WASHINGTON LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS & URBAN AFFAIRS

WASHINGTON, District of Columbia, 20005-3210 United States

Mission Statement

The Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs works to create legal, economic and social equity through litigation, client and public education and public policy advocacy. While we fight discrimination against all people, we recognize the central role that current and historic race discrimination plays in sustaining inequity and recognize the critical importance of identifying, exposing, combating and dismantling the systems that sustain racial oppression. We partner with individuals and communities facing discrimination and with the legal community to achieve justice.

About This Cause

The Washington Lawyers’ Committee is a 56-year-old civil rights organization. We serve the District of Columbia and the surrounding region, although a portion of our work has a national impact. The Committee’s strategic plan identifies three guiding principles: 1) we are primarily a racial justice organization. While we fight all forms of discrimination, it is through a racial justice lens. 2) We partner with impacted communities. The Committee works closely with organizations of persons whose lived experience defines the problems we seek to address and who possess the knowledge of the most effective solutions. Very often community groups or organizers are our clients. 3) Our work seeks to change systems that create and sustain inequity. We focus on high-impact advocacy, including litigation, policy advocacy, and public education. While we handle a volume of individual cases, our direct services practice is in aid of larger systemic reform goals. The Committee works in five priority areas: · Housing: creation of housing choice, fighting displacement and segregation, discrimination against person with a criminal record; · Workers’ rights: discrimination against persons with a criminal record, race discrimination, wage theft; · Education: race equity in education, recruitment of law firms to provide enrichment programs, parent organizing; · Disability rights: right to be integrated with non-disabled persons, conditions at the Saint Elizabeths Hospital, right to vote independently; · Criminal legal system reform: police accountability, prison conditions, parole, and reentry.

WASHINGTON LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS & URBAN AFFAIRS
700 14Th St Nw Ste 400
WASHINGTON, District of Columbia 20005-3210
United States
Phone (202) 319 1000
Twitter @WashLaw4CR
Unique Identifier 521784938