Eric Angel, Executive Director

In addition to recognizing Brooksley Born as a Servant of Justice at this year’s Awards Dinner, we are honored to be able to recognize Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez with this same distinction.  Mr. Perez has spent his entire career in public service, largely working as a champion of civil rights.

In 2009, Mr. Perez was sworn in as the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice.  Since then, his goal has been to restore and transform the Division, in the spirit of its traditional role as the “conscience of the nation,” to further fulfill the promise of our nation’s most treasured laws – advancing equal opportunity, leveling the playing field, and protecting the rights of all.

Prior to his nomination, he served as the Secretary of Maryland’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation – an agency that safeguards critical consumer and worker protections – and was a principal architect of a sweeping reform package to address his state’s foreclosure crisis.  In 2002, he became the first Latino elected to the Montgomery County Council, serving until 2006.

Thomas E. Perez

Earlier in his career, Mr. Perez spent 12 years in federal public service, mainly as a career attorney in the Civil Rights Division he now leads.  In that role, he prosecuted, or supervised the prosecution of, some of the Division’s highest-profile civil rights cases, including a hate crimes case in Texas involving a group of white supremacists who went on a deadly, racially-motivated crime spree.  Mr. Perez later served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Attorney General Janet Reno, chairing the interagency Worker Exploitation Task Force, which oversaw a variety of initiatives designed to protect vulnerable workers.  He also served as Special Counsel to the late Senator Edward Kennedy, acting as Senator Kennedy’s principal adviser on civil rights, criminal justice and constitutional issues.  For the final two years of the Clinton administration, Mr. Perez served as the Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Mr. Perez, who has been a law professor at University of Maryland School of Law and a part-time professor at the George Washington School of Public Health, received a Bachelor’s degree from Brown University in 1983, a Master’s of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1987, and a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School in 1987.  Mr. Perez is married to life-long poverty lawyer Anne Marie Staudenmaier, who has been advocating for persons living in poverty in the District of Columbia at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless since 1996.

Second, the voting rights bill for DC was killed by efforts to burden the right for District residents to decide their own gun laws.  It is long past the time that the residents of the District have their voices heard on national issues and the right to govern their own affairs.  The unwillingness of Congress to fix this historic wrong is a stain on the democracy. 

These losses are of special consequence to Legal Aid’s clients.  Poverty does not affect all communities equally.  African Americans and Latinos are much more likely to live in poverty than whites and women are more likely to be poor.  Forty percent of African American female-headed households live below the federal poverty line.  Dr. Height spent her life trying to make the voices of these women heard.  Voting rights would be one step further along the path of that goal.

Executive Director

We have tried to keep makingjusticereal.org focused on Legal Aid’s policy agenda, issues in the equal justice and legal services movement and successes in our cases and projects.  One of our guiding principles has been to use the blog to move the work forward and stay away from personal observations.  I am going to violate that rule.

This last week, here in the District of Columbia, there was a remarkable step forward for civil rights  –  same sex couples were given the right to marry.  In a time where budget shortfalls, an increasingly stingy federal court and a gridlocked federal government have set back the cause of people who have been historically disenfranchised, this change in DC law has been a beacon of hope.  Progress is possible and we can move the law towards decency and equality for all – that the law genuinely values civil rights.

I was moved to write this blog during my ride home last night.  A rider in a seat in front of me commented to his companion, “I think gay marriage is great but I am bored of seeing it on the front page of the Post.”   While I admit that some of the coverage was thin on substance, it has been a joy to read.  It is genuinely thrilling to celebrate when an historic wrong is corrected and the law recognizes that all people are entitled to dignity.  During these difficult times, this is very good news indeed.  Keep it coming.