March 25, 2022 • 27 mins
On Sherilyn Ifill’s last day as President and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Anita Hill interviews Ifill about the LDF’s legacy and her contributions. They talk civil rights – where we are today, where we’re going and what it means to run a modern day civil rights organization.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin Getting Even is produced by Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to
Pushkin Plus and you can hear Getting Even and other
Pushkin shows add free and receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign
up on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts
(00:39):
or at Pushkin dot Fm. Yes, it is daunting, and
I think it should be. If you're not daunted, you
know something is very wrong with you and you're probably
not right for this job. That's Sherylyn Eiffel. I'm the
President and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
(01:01):
until midnight tonight. Then I will be stepping down. I
caught up with Eiffel on the last day of her
nearly decade long tenure leading the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
The LDF has handled many of the biggest civil rights
cases in the country, such as Brown versus the Board
(01:23):
of Education. We also were the lawyers who represented Martin
Luther King in Birmingham, and we represented the Selma Marchers,
and we represented the Freedom Writers, and you know, we
represented Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Improvement Association, and we
represented Muhammad Ali and getting his boxing license back. So
(01:44):
you know, all the things you think of the lawyers
by and large were LDF. When if All started out
at LDF, she was daunted by the work ahead of her.
I joined LDF at nineteen eighty eight, and you must remember, Anita,
that I was a young lawyer at LDF. So when
you start in that position, you are gazing up at
(02:06):
the founders and the leaders of the organization with all
in reverence. And I've never lost that. Leading today's American
civil rights movement is a massive job. Eiffel personally reviews
every brief that has filed to the federal and Supreme courts.
She also writes her own op eds and manages everything
(02:28):
from fundraising to operations, and like each of Eiffel's predecessors,
she has left her mark. I felt very strongly that
in order to be relevant in civil rights work, you
can't just do your cases, you know, your litigation. You
have to be able to respond to what is moving
people's heart and soul in the moment. One of Eiffel's
(02:50):
legacies at the Legal Defense Fund is her creation of
a rapid response team. Through it, she has helped shape
the larger narrative about race in this country. And I
have been quite determined to do that I'm Anita Hill.
This is Getting Even, my podcast about equality and what
(03:13):
it takes to get there. On Getting Even, I speak
with people who are improving our imperfect world, people who
took risks and broke the rules. In this episode, CHERYLN.
Eifel reflects on her work at the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund and how it fits into our world today. What
(03:39):
are some of the cases and the initiatives that are
at the front of your mind on your last day
and with LDF, Well, I think this so called anti
critical race theory movement, which is really an anti truth movement.
This whole effort to memory hold the truth about the
history of racism, to remove this from our educational system,
(04:02):
to try and change our perception of history, to try
to bury history, is something that we could not have
anticipated three years ago, five years ago. But here it is,
and it's real and it's dangerous. We're already in a
number of states participating with local grassroots groups testifying ourselves
in opposition to some of these bills. There will be
(04:24):
litigation in some of these places. LDF has worked forever
on issues of police violence against on armed African Americans,
and obviously voting rights are key, But you know, LDF
has a whole docket of cases around natural hair discrimination,
which people that somehow can't believe, but it's true. You know,
a lot of our hair discrimination cases, for example, really
began with young people and litigating those cases of young
(04:46):
people who were suspended or who were told they couldn't
walk in graduation because they had lots. You know, we
released a report written by one of our terrific young
attorneys a few years ago that just focused on the
way in which discipline is meted out to black girls
in public schools in Baltimore City, and it was very
(05:08):
important to us to explore this issue of how black
girls bodies are used to suggest that they violate dress codes,
the way in which black girls are kind of not
allowed to be girls, the way in which the license
that's taken to search black girls again is a denial
of their dignity and their privacy, the presumptions that are
(05:32):
made about black girls and their sophistication. A lot of
our approach to our work is getting in there and
understanding the way in which certain kinds of infractions particularly
are experienced. Is just really important to put together a
more complex picture of what the denial of civil rights
(05:54):
looks like for different members of our community. That's really
exciting work that I think maybe people don't necessarily even
know is going on. I agree, you're doing so much.
Maybe you can't know every thing. You know, it's so true.
I mean, if you're familiar with the Los Angeles bus system,
that was an LDF case that we sue to make
(06:17):
sure that the bus routes in Los Angeles would reach
black and brown communities in the city. And so I'm
sure people get on the buses every day and they
don't think, oh, this is the result of a civil
rights suit by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. But it
is the work that we've done in the employment discrimination area.
You know. I talk about a case we won in
nineteen seventy one called Phillips versus Martin Marietta, an LDF
(06:40):
case brought on behalf of a white woman who was
challenging the rule at Martin Marietta that they did not
hire women who had preschool aged children. That was just
the rule of the firm, you know. LDF we argued
that case in the Supreme Court in one So you know,
I say all the time to women in corporate America.
You know, if you've got your job and you have
young children, that was LDF. You have us to think, right, yeah, exactly, exactly.
(07:04):
There was no blueprint fifty years ago, certainly not when
d was established. I think civil rights work today is
very different in terms of the amount of partners that
you have that are collaborating with you. All of the
civil rights community can't be represented in one organization, that's right.
(07:27):
Tell me about your collaboration if you will, with the
Leadership Conference of Civil Rights. Oh yeah, it's an ecosystem
that has to be strong, and the Leadership Conference is
essential to the ecosystem because it brings us all together
and it's really important. I say this all the time.
LDF is largely a litigating organization and a policy organization,
(07:48):
but we also have organizers on our staff. But you know,
we're not a membership organization. You know, people need people
to turn out at a march. That's going to be
the National Action networker people who have members or affiliates.
That's not us. But every part of the ecosystem has
a role to play. One of the things we were
so clear about when Trump was elected, we actually had
meetings about it was that we were all going to
stand shoulder to shoulder because we genuinely believed. I think
(08:12):
maybe we underestimated the brutality of Trump's tactics, but we
believe that we're going to try to drive wedges between
the black and Latino community around issues like immigration or
the black and LGBTQ community. And so one of the
things we were very explicitly clear about was that there
would be no daylight between us on any of the
issues that we worked on, and that proved to be
(08:33):
an incredible strength, and we all understood we had to
show up for one another quickly. When Tree of Life happened,
as soon as I heard it, my text went out
to Jonathan Greenblat the relationship between John Yang and I,
the head of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and our very
explicit modeling of ally ship between the black and Asian
American community over the last year and a half as
(08:56):
hate crimes have risen exponentially against the Asian American community.
All of that is intentional because we understand that our
work and our survival is dependent on our to stand
strong and to stand shoulder to shoulder in the work.
I know you mentioned a number of women who are
(09:17):
now heading these organizations, which historically wasn't the case. Do
you think that that sort of intersectional influence that is
coming in with the diverse leadership will change the work
of LDF in the future or will inform the work
of LDF in the future. You know, I think every
(09:37):
Director Council brings their secret sauce to the table, whatever
that might be, that is very much a product of
their experience, and I borrowed from every Director council. Nineteen
eighty eight, I was hired by Julius Chambers, one of
the most extraordinary, consequential and courageous civil rights lawyers as
country has ever known, and who most people don't know.
(09:59):
He litigated the Swan versus Mechleberg case, Landmark school disegregation
case in one eighteen month period. He had his car,
his office, and his house fire, and Julius always just
kept it moving. Elaine Jones really built our profile in
DC right and on Capitol Hill. My communication efforts and
understanding the importance of being a voice and a face
(10:21):
in shaping the narrative was very much taken from Thirgood.
He had a way about him that made people want
to listen to him that was accessible. They could understand
the average person could understand what he was talking about
when he was talking about the cases that he was litigating.
That was important to me to be able to convey that.
Jack Greenberg was incredibly entrepreneurial and expanded the organization in
(10:42):
all kinds of ways. He would say, let's file five
hundred cases that would challenge, you know, discrimination in various
textile plants across the South. I mean, he was just
extremely entrepreneurial and moved LDF in a lot of different
directions that still exist today. So everybody has their secret
sauce they bring to the table. I came to this
(11:02):
space from spending many years having left New York and
moving to Baltimore and having a real strong sense of
what I thought was important about the experience of black
people in what I kind of call second tier cities,
you know, not New York or San Francisco or Chicago,
but Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit. I got really interested in that,
(11:24):
and a lot of the work on our docket reflects that.
I'm a big believer in rapid response, and so I
built a rapid response capacity in the organization because I
felt very strongly that in order to be relevant in
civil rights work, you know, you can't just do your cases,
you know, your litigation, you have to be able to
respond to what is moving people's heart and soul in
(11:46):
the moment. If Mike Brown is lying on that street
as he was that Saturday, when I saw on Twitter
this kind of growing concern about this young man who
had been shot by an officer and that his body
was still in the street, I started tracking that and
by Sunday night I had assembled my team on the
phone to say, something's happening, you know, and we need
to understand what it is. And the first thing we
(12:06):
did was send one of our organizers down because we
understood this wasn't a matter of litigation per se. There
was something else that was happening around this issue of
police violence. So that very much comes out of my
own experience and thinking about how to approach these issues
and how the community expects people who hold themselves in
the position of being civil rights leaders to be responsive
(12:29):
to the things that they care about. After the break,
Eiffel and I talk about what lies ahead, where progress
stalls and where we can place our hope. You're listening
(12:52):
to getting even I'm Anita Hill. I'm speaking with Sherylyn Eiffel,
President and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Eifel and I spoke on her last day on the job.
We look toward the future civil rights and what type
of leadership we need. I want to talk about leadership
(13:14):
in Washington, DC and it specifically. I want to start
with the courts. We now have a nominee, Judge Jackson
for the Supreme Court. Tell me how you think that
will play out in the next few weeks. Well, I
think she'll be confirmed. I don't have any doubt about that.
(13:36):
But I do think that there will be some bad
behavior by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And it
doesn't matter who the person is. Cason point is Katangi
Brown Jackson, who by all measures has a very moderate record.
This is not a civil rights lawyer, as a moderate record,
has more judicial experience heading into the Supreme Court than
(13:57):
Chief Justice Roberts did heading into the Supreme Court. And
yet you know already you heard Senator Lindsay Graham saying
her nomination is part of a leftist agenda, you know,
so you know that it's going to there's going to
be some bad behavior. It won't change the outcome. But
I don't take it lightly because people have to want
(14:19):
to serve, and it's not pleasant for people to go
through that kind of gauntlet to serve. And it's a
way of showing a certain license that they believe they
have and that they believe they should take, particularly with
women of color. And my own belief is that that
trickles down into the workplace of the average woman, that
people watch that and think they can call any woman
(14:42):
in a professional setting out of her name, or call
them an Affirmative action nominee, or deem them unqualified by
virtue of their race, and so on and so forth.
So so I think it's harmful and toxic and dangerous,
but unfortunately, I think we will see some of that.
Can she make a difference on this chord? I mean,
I think to the average person, first of all, the
(15:02):
trust in the Supreme Court has declined over the years,
and now I think it's about forty percent favorability rating
of the Supreme Court itself. You know, we've got a
majority of the justices squarely conservative. And how are we
to see the potential for her terms on the Supreme Court,
(15:27):
every justice can make a difference that they choose to
do so. So, first of all, it's a choice. You
have to decide that you want to make a difference,
and you're absolutely right. I can do math as well
as the next guy. It is a six three court
at this point. And so the idea is that the
(15:47):
Conservatives have a strong majority of a stronghold, and they
have shown themselves, particularly over the last year or so,
to be quite willing to flex their muscles and to
be even reckless in my view, with the flexing of
those muscles. But it can change if you think about justice.
So to Mayor, and particularly over the last two years,
(16:07):
the kinds of dissents that she's been writing, and as
I said in a recent op ed that I wrote
in the New York Times, they sting. You can tell
that they sting, and they are meant to sting because
you can't make it easy for them to dismantle the
infrastructure of civil rights. You can't make it easy for them.
And then the second piece that she's doing is that
she's talking to the public. She's showing us that what
(16:30):
we think is happening is in fact happening. You know,
You're absolutely right. And one of the things that I
know for sure and now is that the public is
listening to what is happening on the Supreme Court in
a different way than they have been in past. Yes,
they are paying attention. I think that they will see
that the effort that the conservatives are taking is really
(16:51):
systematic and it is increasingly emboldened to actually rewrite the law.
At the same time claim that they're not an activist chord.
And so I do believe that these this sense will
be powerful. Yes, And they're not going to be just
speaking to each other now that they're going to be
talking to the public, to the other courts and to
(17:13):
the legislative bodies. And so these are really important times
for us to think about what is in fact the
judicial imagination that we had for equalities. There was I
think a roar of approval when at some point, you know,
Justice Sotomayoran in one case cited Tanahasi Coats and you'd
(17:34):
be like, who you cite? Who you suggest is worth
listening to? Right, It's a kind of scholarship that the
Court should engage. There are all kinds of ways as
a Supreme Court justice that you can be influential if
you choose to do so. So it is in the
hands of Judge Jackson to decide how she will be
(17:54):
on the court. She will have an opportunity. Of course,
she's going to do what most of us would do,
I'm sure, which is make friends and alliances where she can.
That's an important part of the job. I have no
doubt she will do that, and then I suspect she'll
be quite scared full at it. But there are all
kinds of ways to be influential, and I think that
giving her a little bit of time, she will find
(18:15):
her way. Do you think it's helpful that she's a
former public defender? Absolutely? I mean I have railed for
some time against what I believe has been the capture
of the federal courts in general and the Supreme Court
more specifically by prosecutors. That was the pathway to becoming
a federal judge, and increasingly the pathway to serving on
(18:37):
the Supreme Court as well. People had worked in the
Justice Department, They've been US attorneys and so forth, and
I think it shows in the jurisprudence that comes from
the federal courts that the mindset is more prosecutor oriented.
And it's fascinating because most of the things that we
take pride in when we go to conferences in other
(18:58):
countries about our legal system, our constitutional system, our criminal
justice system, are all the things that are really on
the defense side. We're proud of in until proven guilty
and Miranda warnings and yeah, and due process and the
ability to confront your accuser and the right to remain
silent and for that not to be incriminating. And just
(19:20):
think about all of the things that we talk about
as making a criminal legal system sound in a democracy,
and they're not about how many people we put away
in for how many years and how many people we
have on death row. Those are not the things that
American lawyers brag about around the world, right, So it's
fascinating that the role of public defenders and criminal defense
(19:43):
attorneys in general, along with civil rights lawyers who are
doing some of the noblest work in this profession, has
largely been downgraded among the qualifications for those who serve
on the Supreme Court and on the federal courts in general.
And I think we've been really pushing to reverse that,
and I credit President Biden with having done an exemplary
(20:04):
job of beginning to turn that around in his federal
nominations as well as with the domination of Judge Jackson.
You had mentioned Mike Brown in the response of LDF
to the situation involving his death. We have just come
off a couple of years of the pandemic where we
(20:26):
have focused on inequities. We have a Black Lives Matter movement,
and the movement has gotten a lot of traction lately,
and the public seems to be paying attention to these issues. Nevertheless,
it does not seem that leadership in Washington has really
(20:46):
taken up the mantle and moved to do more policy
work to support these ideas and these early cries for justice.
How can we make the connection, How can these movements
become the influencers of policy in this country. Well, I
(21:13):
think we have a political problem. We have a broken
political system that has to be overhauled in a variety
of ways. I don't put that at the feet of
the civil rights community, because I think one of the
things that's been revealed by the Trump presidency and the
excesses of his presidency and of Congress during those years,
(21:34):
are the ways in which the system has to be fixed.
I think the conversation we've had for the last year
about the filibuster rule is enormously important. That we have
a right to weigh in on procedures and practices that
are archaic that stand in the way of moving our
democracy forward, and that has to be addressed. So we
(21:54):
have a problem. We have a problem in which some
of the rules need to be changed, but we also
have a problem in which political leaders are valuing power
over democracy, and that is the beginning authoritarianism, and it's very,
very serious. People want to stay in their jobs. I mean,
(22:15):
if you think about jerrymandering, another thing that is anti
democratic at the levels that we're seeing it, and yet
people are willing to do it so that their party
can stay in power forever. I mean, this is every
child knows that sometimes I go first and sometimes you
go first. When we play a game, right, it's your
turn and then it's my turn. We're now facing a
(22:38):
moment where even that seminal lesson that every child knows
has been lost. This is part of why Trump can't
say he lost the election, because it's never anybody else's turn.
It's only his turn. And that's what's happening to our politics.
And I keep saying that the movements really have done
their job. Yes, the movements have done their job. Oh listen,
(23:00):
let me let me say this. Let me just get
this out. We did the dog on saying okay, we
did it. The work that we've done, the movements, the
ordinary people who have been fighting, the millions of people
who came out in fifty States after seeing the video
of George Floyd being killed in the middle of a
global pandemic, fifty states largest civil rights marches we have
(23:20):
ever seen in this country and around the world in solidarity.
The people have been on point, and the civil rights
ecosystem has been on point. The politics is broken and
is working counter to what the people are showing us
they want. And it is also true that there are
people who are opposed to us. They've been coming out
(23:41):
there at the school board meetings, right There's fewer in number,
but they are willing to be cruel, rude, brutal, sometimes violent.
And you saw what happened on January sixth, just a
few thousand people, but look at what they did, and
we look at what they were prepared to do. And
we're also in this situation right now where we have
(24:01):
a Supreme Court that, as we already discussed, is emboldened
and kind of reckless in this moment. So we're up
against is pretty strong. But we have to stand strong
and stay focused and powerful, keep our eyes on the prize,
which we always do. What's next for you? Yeah, I'm
going to take a minute, catch my breath. I'm going
to write this book that I think is important. I
(24:23):
think that's also part of civil rights work is some
of us taking a minute to put the pieces together
and talk about where we are and how we get
where we want to go. And then I'll be thinking
about the next way that I am supposed to contribute
to this work. This is my life's work. But I'm
mostly I'm unashamed to say I'm proud, proud of what
I've been able to accomplish. Well, I'm looking forward to
(24:46):
seeing what you do and thank you for all that
you've already done. I appreciate it. Thank you, and neither
thank you for all you've done. Ivol has identified a
wide range of inequities and the small and big actions
needed to dismand told them like ifol I look at
what lies ahead with clear eyes, sustainable progress is not easy.
(25:12):
So how do we move forward. I'm struck by Eiffel's
emphasis on the interconnectedness of civil rights issues and the
need for civil rights leaders to speak with one voice.
This is a path we need to follow. On the
(25:35):
next episode, I'm speaking with a comedian and filmmaker w
Canal Bell about his new documentary series We Need to
Talk About Cosby. Bill Cosby is the trojan horse for
having the bigger conversation about rape culture in America. And
it's not a conversation that lots of people want to have.
More people say no than yes. But the people showed
up really shut up, including many of the survivors. And
(25:58):
look for a special episode in time for the Oscars.
I'll be talking with the President of the Academy of
Motion Pictures, Don Hudson about the academy recent changes in
the aftermath of Oscar So White. Getting Even is a
production of Pushkin Industries and is written and hosted by
(26:18):
me Anita Hill. It is produced by Mola Board and
Brittany Brown. Our editor is Sarah Kramer, our engineer is
Amanda kay Wang, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias. Luis
Gara composed original music for the show. Our Executive producers
are Mia Lobel and Lee tal malad Our. Director of
(26:43):
Development is Justine Lane. At Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane,
Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton, John Schnarz, and Jacob Weisberg.
You can find me on Twitter at Anita Hill and
on Facebook at Anita Hill. You can find Pushkin on
(27:06):
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(27:29):
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Pushkin Getting Even is produced by Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to
Pushkin Plus and you can hear Getting Even and other
Pushkin shows add free and receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign
up on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts
(00:39):
or at Pushkin dot Fm. Yes, it is daunting, and
I think it should be. If you're not daunted, you
know something is very wrong with you and you're probably
not right for this job. That's Sherylyn Eiffel. I'm the
President and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
(01:01):
until midnight tonight. Then I will be stepping down. I
caught up with Eiffel on the last day of her
nearly decade long tenure leading the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
The LDF has handled many of the biggest civil rights
cases in the country, such as Brown versus the Board
(01:23):
of Education. We also were the lawyers who represented Martin
Luther King in Birmingham, and we represented the Selma Marchers,
and we represented the Freedom Writers, and you know, we
represented Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Improvement Association, and we
represented Muhammad Ali and getting his boxing license back. So
(01:44):
you know, all the things you think of the lawyers
by and large were LDF. When if All started out
at LDF, she was daunted by the work ahead of her.
I joined LDF at nineteen eighty eight, and you must remember, Anita,
that I was a young lawyer at LDF. So when
you start in that position, you are gazing up at
(02:06):
the founders and the leaders of the organization with all
in reverence. And I've never lost that. Leading today's American
civil rights movement is a massive job. Eiffel personally reviews
every brief that has filed to the federal and Supreme courts.
She also writes her own op eds and manages everything
(02:28):
from fundraising to operations, and like each of Eiffel's predecessors,
she has left her mark. I felt very strongly that
in order to be relevant in civil rights work, you
can't just do your cases, you know, your litigation. You
have to be able to respond to what is moving
people's heart and soul in the moment. One of Eiffel's
(02:50):
legacies at the Legal Defense Fund is her creation of
a rapid response team. Through it, she has helped shape
the larger narrative about race in this country. And I
have been quite determined to do that I'm Anita Hill.
This is Getting Even, my podcast about equality and what
(03:13):
it takes to get there. On Getting Even, I speak
with people who are improving our imperfect world, people who
took risks and broke the rules. In this episode, CHERYLN.
Eifel reflects on her work at the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund and how it fits into our world today. What
(03:39):
are some of the cases and the initiatives that are
at the front of your mind on your last day
and with LDF, Well, I think this so called anti
critical race theory movement, which is really an anti truth movement.
This whole effort to memory hold the truth about the
history of racism, to remove this from our educational system,
(04:02):
to try and change our perception of history, to try
to bury history, is something that we could not have
anticipated three years ago, five years ago. But here it is,
and it's real and it's dangerous. We're already in a
number of states participating with local grassroots groups testifying ourselves
in opposition to some of these bills. There will be
(04:24):
litigation in some of these places. LDF has worked forever
on issues of police violence against on armed African Americans,
and obviously voting rights are key, But you know, LDF
has a whole docket of cases around natural hair discrimination,
which people that somehow can't believe, but it's true. You know,
a lot of our hair discrimination cases, for example, really
began with young people and litigating those cases of young
(04:46):
people who were suspended or who were told they couldn't
walk in graduation because they had lots. You know, we
released a report written by one of our terrific young
attorneys a few years ago that just focused on the
way in which discipline is meted out to black girls
in public schools in Baltimore City, and it was very
(05:08):
important to us to explore this issue of how black
girls bodies are used to suggest that they violate dress codes,
the way in which black girls are kind of not
allowed to be girls, the way in which the license
that's taken to search black girls again is a denial
of their dignity and their privacy, the presumptions that are
(05:32):
made about black girls and their sophistication. A lot of
our approach to our work is getting in there and
understanding the way in which certain kinds of infractions particularly
are experienced. Is just really important to put together a
more complex picture of what the denial of civil rights
(05:54):
looks like for different members of our community. That's really
exciting work that I think maybe people don't necessarily even
know is going on. I agree, you're doing so much.
Maybe you can't know every thing. You know, it's so true.
I mean, if you're familiar with the Los Angeles bus system,
that was an LDF case that we sue to make
(06:17):
sure that the bus routes in Los Angeles would reach
black and brown communities in the city. And so I'm
sure people get on the buses every day and they
don't think, oh, this is the result of a civil
rights suit by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. But it
is the work that we've done in the employment discrimination area.
You know. I talk about a case we won in
nineteen seventy one called Phillips versus Martin Marietta, an LDF
(06:40):
case brought on behalf of a white woman who was
challenging the rule at Martin Marietta that they did not
hire women who had preschool aged children. That was just
the rule of the firm, you know. LDF we argued
that case in the Supreme Court in one So you know,
I say all the time to women in corporate America.
You know, if you've got your job and you have
young children, that was LDF. You have us to think, right, yeah, exactly, exactly.
(07:04):
There was no blueprint fifty years ago, certainly not when
d was established. I think civil rights work today is
very different in terms of the amount of partners that
you have that are collaborating with you. All of the
civil rights community can't be represented in one organization, that's right.
(07:27):
Tell me about your collaboration if you will, with the
Leadership Conference of Civil Rights. Oh yeah, it's an ecosystem
that has to be strong, and the Leadership Conference is
essential to the ecosystem because it brings us all together
and it's really important. I say this all the time.
LDF is largely a litigating organization and a policy organization,
(07:48):
but we also have organizers on our staff. But you know,
we're not a membership organization. You know, people need people
to turn out at a march. That's going to be
the National Action networker people who have members or affiliates.
That's not us. But every part of the ecosystem has
a role to play. One of the things we were
so clear about when Trump was elected, we actually had
meetings about it was that we were all going to
stand shoulder to shoulder because we genuinely believed. I think
(08:12):
maybe we underestimated the brutality of Trump's tactics, but we
believe that we're going to try to drive wedges between
the black and Latino community around issues like immigration or
the black and LGBTQ community. And so one of the
things we were very explicitly clear about was that there
would be no daylight between us on any of the
issues that we worked on, and that proved to be
(08:33):
an incredible strength, and we all understood we had to
show up for one another quickly. When Tree of Life happened,
as soon as I heard it, my text went out
to Jonathan Greenblat the relationship between John Yang and I,
the head of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and our very
explicit modeling of ally ship between the black and Asian
American community over the last year and a half as
(08:56):
hate crimes have risen exponentially against the Asian American community.
All of that is intentional because we understand that our
work and our survival is dependent on our to stand
strong and to stand shoulder to shoulder in the work.
I know you mentioned a number of women who are
(09:17):
now heading these organizations, which historically wasn't the case. Do
you think that that sort of intersectional influence that is
coming in with the diverse leadership will change the work
of LDF in the future or will inform the work
of LDF in the future. You know, I think every
(09:37):
Director Council brings their secret sauce to the table, whatever
that might be, that is very much a product of
their experience, and I borrowed from every Director council. Nineteen
eighty eight, I was hired by Julius Chambers, one of
the most extraordinary, consequential and courageous civil rights lawyers as
country has ever known, and who most people don't know.
(09:59):
He litigated the Swan versus Mechleberg case, Landmark school disegregation
case in one eighteen month period. He had his car,
his office, and his house fire, and Julius always just
kept it moving. Elaine Jones really built our profile in
DC right and on Capitol Hill. My communication efforts and
understanding the importance of being a voice and a face
(10:21):
in shaping the narrative was very much taken from Thirgood.
He had a way about him that made people want
to listen to him that was accessible. They could understand
the average person could understand what he was talking about
when he was talking about the cases that he was litigating.
That was important to me to be able to convey that.
Jack Greenberg was incredibly entrepreneurial and expanded the organization in
(10:42):
all kinds of ways. He would say, let's file five
hundred cases that would challenge, you know, discrimination in various
textile plants across the South. I mean, he was just
extremely entrepreneurial and moved LDF in a lot of different
directions that still exist today. So everybody has their secret
sauce they bring to the table. I came to this
(11:02):
space from spending many years having left New York and
moving to Baltimore and having a real strong sense of
what I thought was important about the experience of black
people in what I kind of call second tier cities,
you know, not New York or San Francisco or Chicago,
but Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit. I got really interested in that,
(11:24):
and a lot of the work on our docket reflects that.
I'm a big believer in rapid response, and so I
built a rapid response capacity in the organization because I
felt very strongly that in order to be relevant in
civil rights work, you know, you can't just do your cases,
you know, your litigation, you have to be able to
respond to what is moving people's heart and soul in
(11:46):
the moment. If Mike Brown is lying on that street
as he was that Saturday, when I saw on Twitter
this kind of growing concern about this young man who
had been shot by an officer and that his body
was still in the street, I started tracking that and
by Sunday night I had assembled my team on the
phone to say, something's happening, you know, and we need
to understand what it is. And the first thing we
(12:06):
did was send one of our organizers down because we
understood this wasn't a matter of litigation per se. There
was something else that was happening around this issue of
police violence. So that very much comes out of my
own experience and thinking about how to approach these issues
and how the community expects people who hold themselves in
the position of being civil rights leaders to be responsive
(12:29):
to the things that they care about. After the break,
Eiffel and I talk about what lies ahead, where progress
stalls and where we can place our hope. You're listening
(12:52):
to getting even I'm Anita Hill. I'm speaking with Sherylyn Eiffel,
President and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Eifel and I spoke on her last day on the job.
We look toward the future civil rights and what type
of leadership we need. I want to talk about leadership
(13:14):
in Washington, DC and it specifically. I want to start
with the courts. We now have a nominee, Judge Jackson
for the Supreme Court. Tell me how you think that
will play out in the next few weeks. Well, I
think she'll be confirmed. I don't have any doubt about that.
(13:36):
But I do think that there will be some bad
behavior by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And it
doesn't matter who the person is. Cason point is Katangi
Brown Jackson, who by all measures has a very moderate record.
This is not a civil rights lawyer, as a moderate record,
has more judicial experience heading into the Supreme Court than
(13:57):
Chief Justice Roberts did heading into the Supreme Court. And
yet you know already you heard Senator Lindsay Graham saying
her nomination is part of a leftist agenda, you know,
so you know that it's going to there's going to
be some bad behavior. It won't change the outcome. But
I don't take it lightly because people have to want
(14:19):
to serve, and it's not pleasant for people to go
through that kind of gauntlet to serve. And it's a
way of showing a certain license that they believe they
have and that they believe they should take, particularly with
women of color. And my own belief is that that
trickles down into the workplace of the average woman, that
people watch that and think they can call any woman
(14:42):
in a professional setting out of her name, or call
them an Affirmative action nominee, or deem them unqualified by
virtue of their race, and so on and so forth.
So so I think it's harmful and toxic and dangerous,
but unfortunately, I think we will see some of that.
Can she make a difference on this chord? I mean,
I think to the average person, first of all, the
(15:02):
trust in the Supreme Court has declined over the years,
and now I think it's about forty percent favorability rating
of the Supreme Court itself. You know, we've got a
majority of the justices squarely conservative. And how are we
to see the potential for her terms on the Supreme Court,
(15:27):
every justice can make a difference that they choose to
do so. So, first of all, it's a choice. You
have to decide that you want to make a difference,
and you're absolutely right. I can do math as well
as the next guy. It is a six three court
at this point. And so the idea is that the
(15:47):
Conservatives have a strong majority of a stronghold, and they
have shown themselves, particularly over the last year or so,
to be quite willing to flex their muscles and to
be even reckless in my view, with the flexing of
those muscles. But it can change if you think about justice.
So to Mayor, and particularly over the last two years,
(16:07):
the kinds of dissents that she's been writing, and as
I said in a recent op ed that I wrote
in the New York Times, they sting. You can tell
that they sting, and they are meant to sting because
you can't make it easy for them to dismantle the
infrastructure of civil rights. You can't make it easy for them.
And then the second piece that she's doing is that
she's talking to the public. She's showing us that what
(16:30):
we think is happening is in fact happening. You know,
You're absolutely right. And one of the things that I
know for sure and now is that the public is
listening to what is happening on the Supreme Court in
a different way than they have been in past. Yes,
they are paying attention. I think that they will see
that the effort that the conservatives are taking is really
(16:51):
systematic and it is increasingly emboldened to actually rewrite the law.
At the same time claim that they're not an activist chord.
And so I do believe that these this sense will
be powerful. Yes, And they're not going to be just
speaking to each other now that they're going to be
talking to the public, to the other courts and to
(17:13):
the legislative bodies. And so these are really important times
for us to think about what is in fact the
judicial imagination that we had for equalities. There was I
think a roar of approval when at some point, you know,
Justice Sotomayoran in one case cited Tanahasi Coats and you'd
(17:34):
be like, who you cite? Who you suggest is worth
listening to? Right, It's a kind of scholarship that the
Court should engage. There are all kinds of ways as
a Supreme Court justice that you can be influential if
you choose to do so. So it is in the
hands of Judge Jackson to decide how she will be
(17:54):
on the court. She will have an opportunity. Of course,
she's going to do what most of us would do,
I'm sure, which is make friends and alliances where she can.
That's an important part of the job. I have no
doubt she will do that, and then I suspect she'll
be quite scared full at it. But there are all
kinds of ways to be influential, and I think that
giving her a little bit of time, she will find
(18:15):
her way. Do you think it's helpful that she's a
former public defender? Absolutely? I mean I have railed for
some time against what I believe has been the capture
of the federal courts in general and the Supreme Court
more specifically by prosecutors. That was the pathway to becoming
a federal judge, and increasingly the pathway to serving on
(18:37):
the Supreme Court as well. People had worked in the
Justice Department, They've been US attorneys and so forth, and
I think it shows in the jurisprudence that comes from
the federal courts that the mindset is more prosecutor oriented.
And it's fascinating because most of the things that we
take pride in when we go to conferences in other
(18:58):
countries about our legal system, our constitutional system, our criminal
justice system, are all the things that are really on
the defense side. We're proud of in until proven guilty
and Miranda warnings and yeah, and due process and the
ability to confront your accuser and the right to remain
silent and for that not to be incriminating. And just
(19:20):
think about all of the things that we talk about
as making a criminal legal system sound in a democracy,
and they're not about how many people we put away
in for how many years and how many people we
have on death row. Those are not the things that
American lawyers brag about around the world, right, So it's
fascinating that the role of public defenders and criminal defense
(19:43):
attorneys in general, along with civil rights lawyers who are
doing some of the noblest work in this profession, has
largely been downgraded among the qualifications for those who serve
on the Supreme Court and on the federal courts in general.
And I think we've been really pushing to reverse that,
and I credit President Biden with having done an exemplary
(20:04):
job of beginning to turn that around in his federal
nominations as well as with the domination of Judge Jackson.
You had mentioned Mike Brown in the response of LDF
to the situation involving his death. We have just come
off a couple of years of the pandemic where we
(20:26):
have focused on inequities. We have a Black Lives Matter movement,
and the movement has gotten a lot of traction lately,
and the public seems to be paying attention to these issues. Nevertheless,
it does not seem that leadership in Washington has really
(20:46):
taken up the mantle and moved to do more policy
work to support these ideas and these early cries for justice.
How can we make the connection, How can these movements
become the influencers of policy in this country. Well, I
(21:13):
think we have a political problem. We have a broken
political system that has to be overhauled in a variety
of ways. I don't put that at the feet of
the civil rights community, because I think one of the
things that's been revealed by the Trump presidency and the
excesses of his presidency and of Congress during those years,
(21:34):
are the ways in which the system has to be fixed.
I think the conversation we've had for the last year
about the filibuster rule is enormously important. That we have
a right to weigh in on procedures and practices that
are archaic that stand in the way of moving our
democracy forward, and that has to be addressed. So we
(21:54):
have a problem. We have a problem in which some
of the rules need to be changed, but we also
have a problem in which political leaders are valuing power
over democracy, and that is the beginning authoritarianism, and it's very,
very serious. People want to stay in their jobs. I mean,
(22:15):
if you think about jerrymandering, another thing that is anti
democratic at the levels that we're seeing it, and yet
people are willing to do it so that their party
can stay in power forever. I mean, this is every
child knows that sometimes I go first and sometimes you
go first. When we play a game, right, it's your
turn and then it's my turn. We're now facing a
(22:38):
moment where even that seminal lesson that every child knows
has been lost. This is part of why Trump can't
say he lost the election, because it's never anybody else's turn.
It's only his turn. And that's what's happening to our politics.
And I keep saying that the movements really have done
their job. Yes, the movements have done their job. Oh listen,
(23:00):
let me let me say this. Let me just get
this out. We did the dog on saying okay, we
did it. The work that we've done, the movements, the
ordinary people who have been fighting, the millions of people
who came out in fifty States after seeing the video
of George Floyd being killed in the middle of a
global pandemic, fifty states largest civil rights marches we have
(23:20):
ever seen in this country and around the world in solidarity.
The people have been on point, and the civil rights
ecosystem has been on point. The politics is broken and
is working counter to what the people are showing us
they want. And it is also true that there are
people who are opposed to us. They've been coming out
(23:41):
there at the school board meetings, right There's fewer in number,
but they are willing to be cruel, rude, brutal, sometimes violent.
And you saw what happened on January sixth, just a
few thousand people, but look at what they did, and
we look at what they were prepared to do. And
we're also in this situation right now where we have
(24:01):
a Supreme Court that, as we already discussed, is emboldened
and kind of reckless in this moment. So we're up
against is pretty strong. But we have to stand strong
and stay focused and powerful, keep our eyes on the prize,
which we always do. What's next for you? Yeah, I'm
going to take a minute, catch my breath. I'm going
to write this book that I think is important. I
(24:23):
think that's also part of civil rights work is some
of us taking a minute to put the pieces together
and talk about where we are and how we get
where we want to go. And then I'll be thinking
about the next way that I am supposed to contribute
to this work. This is my life's work. But I'm
mostly I'm unashamed to say I'm proud, proud of what
I've been able to accomplish. Well, I'm looking forward to
(24:46):
seeing what you do and thank you for all that
you've already done. I appreciate it. Thank you, and neither
thank you for all you've done. Ivol has identified a
wide range of inequities and the small and big actions
needed to dismand told them like ifol I look at
what lies ahead with clear eyes, sustainable progress is not easy.
(25:12):
So how do we move forward. I'm struck by Eiffel's
emphasis on the interconnectedness of civil rights issues and the
need for civil rights leaders to speak with one voice.
This is a path we need to follow. On the
(25:35):
next episode, I'm speaking with a comedian and filmmaker w
Canal Bell about his new documentary series We Need to
Talk About Cosby. Bill Cosby is the trojan horse for
having the bigger conversation about rape culture in America. And
it's not a conversation that lots of people want to have.
More people say no than yes. But the people showed
up really shut up, including many of the survivors. And
(25:58):
look for a special episode in time for the Oscars.
I'll be talking with the President of the Academy of
Motion Pictures, Don Hudson about the academy recent changes in
the aftermath of Oscar So White. Getting Even is a
production of Pushkin Industries and is written and hosted by
(26:18):
me Anita Hill. It is produced by Mola Board and
Brittany Brown. Our editor is Sarah Kramer, our engineer is
Amanda kay Wang, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias. Luis
Gara composed original music for the show. Our Executive producers
are Mia Lobel and Lee tal malad Our. Director of
(26:43):
Development is Justine Lane. At Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane,
Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton, John Schnarz, and Jacob Weisberg.
You can find me on Twitter at Anita Hill and
on Facebook at Anita Hill. You can find Pushkin on
(27:06):
all social platforms at pushkin Pods, and you can sign
up for our newsletter at pushkin dot Fm. If you
love this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing
to Pushkin Plus. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can
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(27:29):
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