47 | RACIAL JUSTICE AND EQUITY RACIAL JUSTICE AND EQUITY | 48 PRO BONO Weil’s award-winning pro bono program embodies the Firm’s culture of embracing and promoting diversity. Our pro bono work supports voting, reproductive, civil and human rights, both for individuals and the nonprofit organizations that support them, and Weil attorneys play an important part in many pro bono matters protecting the environment and encouraging economic development and sustainability. Weil attorneys represent individuals and organizations fighting overt or systemic discrimination and are engaged in work to combat racism both on individual and systemic levels on issues from housing, the criminal justice system, environmental and medical resources, educational options, and refuge from persecution. Opening robust routes to equity means having the acuity to appreciate and eliminate obstacles wherever they arise, whether in monumental offenses or in rote application of mundane, but destructive practices in our midst. Weil stands ready to support racial justice organizations in times of extreme stress as well as to develop new routes to economic equity: Weil worked with the Sikh Coalition in connection with the April 2021 attack on the Indianapolis FedEx warehouse in which four of the eight murder victims were Sikh. Weil assisted with client intakes and obtaining referrals to other legal providers and provided general counseling to the organization in order that it, in turn, could meet the needs of the Sikh community. Weil is representing a coalition of BIPOC and immigrant advocacy groups, including Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), Council on American-Islamic Relations, New York (CAIR-NY), and LatinoJustice PRLDEF, to intervene in a suit brought by Republican voters and elected officials asking the New York Supreme Court to prohibit non-citizens from registering to vote in municipal elections per a new law allowing legal permanent residents to vote in municipal elections. Indeed, most of the Firm’s pro bono work is connected in some way to the promotion of equity. Some examples of exceptional recent matters involving racial justice include: Challenging Draconian Voting Restrictions in Texas Weil and co-counsel the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent, nonpartisan law and policy organization that works to reform, revitalize, and when necessary, defend systems of democracy and justice in the United States, brought two suits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division, against the State of Texas and certain Texas state and local officials, including Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, challenging Texas Senate Bill 1 (S.B. 1), a sweeping reform of Texas’ voting laws that purportedly addresses voter fraud, with a disproportionate effect on persons of color. Weil’s pro bono work on these cases seeks to challenge restrictive voting rights and protect free and fair elections. The first action, brought on behalf of Weil clients Friendship-West Baptist Church; the Anti-Defamation League Austin, Southwest, and Texoma Regions; Texas Impact; and James Lewin, challenges various draconian voting requirements and restrictions in S.B.1 (including bans on 24-hour and drive-through voting, restrictions on voter assistance and use of mail-in ballots, imposition of criminal liability for communitybased voter engagement activities, and encouragement of voter intimidation through over-empowered “poll watchers”) under the First, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Section 2 and Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The second action, brought on behalf of Weil clients Isabel Longoria (Harris County Elections Administrator) and Cathy Morgan (a volunteer deputy registrar), together with the Brennan Center and Harris County Attorney’s Office, challenges under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and certain provisions of S.B.1 that impose both criminal and civil liability on election officials who encourage eligible voters to legally request mail-in ballots. The Weil team secured a key, early victory in the Longoria case when Judge Xavier Rodriguez granted a preliminary injunction request, prohibiting district attorneys in three Texas counties from enforcing the part of S.B. 1 that makes it a crime for an election official to encourage eligible Texans to vote by mail. Protecting Detainees from the Ravages of COVID-19 Since April 2020, a Dallas-led team, working in close coordination with the ACLU of Texas, prosecuted major federal court litigation in the Southern District of Texas aimed at freeing hundreds of medically vulnerable immigrant detainees from an ICE civil detention facility in Conroe, Texas. This facility has been rendered unconstitutionally hazardous because of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Vasquez Barrera, et al. v. Wolf, et al.). Shortly after the commencement of these proceedings, Weil and the ACLU successfully argued for a temporary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs, and the court released one detainee from detention on account of being highly vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. To date, the Weil-ACLU team has obtained release of 15 medically vulnerable detainees through varying forms of individualized relief and prevailed on numerous critical motions. The team has moved to certify a class of all medically vulnerable detainees within the facility to obtain release on a class-wide scale. To that end, days after the team gained access to critical class discovery information revealing a troubling number of medically vulnerable detainees, the ICE facility began voluntarily releasing all detainees that fit the putative class definition. Therefore, although Weil can identify only 15 releases resulting directly from judicial orders (to date), countless other detainees have benefited and continue to benefit from the ongoing litigation. In fact, the facility’s population is now 30% of what it was at the outset of the litigation.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI5NDgyMA==