Today, our ACLU-HI Executive Director, Salmah Y. Rizvi, moderated a session on the “Fourteenth Amendment and Civil Rights Litigation Today,” hosted by the Federal Bar Association (“FBA”) and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (“NAPABA”) with the Honorable Judge Carlton W. Reeves of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
Judge Reeves was a student in the first integrated public school class in Mississippi, and he has had a remarkable career fighting for racial justice and equality. He is one of the foremost jurists advocating for the abolishment of qualified immunity, and he has created groundbreaking law on the Fourteenth Amendment. His remarks today were filled with brilliant interventions on textualism and re-constructionism.
After graduating from University of Virginia law school in 1989, Judge Reeves had difficulty finding a work home that would accept him as a Black man. But he was soon hired by the ACLU of Mississippi. He later went on to serve on the affiliate’s Board of Directors. We are lucky to have hosted such a legendary civil rights jurist in Honolulu, Hawai‘i this week.
