Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
The Washington Lawyers’ Committee is a more than 50-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, right to vote independently; • Criminal legal system reform: police accountability, prison conditions, parole, and reentry. Find out more about our work by following us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at @WashLaw4CR. Please visit our website for more information: www.washlaw.org
