Thurgood Marshall’s legal strategies were the underpinning for the civil rights victories of the past, and the foundation for the legal arguments now and in the future. Through comprehensive legal and communications strategies, the Thurgood Marshall Council on Social Justice will address the re-emerging and yet to be resolved issues of equality and social justice.
Criminal Justice & Police Community Relations
The Thurgood Marshall Council on Social Justice will call upon all criminal justice stakeholders—law enforcement, prosecutors and defense attorneys, courts, corrections and rehabilitation—to dissect and create viable solutions to eliminating racial and economic inequity throughout the criminal justice process, and establishing policy and practices that will ensure the just administration of the law.
Equity Advocacy (Voting Rights, Education, Economy, Health, Housing, etc.)
The issue of inequality as it intersects with the infrastructure of our democracy demands a vigorous strategy and a robust implementation plan. The Thurgood Marshall Council on Social Justice will assemble the nation’s thought-leaders seeking to establish a national strategy toward ensuring equity in access to the promise of democracy.
Self- Examination: Professional Integrity & Community Responsibility
As we cast the spotlight on the injustices of our democratic system, we must also evaluate not only the rights, but also the responsibilities of all members of the community. The Thurgood Marshall Council on Social Justice will develop legal, economic, and social strategies to address the unspoken issues related to the overall ethical failure of far too many professionals and service providers in the fields of law and justice, medicine and health care, business and economics, teaching and learning, and other areas of fiduciary responsibility to the public.
Community leaders at all levels also have an obligation to raise the bar for our standard of behavior within the community. There is a need to accept personal responsibility in establishing a set of conventional principles and expectations that are deemed morally binding on any person who is a member of our community—a code of behavior—that respects an individual’s personal freedoms as required by the Constitution while making it not only socially acceptable to reject behavior that defies decency and respect toward one another, but morally and ethically expected.