Ethics

Macon Bolling Allen (1816-1894) is thought to have been born around 1816 in Indiana and later moved to Maine.

In 1931, Jane Bolin became the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School. But that is just one of her long list of firsts — Bolin also went on to become the first Black woman to join the New York City Bar Association and the New York City Law Department.

Bryan Stevenson is an attorney, social justice activist, law professor, and founding executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. His work centers on challenging racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

President Joe Biden presented the National Humanities Medal to Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson at the White House on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.

Mr. Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.

A true trailblazer, Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was a scholar, activist, writer, and Episcopal priest who was important in the civil and women’s rights movements.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, as Anna Pauline in 1910, Murray was raised by family members in Durham, North Carolina, after their mother’s death in 1914. From a young age, Murray grappled with the complexities of their racial identity.

After serving for eight years in the District of Columbia Public Defender Service, rising to the position of deputy director, Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., or Tree, as he was affectionately known, was appointed a lecturer at Harvard Law School in 1984.

He is known as “The Man Who Killed Jim Crow” and the first General Counsel of the NAACP, but his contributions don’t stop there.

The University of Maryland announces its newly-built 70,000-square foot state-of-the-art School of Public Policy building will bear the name of civil rights lawyer and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (view full article).

As we commemorate Black History Month, it is crucial to reflect on landmark legal cases that have significantly contributed to the ongoing struggle for racial justice. One such pivotal case is Batson v. Kentucky.

At James K. Batson's 1982 state-court trial for burglary and receiving stolen property, the prosecution used “peremptory strikes” to remove four possible jurors who, like Batson, were black. The resulting all-white jury convicted Batson; he received a 20-year sentence.

Jean Camper Cahn is a lawyer who helped establish federal financing of legal services to the poor and was a co-founder of the Antioch School of Law, the predecessor to the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law.

The Antioch School of Law was established in 1972 by Jean Camper Cahn and Edgar S. Cahn, a married interracial couple dedicated to improving legal services for the underprivileged.