LatinoJustice PRLDEF
LatinoJustice PRLDEF, originally known as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, is a nonprofit civil rights organization based in New York City, founded in 1972 to advocate for the legal rights of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos. Established by Puerto Rican leaders, the organization aims to combat discrimination and ensure equal protection under the law across various sectors, including education, employment, housing, and political participation. It has been instrumental in several landmark legal cases, such as Aspira of New York v. Board of Education, which advanced bilingual education rights for Latino children, and Pabón v. Levine, which secured essential services in Spanish for unemployment claims.
In recent years, LatinoJustice PRLDEF has also focused on issues affecting undocumented immigrants and has made significant strides in increasing Latino representation in civil service jobs through various lawsuits. The organization’s Voting Rights Project has successfully promoted the election of Latino officials and fought against gerrymandering practices. Additionally, it provides resources like internships, scholarships, and LSAT preparatory courses to support Latino individuals pursuing legal careers. In 2008, it rebranded itself as LatinoJustice PRLDEF to emphasize its commitment to a broader Latino community, and it continues to expand its efforts with initiatives such as the Center for Racial Justice, established in 2022.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF
The LatinoJustice PRLDEF (formerly Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, or PRLDEF), a nonprofit civil rights organization, was founded in 1972 to protect and promote the legal rights of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos and to provide guidance and financial assistance to Latinos interested in legal careers. The New York City-based organization employs a staff of approximately twenty.
The LatinoJustice PRLDEF was founded by a group of Puerto Rican leaders (including Jorge L. Batista, Victor Marrero, and César A. Perales) to provide advocacy and educational programs for Latino communities. The organization’s primary aim is to ensure equal protection under the law for Puerto Ricans and other Latinos by challenging discrimination in education, employment, health, housing, political participation, and women’s rights.
The LatinoJustice PRLDEF has successfully pursued several landmark cases, several of which have reached the US Supreme Court. In 1972, a LatinoJustice PRLDEF suit gave rise to the case Aspira of New York v. Board of Education of the City of New York, which, by leading to the Aspira Consent Decree, helped obtain the right to bilingual education for Latino children with limited English proficiency. The PRLDEF’s pursuit of Pabón v. Levine (1976) helped to secure the right of Spanish speakers to have unemployment insurance services and materials, such as hearings and claims forms, provided in the Spanish language. These and other LatinoJustice PRLDEF-filed cases have played an important role in shaping language-based discrimination rulings in the United States. In the twenty-first century, the organization took on a number of cases involving the rights of undocumented immigrants, including Doe v. Mamaroneck (2006), which protected the rights of Latino day laborers who experienced discrimination and harassment due to assumptions about their immigration status, and Lozano v. Hazleton (2006), which struck down the city of Hazleton's ordinances forbidding anyone from providing goods or services to undocumented citizens.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF lawsuits against the New York City police, fire, and sanitation departments have increased Latino representation in civil service jobs in those departments. The PRLDEF has also worked to provide low-income housing for Latinos and has challenged discrimination in public and private housing projects.
The LatinoJustice PRLDEF’s Voting Rights Project has worked successfully to increase the number of Latino elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels in the US Northeast. The organization has filed lawsuits and complaints with the US Department of Justice against gerrymandering, or strategically dividing voting districts to favor a particular political party or interest group. In 2011, the organization was active in redistricting efforts in several states ahead of the 2012 election and helped to create the second Latino-majority congressional district in New York City. In addition, by providing internships, mentoring programs, Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) preparatory classes, and scholarships, the PRLDEF also has played an important role in expanding the number of Latino and other ethnic minority attorneys in the Northeast. In 1998, the PRLDEF began a seven-year alliance with New York’s Institute for Puerto Rican Policy. The organization changed its name to LatinoJustice PRLDEF in 2008 to reflect the pan-Latino focus it had developed over the years. By 2018, the LatinoJustice PRLDEF Education Division had helped ten thousand Puerto Rican and Latino attorneys. The organization continued expanding, adding an office in Austin, Texas, in 2019 and a new Center for Racial Justice in 2022.
Bibliography
"Lozano v. Hazleton." American Civil Liberties Union, 5 Feb. 2015, www.aclu.org/cases/lozano-v-hazleton. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.
"Our Bold History." LatinoJustice PRLDEF, www.latinojustice.org/en/history. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.
Saenz, Rogelio, and Aurela Lorena Murga, editors. Latino Issues: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO, 2011.