“Progressive social change requires us to protest and talk to our neighbors and legislators about issues that matter. We need to be able to argue for the changes we want and make a case for why they’re needed,” Baer told Ms. “The history books of the future will tell a story of fights fought.”
Demelza Baer, director of public policy at the 62-year-old Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, credits her mom with inspiring her to work for civil rights and social justice.
“She taught me and my sisters how important it is to fight for your rights and the rights of the people in your community,” she told Ms.
This foundational lesson—merging the personal and the political—led Baer to become a passionate advocate for the disenfranchised.
“We live in a very unequal society and despite the progress we’ve made over the past 60-plus years, we still see gross inequities in terms of opportunities to find work, buy a home or get an education,” she said. “I often think of my grandmother who was biracial and born in the 1920s. She was highly intelligent and read all the time, but she did not have the opportunity to go to college or to pursue other opportunities in life.”
A century later, racial, class and gender disparities continue to hamper equal opportunity—a fact that Baer and her colleagues are striving to change. She spoke to Ms. reporter Eleanor J. Bader shortly after Donald Trump began his second term.
Eleanor J. Bader: Executive orders (EOs) are currently being signed at an incredible pace. What are the Lawyers’ Committee’s priorities? How are you deciding what to challenge first?
Demelza Baer: Thanks to the new administration, the U.S. is facing an across-the-board challenge to longstanding civil rights protections.
One of our main areas of focus is addressing the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs that are threatening everything from education to business and lending, to access to employment opportunities and government contracts. We’ve crafted a multipronged approach to how we’re fighting back—but right now, we are working to discern which orders are illegal because they conflict with civil rights laws and regulations.
Bader: Are civil rights groups working together to coordinate this resistance?
Baer: Yes. We’re working with several legal organizations to make sure that employers know that they have existing obligations under Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
We also want to make sure that there is not an overreaction to the executive orders. Civil rights policies are still standing and employers must adhere to state, local, federal and international laws that apply. We’re further making sure that people in the business and nonprofit worlds understand that there are limits to what executive orders can do. Some of Trump’s recent orders can’t be implemented as written.
As for coordinated efforts, our work brings us into close contact with many organizations, including legacy racial justice groups like the NAACP, The Legal Defense Fund and the National Urban League. These groups are advocating on behalf of women, Latinos, Black, Asian, Native American, LGBTQIA+ and disabled people. We’re addressing issues, planning and coordinating our efforts to defend everything that’s been deemed DEI by the administration.
Although I’ve heard activists say that they’re seeing less visible opposition to Trump’s attacks on civil rights and civil liberties than in earlier periods, I want to stress that there is a lot of advocacy underway. It spans litigation, policy work and public education and includes direct outreach to employers, schools and community groups to make sure everyone has accurate information about existing legal protections. The Lawyers’ Committee is part of at least 30 active coalitions made up of folks from the civil rights, academic and grassroots communities. We’re making plans, discussing litigation strategies and doing outreach. A lot is happening behind the scenes.
We want to make sure that there is not an overreaction to the executive orders. … There are limits to what executive orders can do. Some of Trump’s recent orders can’t be implemented as written.
Demelza Baer
Bader: You’ve mentioned strengthening and protecting DEI—a right-wing bugaboo since Black Lives Matter protests erupted following the murder of George Floyd. Can you be more specific?
Baer: The attacks on DEI pose a grave threat to everyone, but women, and particularly women of color, are particularly vulnerable to its elimination. As framed, DEI includes programs that mentor future female leaders, including programs that expand opportunities for women-owned businesses and that facilitate the recruitment of women to corporate boards.
Women now earn the majority of college degrees in the U.S. but educational gains have not translated into leadership gains in either large companies or the nonprofit sector. And there continue to be pay disparities which are bad for all women but staggering for women of color who are not getting a chance to advance. In addition, while record numbers of women have started small businesses, they still have difficulty accessing capital when they want their businesses to scale up. This is why companies and nonprofits must pay attention to structural barriers to equal opportunities.
The Lawyers’ Committee lifts up the legal obligations that apply to the workforce and makes sure equal opportunities are not restricted or hidden.
Moreover, since women are more likely to be caretakers of children and elderly or disabled family members, we advocate for family-friendly policies that make the workplace more welcoming. This is part of our effort to advance economic, gender and racial justice.
Not teaching about the brutalities of slavery, lynching or other wrongs does not erase them, especially because they continue to impact our country.
Bader: Another focus of the Lawyers’ Committee is digital justice. What does this involve?
Baer: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to affect every aspect of our lives, but it is currently not regulated at the federal level. Most of us never know that decisions impacting our everyday functioning are being made by AI. This lack of awareness makes it harder to vindicate our rights.
We need federal action to make sure that algorithms are tested to avoid built-in discrimination or bias. Toward that end, we’ve developed the Online Civil Rights Act for Artificial Intelligence. It’s a model bill to counter the risks that AI poses in perpetuating or expanding inequality.
Take the ways that algorithms are used to review job applications.
Discrimination happens when an algorithm weeds out people based on the name on a resume, discounting those whose names are different than the names of people who have historically been hired by that company. We’re working to create a legal system to protect women, people of color and other marginalized communities to ensure equality in hiring, lending practices, and marketing.
Digital justice also impacts privacy, which is another big issue for women. While a few states have passed digital privacy protections, we’re pushing for a federal law to restrict how companies can track us and share our information. This is particularly important post-Dobbs.
People need control over their data and should have the right to request the removal of information from the internet that they don’t want to be public. We also need transparency in how companies sell and resell our information. Basically, we need the privacy protections we had before the Internet era. We support giving every person a private right of action to protect their data from being used or misused by others.
Bader: The last few years have seen dramatic changes in curricula that can be taught, especially when it comes to U.S. history or discussions of sexual preference or gender identity. The Trump administration wants schools to narrow their focus to “patriotic education” rather than hone in on the thorny parts of our history. Has the Lawyers’ Committee opposed these restrictions?
Baer: Absolutely.
Our Educational Opportunity Project works to protect the rights of school systems to teach African American history, about race or ethnicity, and run classes that address gender and sexuality. In the last few years, there has been a concerning Orwellian trend in states and cities to restrict books and curricula. We’re litigating and organizing to oppose these restrictions and affirm how important it is for everyone to have access to all kinds of books. Students need to learn the accurate history—the truth—about the founding of the U.S. This includes some ugly facts and events. But not teaching about the brutalities of slavery, lynching or other wrongs does not erase them, especially because they continue to impact our country.
We’re coordinating with groups including the ACLU and the Legal Defense Fund on the litigation side. We’re also working to ensure that higher education is welcoming to diverse populations, including students of color. This means providing students with a community for mentoring and emotional support. Many colleges do not have a long history of enrolling diverse students and only recently started having a representative student body. Elite schools, on the other hand, typically have a percentage of students who are admitted as part of legacy programs. Students of color and students from working-class or low-income backgrounds are new to these institutions and do not share that history. They should have the same opportunities to feel like they belong, including a curriculum that reflects them and their experiences. Our work is to keep expanding the opportunities available to them.
Bader: The Lawyers’ Committee was formed after a 1963 meeting brought more than 200 civil rights attorneys to the White House. Then-President John F. Kennedy asked the group to form an organization that would “move the struggle for the protection of civil rights from the streets to the courts.” The group’s strategy seems to have expanded since then.
Baer: We believe that we need to use all levers of advocacy, from filing lawsuits to being in Congress and the statehouses, to doing educational work in our home communities. Every tactic has to be used to achieve and sustain change.
We know protests have power. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). In the early 1960s, civil rights activists began pushing Congress and the president for a bill to strengthen the right to vote. The effort was at a standstill. But during the march from Selma to Montgomery, when television audiences saw coverage of peaceful protesters being attacked by dogs and hit with water hoses, they were horrified. This pushed Congress to pass the VRA.
Similarly, after George Floyd was murdered, millions of Americans took to the streets to demand police accountability and police reform. This led to the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 in the House of Representatives. After the bill failed to become law, then-President Biden issued an executive order on policing that included many similar reforms. This was rescinded by Trump.
The Trump administration is also supporting the Safeguarding American Vote Eligibility Act, or SAVE, which will make it harder for citizens—those born in the U.S., as well as naturalized—to vote. We see this as a threat to democracy because the right to vote is fundamental to protecting and advancing our rights.
The bottom line is this: Progressive social change requires us to protest and talk to our neighbors and legislators about issues that matter. We need to be able to argue for the changes we want and make a case for why they’re needed.
Bader: How have you avoided becoming depressed and demoralized?
Baer: Even though we’re in a period of retrenchment, I still believe that the vast majority of people in the U.S. believe in equality and justice for all. I know that this moment feels like one of the most challenging periods of our generation, but this makes our social justice work more meaningful than ever. Everyone in the civil rights and social justice communities is facing attacks, but this is our moment to lean in. We can’t retreat.
The history books of the future will tell a story of fights fought. We owe it to ourselves, our communities and the next generation to keep working in support of an equitable and just society.
