Thank you for making the 'Palestine Is Everywhere' night so special!

Between live music performances, powerful dance, and passionate stories, the #JusticeDelegation, a group of largely U.S. Black and Brown social justice leaders, drew on their recent experience in Israel and Palestine to share with allies the urgent next steps to support Palestinians' rights. Our friend and ally Linda Sarsour inspired us with her words and joined the #JusticeDelegation in asking everyone to take action in this global fight for freedom.

Thank you to those who shared their talent and passion to support for justice in Palestine. Now, more than ever, the fight for justice and freedom in Palestine is dire. As Nelson Mandela said, "we know that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians."

The NYPD needs to stop racially discriminatory and unconstitutional practices by implementing the recommendations from impacted communities

Last Friday, our partners and CCR urged a federal court to order the NYPD to implement reforms generated through community input, as a consequence of three landmark class actions that challenged the NYPD's stop-and-frisk and trespass enforcement practices (Floyd v. City of New York, Ligon v. City of New York, and Davis v. City of New York). “We are asking for the NYPD to make critical changes to officer discipline and monitoring in response to demands from the people most affected by unlawful stops,” said Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy director of impact litigation for The Bronx Defenders.

As a consequence of the lawsuits, over the past three years, the community input process – Joint Remedial Process – involved thousands of people impacted by the NYPD's practices, including elected officials, religious and academic leaders, and NYPD representatives, for a total of 64 focus groups and 28 community forums. Last month, the court-appointed facilitator of the process issued a report on his recommendations to the court.

"For decades, the City ignored the community's repeated demands to reform its unconstitutional policing practices. Even now, the facilitator's reform recommendations were issued only because the NYPD could not agree with the plaintiffs and community stakeholders on any JRP reforms," said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Darius Charney. "A court order is necessary to ensure that reforms to the systemic constitutional violations that were proven at trial – and that continue to this day – are not vulnerable to the whims of new NYPD personnel or policy positions."

CCR will be at Netroots Nation with a panel and a film screening

A delegation from CCR will participate in Netroots Nation, the largest annual conference for progressive organizers, grassroots activists, and independent media makers, taking place in New Orleans, Aug. 2-4, 2018.

Our panel, The #RacePaper and other Secret Documents: How the FBI and DHS are Surveilling & Criminalizing Black Protest, will involve a discussion on how the government has been targeting Black and Brown activists, labeling them as 'Black Supremacist Extremists', and portraying them as violent to justify their surveillance, as shown in the documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by CCR and Color of Change. This panel came out of our client's lawsuit, Color of Change v. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation, in which CCR and Color of Change sought FOIA seeking information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the surveillance and monitoring of Movement for Black Lives protestors and organizers exercising their First Amendment constitutional rights at protests across the country.

After watching the #NoBayouBridge short-film series, our Senior Staff Attorney Pam Spees will lead a conversation on 'Fight pipelines, fight racism' – Louisiana’s #NoBayouBridge fight is about much more than a pipeline. Louisiana grassroots activists will discuss how deeply oil companies are colluding with the state political system and the importance of building the power of communities to fight against corporate abuse.