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The New York State Bar Association Committee on Civil Rights

“The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.” -- President John F. Kennedy

Congratulations to 2013 Haywood Burns Award Recipient Howard Glickstein, Esq.       

 

(left) Diana Sen, Chair of the Committee on Civil Rights
(center) Howard Glickstein, Dean Emeritus of Touro Law Center
(right) Seymour W. James, Jr., President, New York State Bar Association

Admitted to the bars of New York, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court, Professor Glickstein was an associate with the New York law firm of Proskauer, Rose, Goetz and Mendelsohn. He served for a number of years as a staff attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Appeals and Research Section, where he helped draft the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was also general counsel of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and later staff director, before entering the academic world.

After holding faculty and administrative posts at Notre Dame Law School, Howard University School of Law, and the University of Bridgeport School of Law, Professor Glickstein came to Touro Law Center in 1986 and served as dean until June 2004. He is a past president of the Society of American Law Teachers.

The Committee on Civil Rights is honored to bestow the 2013 Haywood Burns Award to Howard Glickstein.

For the State Bar News Announcement click here 

Committee Report to the New York State Bar Association House of Delegates on the Use of
Solitary Confinement in New York State

On January 25, 2013, committee members Diana Sen and Karen Murtagh presented the committee's report on solitary confinement to the House of Delegates, which almost unanimously approved the report and resolution. View the report.

 INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the home page of the Committee on Civil Rights for the New York State Bar Association.  The term "civil rights" means many different things to many people.  To some, the term evokes the epic struggle of the latter half of the 20th century for racial and gender equality, a struggle which still continues today.  To others, it calls to mind the right of the individual to be free from arbitrary Government restraint on one's liberty and the exercise of freedoms held dear, such as the freedom of speech, assembly and religion.  Still others see "civil rights" as covering the rights chiseled into local, state and federal laws preventing discrimination in housing, in school and at the work place.  “Civil rights” fall under a broad umbrella of due process and equal protection guarantees found in our Constitution and laws.  The understanding of a "civil right" has evolved and continues to evolve with the forward progress of our national conversation in the American experiment.

The Committee on Civil Rights was founded in 1952 and over the years has worked on a broad range of issues affecting the public and legal profession in New York.  Most recently, the Committee has been active on issues of privacy and national security, Executive Detention and due process, the rights of immigrants, and marriage equality.  The Committee’s participation on these various fronts takes many forms, from sponsoring programs to spark informed debate, to authoring encyclopedic reports on signal issues of the day, to honoring those who have done the most in our community to bend the long arc of history toward justice.  If you want to learn more about the Committee's work in general, please click on the tabs on the left of this web page.  If you would like to learn more about the Committee's work on habeas corpus and Guantanamo in particular, access the Committee’s blog Guantanamo and Beyond: A Blog on Executive Detention, National Security and Due Process.

Thank you for visiting the Committee’s website and we hope that you find it informative and maybe even a little inspirational.  Check back often for informative updates to the website and timely blog postings.

Diana Sagorika Sen
Committee Chair