Case Database

In 2021, Lee Williamson and Aletta Williamson enrolled J.W., their Black and biracial toddler, in Heritage Preschools—an overwhelmingly white, private Christian preschool system in Alabama. For his first two years, J.W. had a positive experience at Heritage and rarely got into trouble. But things quickly...

“John Doe,” an asylum-seeker attending elementary school within the School District of Philadelphia, was harassed by classmates based on his perceived sexual orientation and national origin. His mother, Leslie Hernández, encouraged John to ask his principal for help. Rather than provide support to stop the...

This federal civil rights case involves the tragic death of Nigel Shelby, a Black, out gay freshman at Alabama’s Huntsville High School who died by suicide at age 15 after experiencing unchecked LGBTQ+ harassment and race discrimination at school. Nigel never felt safe at Huntsville...

Public Justice and Nichols Kaster represent students of color and their families in a civil rights lawsuit against Duluth Public Schools Academy d/b/a Duluth Edison Charter Schools that seeks to hold the public charter school system accountable for subjecting black and biracial students to a...

This is a civil rights and negligence case against a West Virginia school district and sheriff’s department on behalf of a biracial high school student assaulted with a blade after the school district ignored repeated reports of racial cyberbullying and threats by her attacker, a...

This federal civil rights lawsuit was filed by Lisa Shively on behalf of her daughter, T.S., a 17-year old Jewish girl who stopped attending public school in Northeast Ohio after enduring over four years of anti-Semitic and gender-based harassment with virtually no intervention by school...

This civil rights case was brought by five current and former students of Pine Bush Central School District in Pine Bush, N.Y. All five students are Jewish and suffered anti-Semitic discrimination, harassment and bullying by other students for years, but unable to get school officials...

Federal class action challenging a Michigan college scholarship program as discriminatory. We were co-counsel with the ACLU Fund of Michigan, the NAACP-Michigan State Conference, and MALDEF in this federal class action challenging a Michigan college scholarship program as discriminatory. The suit charged that the state’s...

This federal lawsuit charged that the minimum test score requirement of the NCAA’s freshman eligibility rule illegally deprived academically qualified African-American student-athletes of opportunities to receive athletic scholarships and participate in intercollegiate athletics. Public Justice won on summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for...