Center for Civil Rights
The UNC Center for Civil Rights is committed to the advancement of civil rights and social justice, especially in the American South. It fosters empirical and analytical research, sponsors student inquiry and activities and convenes faculty, visiting scholars, policy advocates and practicing attorneys to confront legal and social issues of greatest concern to racial and ethnic minorities, to the poor and to other potential beneficiaries of civil rights advances. The Center's work focuses on education, housing and community development, economic justice and voting rights.
The Center fulfills much of its mission by engaging in litigation and grassroots advocacy, setting it apart from other university-based civil rights organizations. The Center exercises effective convening power to bring forceful allies to the university, the UNC School of Law, and the State. For example, in recent years, the Center has deployed staff to serve on special committees of the American Bar Association, to testify on Capitol Hill, and to partner with national civil rights organizations to engage in litigation, draft proposed civil rights legislation, and co-convene multiple national conferences.
The Center's Director is Professor Julius L. Chambers, who graduated from the UNC School of Law, and among accomplishments too numerous to recount, co-founded the nation's first integrated civil rights law firm, served as director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., and was chancellor of North Carolina Central University. Professor Chambers and the law firm he founded are widely credited for seminal victories before the United States Supreme Court, including in the fields of school segregation, employment discrimination, prisoners' rights and voting rights.
The Center's Deputy Director, Henry Brandis Professor of Law Charles E. Daye, graduated from Columbia University School of Law, became the first African American to serve as law clerk for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, has served as dean of the North Carolina Central University School of Law and President of the Law School Admissions Council.
Please read our annual report for the 2008-2009 year, which includes the Center's mission and a review of Center programs.
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For more information about the Center, please contact Adrienne M. B. Davis at ambdavis@email.unc.edu or (919) 843-3921.