Justice

Dear Friends,

Today, as we celebrate Juneteenth and two landmark Supreme Court decisions earlier this week, I think of poet Langston Hughes’ famous poem Harlem, which inspired the title of Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun and the subject of this email. At Didi Hirsch, many of our clients have suffered trauma, injury and death because of discrimination and injustice. Now, we have the responsibility of ensuring that these rights are acknowledged and enforced everywhere.

Delayed Freedom

On June 19, 1865, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation became official, Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war was over and slavery had ended. 

LGBTQ Rights Acknowledged

Same-sex marriage became a constitutional right in 2015, but members of the LGBTQ community could be fired for being gay, bisexual or transgender—until Monday. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination—which was legal in more than half of the states.

Dreamers Get Relief

For the past three years, young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children have lived in fear that they would lose their jobs or be deported following the pending cancellation of a program that provided legal protection and work permits. On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Trump Administration didn’t provide sufficient reasons for cancelling the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects 700,000 young immigrants known as Dreamers.

Let’s all be the change we want to see.

-Kita