Carnegie
Corporation
of New York
Spring 2007
Gaining Rights for Latinos
Even before we opened our doors in 1972, we were talking to the folks at Carnegie Corporation,” said Cesar A. Perales, one of three attorneys who founded the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF; www.prldef.org), and the father of Nina Perales of MALDEF. “They were astute in recognizing that not all of the problems of Latinos in this country were the same, and were very, very encouraging in our development.”
Soon after its founding, PRLDEF won a court case on behalf of Latino American citizens who encountered language barriers with regard to voting on ballot initiatives, referenda and other issues related to voting. Lopez v. Dinkins (“Dinkins” being David Dinkins, who was then in charge of the Board of Elections and who was later elected mayor of New York City) became the basis for PRLDEF cases in other states. Recognizing that the lack of English-language skills should not preclude voters from fully exercising their rights, in 1975 the U.S. Congress amended the Voting Rights Act to include the right to language assistance for voters. “So our lawsuit in New York became national law,” says Perales, who is now president and general counsel of PRLDEF.
Another of PRLDEF’s early efforts helped rectify the situation faced by non-English-speaking Latino students in New York City schools whose educational needs were not being fully addressed. PRLDEF brought a lawsuit on behalf of Aspira, a youth development organization (Aspira v. New York City Board of Education, 1974). While PRLDEF was in the courts arguing this case, the Supreme Court decided Lau v. Nichols (1974), which focused on the same type of cause on behalf of Chinese students. As a result of the decision in that case, the court hearing the Aspira case issued a consent decree mandating that New York City schools use bilingual methods as part of the strategy for educating Spanish students. “This sent a signal to many school districts throughout the nation that did not want to face the same cost of litigation as New York City and did not want to be seen as being forced into complying,” said Perales.
Through the years, the group has fought against educational inequities in many states, including Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois and Pennsylvania. In 2001, PRLDEF successfully brought a lawsuit against the City of New York’s decision to double tuition for undocumented students.
As part of their education initiative, in 2005, PRLDEF organized a new initiative, LAWbound, which seeks to identify and support Latino students who wish to pursue a career in law. The program provides help for the students, linking them with mentors and providing networking opportunities with members of the law profession. PRLDEF seeks to help students overcome barriers that they encounter in the application process and throughout their years in law school.
As time has passed, PRLDEF has increasingly become Puerto Rican in name only and is metamorphosizing into a pan-Latino group with regard to its board and staff. Today, the group is working to find ways to help relieve the isolation experienced by current immigrants and to bring them into the civic life of America. A recent focus was in Mamaroneck, New York, where in November 2006 a judge found in favor of six anonymous plaintiffs represented by PRLDEF in a discrimination suit. In the 70-page decision, federal district Judge Colleen McMahon wrote that, “The campaign of aggressive law enforcement instigated by the village police...was aimed at and disproportionately affected Latino day laborers and the contractors who sought to hire them.”
Advancing Women’s Rights
As work with legal defense and education funds continued, the scope of Corporation support for social justice widened to include equal rights for women, especially their educational rights. This concern, wrote Pifer in the Corporation’s 1973 annual report, “grew naturally out of an earlier program at the foundation involving the continuing education of women.”
The Center for American Women in Politics (CAWP, www.cawp.rutgers.edu), which was founded in 1971 and is part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2006. Through studies, conferences, workshops and publications CAWP seeks to develop a broader base of knowledge about women in politics and government and to strengthen their leadership role in those areas. “When we began there wasn’t even a subject called women in politics to study,” says Debbie Walsh, director of CAWP, adding that in 1972, with Carnegie Corporation support, the center called its first conference of women legislators to ask, “Who are these women and how did they get there?” This first Conference for Women State Legislators was attended by 47 women. At the time, there were only 344 women (4.5 percent) nationwide serving as state legislators. In 2006, there were 1,685 women state legislators (22.8 percent), a figure that has remained essentially the same since 1999. CAWP commissioned Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, who later served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to write Political Woman (Basic Books, 1974), which was based on the conference. Later, another major focus of CAWP that was funded by Carnegie Corporation involved developing programs for college women; this led to the formation of the Public Leadership Education Network (PLEN; www.plen.org). The organization, which is based in Washington, D.C., grants internships to college-age women that provide them with opportunities for hands-on work with public policy groups.
In 1974, a Corporation award of $195,000 was announced to establish the new Center for the Study of Women in Higher Education and the Professions (now the Wellesley Centers for Women; www.wcwonline.org), which was also supported by the Federation of Organizations for Professional Women. The Center, which is today a partnership of the Center for Research on Women and the Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies at Wellesley College, was founded with the purpose of studying the status of educated women in order to develop ways to help them advance in their careers. Two years later, another Corporation grant of $156,700 was announced and within the same decade, grants of more than $355,800 were awarded to the Higher Education Resource Services (HERS), also headquartered at Wellesley College, with a mission to further counsel academic women regarding career opportunities. The Wellesley Centers for Women now have more than 100 staff members and an annual budget of $7.5 million supporting 50 projects that, as their web site notes, look “at the world through the eyes of women with the goal of shaping a better world for all.”