding a dilution of minority voting strength.
1980s •
1980:
Luévano v. Campbell, struck down Federal government use of a written test for hiring into nearly 200 entry-level positions because the test disproportionately disqualified African Americans and
Latinos. •
1980:
Enmund v. Florida, struck down a federal "
felony murder" statute. •
1982:
Bob Jones University v. U.S. and
Goldboro Christian Schools v. U.S., denied
tax exempt status to
religious schools that discriminate on the basis of race. •
1983:
Major v. Treen, overturned a
Louisiana gerrymander intended to reduce African-American voting strength. •
1984:
Gingles v. Edmisten, continued as
Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), the Supreme Court ruled that at-large countywide election of state legislators illegally discriminated against black voters, and the Court established the standard for identifying "vote dilution" under the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act. •
1986:
Dillard v. Crenshaw County Commission: a
district court ordered over 180 of the local government bodies in counties, cities, and school boards in Alabama to change their methods of election because intentionally racially discriminatory state laws had made it extremely difficult for Black voters to elect their preferred candidates to local office. •
1987:
McClesky v. Kemp: in a 5–4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Georgia's death penalty and held that statistical evidence showing pervasive racial bias in the administration of the death penalty was not sufficient to invalidate a death sentence. •
1988:
Jiggets v. Housing Authority of City of Elizabeth: a
district court ordered the
HUD to spend $4 million to upgrade predominantly black, as well as predominantly white, housing projects in the city, and to implement federal maintenance, tenant selection and other procedures equitably. •
1989:
Cook v. Ochsner: in a belated coda to
Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, a district court approved a settlement ending a
New Orleans hospital's discrimination in
emergency room treatment and patient admissions. The settlement also provided increased opportunities for African-American physicians to practice at the hospital.
1990s •
1990:
Missouri v. Jenkins, established that a federal court could order local tax increases to fund magnet schools as a part of a school desegregation order. •
1991:
Chisom v. Roemer and
Houston Lawyers Association v. Attorney General, established that Voting Rights Act applies to the election of judges. •
1991:
Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell, established the standard for resolving longstanding school desegregation orders. •
1992:
Matthews v. Coye and
Thompson v. Raiford, compelled
California and Texas, respectively, to enforce and implement federal regulations calling for testing of poor children for
lead poisoning. •
1993: ''
Haynes v. Shoney's'': A record court-approved settlement in an employment discrimination case.
Shoney's Restaurants agreed to pay African-American employees, applicants, and white managers who resisted the practices, $105 million and to implement aggressive
equal employment opportunity measures. •
1994:
Lawson v. City of Los Angeles and
Silva v. City of Los Angeles, led to settlements to end discriminatory use of police dogs in minority neighborhoods. •
1995:
McKennon v. Nashville Banner: The Supreme Court refused to allow employers to defeat otherwise valid claims of job discrimination by relying on facts they did not know until after the discriminatory decision had been made. •
1996: ''
Sheff v. O'Neill'': The
Supreme Court of Connecticut, in view of the disparities between
Hartford public schools and schools in the surrounding suburbs, found the state liable for maintaining racial and ethnic isolation, and ordered the legislative and executive branches to propose a remedy. •
1997:
Robinson v. Shell Oil Company, determined that a former employee may sue his ex-employer for retaliating against him (by giving a bad
job reference) after he filed discrimination charges over his termination. •
1998:
Wright v. Universal Maritime Service Corp., determined that a general
arbitration clause in a
collective bargaining agreement did not deprive an employee of his right to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws in federal court. •
1999:
Campaign to Save Our Public Hospitals v. Giuliani, barred
New York City mayor
Rudolph Giuliani's attempt to
privatize public hospitals.
2000s •
2000:
Rideau v. Whitley, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit threw out the 28-year-old, third conviction of
Wilbert Rideau for murder because of discrimination in the composition of the Grand Jury that originally indicted him more than 40 years earlier. (Rideau was retried, convicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter, and released in 2005.) •
2000:
Smith v. United States, was resolved when President
Clinton commuted the sentence of
Kemba Smith. Smith was a young African-American mother whose abusive, domineering boyfriend led her to play a peripheral role (she did not sell drugs but was aware of the selling) in a conspiracy to obtain and distribute crack cocaine. She had been sentenced to a mandatory minimum of years in prison even though she was a first-time offender. •
2000:
Cromartie v. Hunt and
Daly v. Hunt, ruled that it is legal to create, for partisan political reasons, a district with a high concentration of minority voters; hence the North Carolina district from which
Mel Watt was elected to the
House of Representatives was ruled not to be an illegal gerrymander. •
2003:
Gratz v. Bollinger, ordered the
University of Michigan to change admission policies by removing racial quotas in the form of "points", but allowed them to continue to utilize race as a factor in admissions, to admit a diverse entering class of students. •
2007:
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, the Supreme Court ruled racial quotas unconstitutional in PK–12 school assignment, but allowed other remedial school integration programs to continue •
2009:
Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, the Supreme Court ruled the Voting Rights Act Section 5 preclearance process constitutional. LDF presented oral argument at the Supreme Court on behalf of a group of African-American voters.
2010s •
2010:
Lewis v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the City of Chicago can be held accountable for each and every time it used a hiring practice that arbitrarily blocked qualified minority applicants from employment. LDF presented oral argument in this case in the Supreme Court. •
2013:
Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, ending the Section 5 preclearance regime. LDF presented oral argument and represented a group of African-American voters in the Supreme Court. •
2013:
Fisher v. University of Texas, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of affirmative action, and remanded the case to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for a second view. LDF represented the Black Student Alliance and the Black Ex-Students of Texas, Inc. •
2016:
Veasey v. Abbott, The
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting
en banc, held that Texas's 2011 voter photo identification law violated the Voting Rights Act and that there was sufficient evidence to find that the Texas Legislature might have passed the law for the purpose of discriminating against Black and Latino voters. LDF presented oral argument in the Fifth Circuit on behalf of Black students and the Texas League of Young Voters. •
2017:
Buck v. Davis, the Supreme Court reversed the death sentence of Mr. Duane Buck because Mr. Buck's trial attorney introduced evidence that suggested Mr. Buck was more likely to commit violent acts in the future because he is black. LDF represented and presented oral argument on Mr. Buck's behalf in the Supreme Court.
2020s •
2020:
LDF v. Barr, the
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted summary judgment to LDF and ruled that the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice violated multiple requirements of the
Federal Advisory Committee Act, halting the Commission's operations until it was brought into compliance with federal law. •
2020:
Harding v. Edwards, in September 2020, the
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction that required Louisiana to extend the early voting period by three days and provided voters at highest risk of serious illness from
COVID-19 with the option to vote by mail in the November and December 2020 primary and general elections. •
2020:
Thomas v. Andino, in May 2020, the
U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina granted a preliminary junction that prohibited South Carolina from enforcing its witness signature requirement for absentee voters in the June 2020 primary elections. The court found that forcing people to obtain the signature of a third-party witness on their absentee ballot would endanger their health and safety in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. •
2020:
NAACP v. United States Postal Service, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the US Postal Service's widespread disruptions in mail delivery violated federal law and risked delaying the delivery of mail-in ballots — thereby causing voter disenfranchisement. On October 10, 2020, the court granted a preliminary injunction motion suspending service changes that had disrupted mail delivery. The court issued a series of additional orders leading up to the November 2020 General Election, which required the US Postal Service to take extraordinary measures to ensure the timely delivery of ballots and to provide daily updates about the delivery status of mail-in ballots. LDF represented the NAACP and individuals in the litigation. •
2023:
Allen v. Milligan, on June 8, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a preliminary injunction against the State of Alabama's 2021 congressional districts and ruled that Alabama's map is racially discriminatory in violation of Section 2 of the
Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court also upheld the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act in the redistricting context. LDF represented
Milligan plaintiffs in the lower courts and presented oral argument on behalf of the
Milligan appellees in the Supreme Court. •
2024:
Robinson v. Ardoin, In June 2022, a federal court preliminary enjoined Louisiana's congressional map and ordered the state to draw a map with two majority-Black districts. But the Supreme Court of the United States put this order on hold temporarily pending its decision in
Milligan. After the
Milligan ruling, the Supreme Court returned the case to the lower courts, which ultimately gave the Louisiana legislature the chance to draw a map with a second majority-Black district. And, in January 2024, the Legislature responded by adopting a new VRA-compliant map. LDF represented the
Robinson plaintiffs in the Supreme Court and lower courts. •
2024:
Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, on January 6, 2023, a three-judge district court ruled against the State of South Carolina's 2021 congressional map and concluded that the map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and intentionally discriminatory in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Supreme Court took the case up on direct appeal and heard oral arguments on October 11, 2023. LDF represented the plaintiffs at trial and presented oral argument on their behalf in the Supreme Court. ==Prominent LDF alumni==