Trailblazer: Profile of Karen Rothenberg
By Michelle Weyenberg, National Jurist – January (Print) Edition

Now 55 and dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, [Karen] Rothenberg still is working to fulfilling that deal. In October, she received the Dean John R. Kramer Award from Equal Justice Works.

Tech Law Student to Help Disabled through Fellowship
By Jon Vanderlaan, The Daily Toreador (Texas Tech University) – Jan 31

Colleen Wisdom, a juris doctoral candidate from Lubbock with a master's degree in marriage and family therapy, received the Equal Justice Works Fellowship for her project, which she will begin work on in the fall.

Katrina Housing Funds OK'd for Port
By Natalie Chandler, The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi) – Jan 26

A federal decision that allows GOP Gov. Haley Barbour to divert hurricane relief money from a housing program to expand the port of Gulfport could result in closer congressional scrutiny of a law associated with recovery aid. U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson approved the state's $600 million request but voiced reservations in a letter sent to Barbour on Friday. Jackson wrote that congressional language used to give hurricane-damaged states help "allows me little discretion." Under the law, states have power to decide how to use the money, he wrote. … "HUD admits that affordable housing is a more pressing need, but upholds diversion of $600 million away from that priority," said Reilly Morse, an attorney for Mississippi Center for Justice. "One hundred million dollars more in housing will nowhere near meet the need. Our recovery has gone off the rails."

Shafter Awaiting Cleanup Proposal
By Stacey Shepard, The Bakersfield Californian – Jan 25

Shafter residents and city officials are gearing up for the release of a long-awaited plan to clean up a polluted industrial site that forced the city to abandon a drinking water well nearly 20 years ago. … A community meeting has been planned for early February to provide an overview of the site and the cleanup plan approval process, said [Equal Justice Works Fellow] Ingrid Brostrom, a staff attorney with the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, a group that helps rural communities organize on environmental issues. Brostrom said Shafter residents are concerned the cleanup plan was written by the chemical companies.

Feds OK Mississippi's Katrina grant diversion
By Mike Stuckey, MSNBC.com – Jan 25

While thousands of Mississippians remain in FEMA trailers, the federal government has approved the state's plan to spend $600 million originally earmarked for housing on a major port expansion. … "There's no other explanation except that the state doesn't think the lower income storm victims are as important a priority as the port," said [Equal Justice Works Fellow] Reilly Morse, an attorney with the Mississippi Center for Justice, part of the coalition.

Letter to the Editor: Don't Call it Slavery
By Sienna Baskin, The San Francisco Chronicle – Jan 20

Pending House reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act wrongly calls all prostitution "sex trafficking" and makes "inducement into prostitution" a federal crime. It would also force the Justice Department to stretch its resources for fighting child sexual exploitation to cover adult "victims," meaning prostitutes, whether or not they see themselves as victims. And many do not. Written by Sienna Baskin, Equal Justice Works legal fellow for the Sex Workers Project Urban Justice Center New York.

ACLU Sues Law Enforcement for Shielding President Bush from Protestors
ACLU/Common Dreams Newscenter – Jan 15

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit in federal court today on behalf of several New Mexico residents and advocacy organizations who were made to stand more than 150 yards away from the site of a fundraiser being attended by the president as they peacefully protested the views of the administration, while a group of people expressing support for President Bush were allowed to stand only a few feet from the fundraiser site. "People who disagree with the president have as much a right to be heard as those who wish to praise him," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU [Equal Justice Works Fellow, Class of 2005}. "The unequal treatment of the ACLU's clients violates their constitutional right to free speech."