Nine times our community lived our mission
The impact, importance, and scale of our community’s work is difficult to capture or quantify; countless stories of collaboration, organizing, and progress connect all of us.
There is much cause for celebration: here are nine standout moments when our mission, vision, and values were realized.
We hope these stories provide inspiration, pride, and hope to fuel the new year ahead.
To all who have made gifts in 2019 in support of this work, thank you. If you haven’t yet donated, please consider making a gift today.
Community and Economic Development Clinic and students lead New York City’s Housing Justice movement
The city’s escalating crisis of affordable housing and the recently passed right to counsel in eviction proceedings have made the need for trained and dedicated housing advocates stronger than ever. CUNY Law, thanks to the organizing and advocacy of our CED Clinic, has solidified its place as a leader on the issue. 2019 saw the CED Clinic host Affordable for Whom?, a two-day housing justice convening focused on the development and preservation of housing that is permanently affordable to the communities for whom CUNY Law advocates.
The Law School also introduced a new Housing Justice Practicum and students Alex Berger and Kyle Giller published an op-ed that reclaimed editorial space overrun with landlords and real estate developers. They proceed to take on “the important task of dispelling the toxic myths behind recurring arguments and exposing the reality that the real estate industry is, and always has been, solely concerned with extracting as much profit as possible from tenants- regardless of the human costs.”
Professors’ work calls into question the policies, database, and “takedown” at the center of NYPD’s gang policing narrative
Professor Babe Howell’s publication of the Bronx 120 Report, a shining example of academic research in action, provoked a multi-media feature published by The Intercept in April of 2019. Howell’s findings reframe the growing trend in the city’s targeting of alleged gang members through overbroad sweeps, militarized raids, and conspiracy laws: of the 120 swept up in the infamous 2016 raid, roughly 60 are not alleged gang members, 80 were not convicted based on violent conduct, and only 40 individuals had prior felony convictions.
CUNY Law hosted a special event with The Intercept that included a panel discussion on the use of gang prosecutions in the mass criminalization of communities of color and featured the first public screening of the short documentary “Trouble Finds You,” about Kraig Lewis, a young man caught up in the largest “gang takedown” in New York City’s history.
Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic won a historic victory for women’s and LGBTIQ+ rights in international law
Our HRGJ clinic, under the leadership of Lisa Davis, advocated for the final draft of a new international crimes against humanity treaty to drop an outdated definition of gender, affirming the rights of all people. It took immensely coordinated campaigning from rights advocates and lawyers and three groups that came together to push for the definition’s removal: MADRE, OutRight Action, and CUNY School of Law.
The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility project and Immigration and Non-Citizen Rights Clinic overturn Somali immigrant’s illegal detainment
“More than 19 months ago, after the Muslim Ban had been twice revised and fallen from the headlines, I got a call from a distraught woman in Columbus, Ohio. ‘I can’t find my husband,’ she said. She and their baby daughter had waited eight hours for Abdikadir Mohamed at the John Glenn Columbus Internation Airport — but he never showed.”
Professor Tarek Ismail takes us inside Abdi’s story and the work undertaken by CUNY Law students and faculty in CLEAR and INRC to help him return to his family after 18 long months of illegal detainment.
Oh, and in December of 2019, CLEAR announced they have joined the New York Civil Liberties Union in suing the stealth Customs & Border Patrol unit responsible for Abdi’s detainment for illegally targeting, interrogating, and denying entry to people like Abdi.
CUNY Law student delegation made a difference at family immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas
A student-led group campaigned, fundraised, and organized for nearly a year in order to travel to Dilley, Texas, where the nation’s largest family detention center holds 2,400 women and children seeking asylum in federal custody (2,400 is a fluctuating number). They are the Dilley Delegation, a group of 12 – ten students and two faculty members – who worked 12 hours a day, for six days to prepare more than 300 women for credible fear interviews.
In January 2020, their stories will be the first featured by Do Good Diligence, a CUNY Law podcast on the conversations, movements, and communities transforming the law for social good. You’re getting a special preview.
Standout faculty authorship and accolades published and presented in 2019
Among CUNY Law’s faculty accomplishments are three stand-out awards. Professor Chaumtoli Huq was presented with the Access to Justice Award at the 2019 South Asian Bar Association of New York Leadership Gala. Bill deBlasio bestowed a Mayoral Service Recognition Award on Professor Richard Storrow for his work representing an unaccompanied Guatemala minor who crossed the southwestern border at the age of 16 and was apprehended by Border Patrol. Professor Carmen Huertas-Noble, founding director of the Community and Economic Development Clinic, has been nominated to the Cooperative Hall of Fame and will be inducted in Washington, DC in May of 2020.
Two faculty members authored or co-authored new books in 2019. Stephen Loffredo co-authored with Helen Hershkoff Getting By: Economic Rights and Legal Protections for People with Low Income. Encyclopedic in scope, the book spans cash assistance, food assistance, health, and many other topics in a way that is accessible while providing immediately actionable information. Ruthann Robson is one of the co-authors of The Mueller Investigation and Beyond, which covers material across administrative law, civil procedure, constitutional law, criminal law and procedure, election law, evidence, professional responsibility and counterintelligence, and congressional investigative activity. Her contribution focuses on the legal attempts to address the sexual misconduct of the president.
Aadhikar story
In 2015, Mr. Baniya and 22 other workers sought help from the Queens-based Nepali community and advocacy organization, Adhikaar. (The organization, whose name means “Rights” had been incorporated with the support of CUNY Law’s Community and Economic Development Clinic founder Professor Carmen Huertas in 2007.) Adhikaar’s director of organizing and programs, Narbada Chhetri, knew that for the workers to receive fair labor conditions, the wages owed them, and justice they were going to have to take Mr. Keshtgar to court. Chhetri reached out to The Legal Aid Society for help.
Hollis Pfitsch, a CUNY Law alumna at Legal Aid, got the call. At the time, Ms. Pfitsch was also an adjunct professor at CUNY Law working with Professor Steve Loffredo co-supervising students in the Economic Justice Program (EJP), then an initiative which was part of the CED Clinic. Due to the number of plaintiffs, bringing in as much help as possible would be instrumental in righting some of the wrongs committed against the workers.
The result was a collaboration and effort that included students, faculty, and alums and spanned years – but in 2019, they won on behalf of their clients.
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Immigration and Non-Citizen Rights Clinic and Planning with Parents Project develop new resources to advocate for immigrant families
INRC launched a new digital and downloadable Toolkit created in direct response to the dangers of overbroad, race-based gang policing being weaponized against immigrants. Developed for attorneys, advocates, and impacted communities — especially those on Long Island — the Toolkit to Challenge Gang Allegations Against Immigrant New Yorkers is the result of funding from a major donor.
The Planning with Parents Project, in collaboration with Community.Lawyer, created a new app to connect undocumented parents and their advocates with guided interviews that generate advance planning documents and help them through guardianship planning. It was most recently used at a legal clinic in partnership with Mixteca, Hispanic Federation, and Latino Justice PRLDEF. The app will make its public launch early in 2020.