Mississippi Center For Justice

Programs: Consumer protection:mississippi center for justice (mcj) continued to provide clinics and individual representation to community college students in central mississippi on student loans, expungement, and housing issues. Mcj also continued to provide statewide foreclosure prevention direct service, through clinics in indianola, tupelo, southaven, bay st. Louis, and biloxi. In mcj's new roots credit partnership, the organization developed a communications platform to improve future outreach to employees and continued to recruit new participants. Mcj also conducted expungement work in all three of its offices. The team submitted comments in support of proposed payday lending regulations by the consumer finance protection bureau and joined in amicus briefs in support of protecting gainful employment rules that govern the for-profit college industry.

healthcare access:regarding the affordable care act, mcj continued its education and outreach efforts with college students at tougaloo college and mississippi delta community college in moorhead, ms and with ministerial alliance groups in sunflower county. Mcj also provided advice and counsel to individuals with enrollment and coverage issues with the division of medicaid. Regarding hiv/aids advocacy, mcj's medical/legal partnership at the jackson medical mall provided legal advice about legal protections to patients and training to caseworkers and other health care workers on discrimination and patient privacy. Mcj held its annual aids justice convening which gathers advocates, providers, and persons living with hiv to share strategies. Mcj and academic partner harvard university, analyzed the health plans available under mississippi's health insurance exchange (operated by the federal government) as they affect hiv/aids patients. Mcj undertook new work focusing on overcoming and combatting stigma connected with this diagnosis. Regarding criminalization of hiv, mcj staff met with the jackson police department and set up plans to train officers on the science of transmission of hiv, in coordination with the university of mississippi medical center.

housing and community development: on behalf of tenants in affordable apartment complexes targeted for closure, mcj and pro bono partner venable filed a fair housing enforcement case against the city of ridgeland, part of a larger group of actions that were resolved successfully under terms set by a compliance agreement with hud that preserved over 1,500 units of affordable housing. Mcj also provided legal support that remedied complaints of uninhabitable units at a vicksburg senior living facility and filed a complaint with hud protesting increased rents in a brandon apartment complex that discriminated on the basis of familial status. Mcj secured funding for future fair housing enforcement and education/outreach under grants from the u. S. Department of housing and urban development (hud). Mcj also began training and initial outreach to stakeholders in hud's upcoming assessment of fair housing process in different jurisdictions in our state. In community development, mcj continued its representation of the steps coalition on jobs accountability and environmental justice at the state port at gulfport and provided support to a steps coalition tour by the national advisory council on environmental justice. Mcj also investigated state enforcement trends in water quality compliance in the mississippi delta.

education: mcj provided individual representation of students and parents in general and special education cases, including a successful resolution of a federal court action in which lee county school district agreed to clear the record of a student athlete of unfounded charges. Regading adequate funding, mcj and pro bono partner o'melveny & myers submitted an amicus brief in support of an appeal in clarksdale municipal school district v. State of mississippi which seeks damages for failure to fully fund education for the last three years. Mcj and pro bono partner milbank tweed also submitted an amicus brief in support of a petition for certiorari on student free speech, bell v. Itawamba county school board. Mcj also agreed to investigate hiring and discipline discrimination involving faculty in senatobia. In the area of school discipline, mcj released a white paper and a series of videos on racial disproportionality in punishment and worked to build support for statewide hearing procedures with various stakeholders and decision makers. Mcj, in partnership with aclu of mississippi, and sunflower county stakeholders, has advanced interest in restorative justice alternatives to current school discipline and built a cohort of students focused on changing the narrative about young men of color using training, storytelling, and media production. Mcj's youth in transition program provided enrichment, training, and skill building for 20 students at merritt and gentry high schools. Impact litigation:with the assistance of long-time civil rights attorney rob mcduff, mcj filed suit on behalf of 12 individuals and one church challenging hb 1523, the so-called religious freedom law, which permitted individuals and government employees to refuse services based on a strongly held religious belief that (1) marriage is between one man and one woman; (2) sexual relations are appropriate only in the context of such a marriage; and (3) a person's gender is determined at birth. Our plaintiffs were ministers who do not hold those religious beliefs and members of the lgbt community. The us district court for the southern district of mississippi enjoined the statute from taking effect the night before its effective date, and the governor appealed the decision to the fifth circuit court of appeals. Legislation:the 2016 mississippi legislature considered a set of measures, referred to as the "restoring hope" law, that would have erected barriers, removed agency discretion, and imposed expensive and unnecessary audit requirements in several public welfare programs including, snap, tanf, and medicaid. Mcj, with support from the center on budget and policy priorities was successful in blocking the passage of this proposal.