WWW.LAW.BERKELEY.EDU/SOCIALJUSTICE
SPRING 2004
C E N T E R
Elaine Jones, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Miranda Massie, counsel for student intervenors in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Michigan Law School affirmative action case.
B OA LT H A L L FO R S O C I A L J U S T I C E N E W S L E T T E R
On May 3, 2004 we celebrated the historic collaborative publication of the Brown v. Board of Edu- Lhamon, the ACLU attorney representing the plaincation symposium issue by the African- American tiffs in Williams v. California, the statewide class Law and Policy Report, the Asian Law Journal, the action suit that seeks to insure that all public school students have access to textbooks, trained teachBerkeley La Raza Law Journal, the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal, and the California Law Re- ers, and safe and adequate school facilities. Many different perspectives on the challenge of view. rekindling the spirit of Brown came from law profesThe edition commemorates the Center for Social sors with expertise in education law such as Gary Justice’s symposium on Rekindling the Sprit of Blasi, Goodwin Liu, Rachel Moran, and Steve Brown v. Board of Education: A Call to Action. Sugarman; leaders of the civil rights bar like DebElaine Jones, President and Director-Counsel of the orah Escobedo, Eva Paterson and Thomas Saenz; NAACP Legal Defense Fund, inaugurated the symand a dozen renowned social scientists like Nancy posium with a captivating “Call to Action” on NoDenton, Reynaldo Macias, Waldo Martin, Jeannie vember 13, 2003. Delivering the Hon. Mario G. Oakes, and Paul Ong. Author Merrideth Maran, jourOlmos Lecture to a packed audience in Booth Audinalist Peter Schrag, and community activists like torium, Ms. Jones recalled the political strategies Albi Soltani and Renato Almanzor contributed imthat made Brown v. Board of Education possible portant viewpoints not often heard in academia. and described the organized efforts required to insure equal opportunity for students of color in the Lawyers working within the educational system such as Michael Russell and Dirk Tillotson as well future. Professor Cruz Reynoso, former Justice of as educators like Beverly Cross, Henry Der, Richard the California Supreme Court, recalled Judge Olmos’ commitment to recruiting students of color to Gray, and Hae-Sin Kim were also able to shed light on what is actually happening in our schools. Boalt Hall during his student days. On November 14, 2003, nearly fifty leading experts from around the country focused on the reasons why Brown has not been more successful in affording equal educational opportunities for all students and discussed strategies for surmounting those barriers in the future. The symposium benefited from more than half a century of litigation experience from Professor Jack Greenberg, counsel for plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education; Arthur Benson, the attorney for the schoolchildren in the Kansas City school desegregation litigation, Jenkins v. Missouri, which lasted from 1979 to Peter Schrag, Professors Jack Greenberg, James 2003; Miranda Massie, counsel for the student Anderson and Waldo Martin spoke on the panel “The intervenors in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Michigan Historical Perspective: From the Transformative Vision of Law School affirmative action case, and Catherine Brown to Today’s Minimum Education”