The Center for Civil Rights and Critical Justice builds on the law school's commitment to social justice.
This story originally appeared in Lawyer, Spring 2024.
Since its founding, social justice has been central to Seattle University School of Law’s mission. With the creation of the Center for Civil Rights and Critical Justice this past summer, the law school continues this legacy.
Comprised of nationally renowned faculty scholars and thought leaders, “this Center will continue to be a crucial force to synergize diverse and innovative approaches to teaching, advocacy, and scholarship to address racial injustice and other forms of discrimination,” said Dean Anthony E. Varona.
The Center continues the work of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, which until this summer was housed in the law school and led by Professor Robert S. Chang, who moved, along with the Korematsu Center name, to the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
“We greatly appreciate and respect all that Professor Chang accomplished during his tenure here, particularly his leadership of the Korematsu Center,” Varona said.
Leading the Center as co-directors are Visiting Assistant Professors Melissa Lee and Jessica Levin '08, who previously served as co-assistant directors of the Korematsu Center.
“These two accomplished leaders will continue the school’s legacy of education, advocacy, and research that transforms the way our legal system recognizes and remedies race- and class-based subordination,” said Professor Paul Holland, associate dean for Experiential Learning.
Amid a constellation of nonprofits, government agencies and civil rights attorneys that often have overlapping goals, the Center occupies a unique position.
“It’s important to have multiple diverse voices weighing in and advocating for change, progress, and fairer systems,” said Lila Silverstein, a staff attorney with the Washington Appellate Project, who has called on Lee and Levin to draft amicus briefs on past cases she’s handled. “No one advocate can say everything, and the Center’s advocacy helps to give courts a broader understanding and fuller picture of how the law is operating on the ground.”
The Center’s work consists of developing interventions to encourage and convince courts and policymakers to act in ways that remedy racial injustice and other forms of subordination. This involves convincing stakeholders to account for systemic inequality that has typically evaded remedy in individual cases.
The advocacy of Lee and Levin focuses on juvenile sentencing reform, fighting to reduce or eliminate life and long sentences for those accused of crimes, and development of state constitutional law in a variety of civil and criminal contexts.
A cornerstone of the Center’s work is the Civil Rights Clinic, where Lee and Levin engage Seattle U Law students in both litigation and policy advocacy, preparing them to become the next generation of social justice practitioners.
“Clinic students have worked on amicus briefs that contributed to the Washington Supreme Court’s decisions that overturned the death penalty statute and that changed the legal standards that govern how racial bias is addressed in criminal trials," Levin said.
Raymond M. Williams, now 44, is a clinic client incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole under Washington’s Three Strikes Law, even though his first strike offense occurred when he was just 16.
With the help of clinic students, Lee and Levin took Williams’ case because of the constitutional issues raised when sentences of life without parole are imposed based in part on crimes committed by young people. They are working to negotiate a new sentence that will allow for his release after nearly 30 years of incarceration.
“They have saved my life,” Williams said. “I’m about to get out of prison because of the work they have invested in me. [On many occasions], they have been able to identify when the justice system has gone astray and engaged in essential work to check these injustices.”
In addition to the Civil Rights Clinic, the Center will include new and continuing programs and initiatives. Led by Lee and Levin, the Calhoun Family Fellowship Program engages students in an intensive study of racism and oppression, and connects them with leaders in the community who are working to transform the criminal legal system.
The Center also will expand its work to encompass critical legal theory, providing the institutional home for the new Critical Justice Initiative. Led by nationally acclaimed faculty members Steven Bender and Angela Harris, both of whom are thought leaders and have published widely in this area, the initiative aims to educate, protect, nurture, and amplify the critical knowledge and histories of historically marginalized and oppressed groups and communities.
“I’m looking forward to developing the Critical Justice Initiative as a way to protect and connect critical theory to ongoing struggles, and to help students and young scholars gain new perspectives on daunting challenges through critical insights,” Harris said.
The Initiative hopes to offer a variety of projects and initiatives – including workshops, curricular development, an Organizing for Law and Justice virtual speaker series led by the Initiative's director of Law and Organizing, Jennifer Hill, and more – to expose and reach the root sources of persistent social problems. The Initiative also will be a principal supporting institution of the Journal of Law and Political Economy, which Harris founded and where she serves as co-editor-in-chief.
“The Journal could not be more pleased about its affiliation with Seattle University School of Law,” Harris said. “The cuttingedge, interdisciplinary field of Law and Political Economy seeks to understand the role of economic, social, and political power in market societies, and to promote human flourishing and resilience on a rapidly destabilizing planet. I think our mandate to publish the highest-quality scholarly research in this field aligns perfectly with Seattle U’s social justice mission, as well as with its cross-campus strengths in business, ethics, technological innovation, environment, and law.”
The Center also welcomes Professor Pilar Margarita Hernández Escontrías as its research director.
“It is an honor to step into a role that will allow me to be in community with leaders whose life work has been to radically imagine more possibilities for justice and freedom,” she said.
The Center also will continue to house two of the law school’s long-established and vital systemic advocacy programs.
The Defender Initiative, led by Professor from Practice Robert C. Boruchowitz, works to effect systemic improvement in the provision of public defense services in Washington state and nationally.
The Homeless Rights Advocacy Project, led by Professor Sara Rankin, engages students in effective legal and policy research, analysis, and advocacy work to advance the rights of homeless adults and youth.
“Seattle U Law is as committed as ever to the mission of this Center and to supporting its work that can result in real change in the world," Lee said.