Views America as a nation rife with injustice and discrimination
Engages in legislative and policy advocacy to promote "systemic change for the
disenfranchised"
Is funded, in part, by George Soros's Open Society Institute
The
Public Justice Center (PJC), which seeks
to “enforce and expand the
rights of people who suffer injustice because of their poverty or
discrimination,” was
created
in 1985 by professor Michael Millemann and attorney Nevett
Steele. Millemannn, who authored the 2005 book
Preferring White Lives: The Racial Administration of the Death
Penalty in Maryland, today teaches
Public Interest Law
at the University of Maryland. Steele, for his part, focuses
his legal efforts on combating the ramifications of “the
gap between the poor and the rich in this country.”
PJC's major initiatives, which focus chiefly on residents of Maryland, consist of the following:
Tenant
Advocacy: Asserting that “everyone deserves a home,”
PJC works to eliminate the “injustices” faced by tenants facing
eviction or living in “substandard conditions where they and their
families are exposed to ... health and safety code
violations.”
Education
Stability: Lamenting that children who suddenly become homeless “are often refused access” to the schools they had been attending up to that point, PJC
has filed lawsuits
to enforce their “right to enroll or continue in school.”
Foster
Children: PJC works “on many fronts to improve the care and education of Maryland’s
foster children.”
Prisoner
Rights: This program strives "to
effect long-term systemic improvements to prisoner health care and
conditions of confinement in Maryland." Of particular concern are such problems as "interruption
of necessary medications, unsanitary conditions, and denial of
healthcare."
Access
to Heath Care for Low-Income People: Through this initiative, PJC seeks
to “protect and expand poor people’s eligibility for adequate
health care coverage and access to appropriate, affordable, effective
and culturally competent health care.”
Right
to Counsel: Noting that the “guarantee
of counsel – bedrock of the American criminal justice system – is
conspicuously absent from the nation’s civil justice system,” PJC
actively argues that public funds should be made available to pay for legal representation in civil trials.
Workplace
Justice: PJC gives pro bono representation to low-wage
workers -- including illegal aliens -- who are "often discriminated against, denied
minimum wage, and not compensated for overtime."
Immigrant
Rights: PJC works with an active coalition of immigrant advocates "to
ensure that [illegal] immigrants have equal access to the courts and
government, and that they receive the protection of laws that apply
to them." This work is largely focused on "stemming the tide of
anti-immigrant administrative actions by state agencies and
anti-immigrant legislation that comes up every year in the General
Assembly." For instance, PJC in 2008 lobbied against HB 288 in the Maryland
General Assembly, a bill that would have required those applying for
a driver’s license to prove that they were either American citizens or legal U.S. residents, as an “unnecessary
measure that would undermine rather than enhance national
security.”
Appellate
Advocacy: This project seeks to "influence the development of poverty
and discrimination law before state and federal appellate courts," with an eye toward "accomplishing
systemic change of the legal and social systems that create or permit
injustice" against PJC's clients.
Legislative
Advocacy: Asserting that "Maryland's
legislators rarely hear the voices of the poor above the clamor of
better financed, better organized business interests and lobbyists," PJC lawyers and lobbyists engage in legislative and policy advocacy to promote "systemic change for the
disenfranchised." Toward that end, PJC collaborates with such groups as Medicaid Matters!-Maryland, the Rental Housing
Coalition, Advocates for Children and Youth, the Maryland Alliance
for the Poor, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
