Stop the Hate Legal Redress
The NAACP California-Hawaii State Conference offers FREE legal redress consultations through our Stop the Hate Legal Redress Pipeline. This service is available and open to all California-Hawaii Branches.
WHAT IS IT?:
In 2022, the State Conference received funding to provide services to victims and survivors of hate incidents, hate crimes, and their families. Stop the Hate is an outreach program to increase awareness and resources to dismantle racism in historically vulnerable groups. This project seeks to introduce a multilevel campaign to affect the culture, policy, and system changes necessary to eradicate hate and discrimination in California by developing a streamlined referral process from local Branch Legal Redress Committees to local attorneys. The State will use the monies to reduce the financial barrier that prevents individuals from accessing local attorneys, as some law firms charge for an initial consultation.
HOW IT WORKS:
1. California and Hawaii citizens submit a “Civil & Human Rights Complaint” (CHRC) Form to their local NAACP Branch.
2. The local Branch submits the received CHRC form to their Legal Redress committee upon seeing “Racial Discrimination” or “Racial Harassment” triggers on the form.
3. The local Branch’s Legal Redress Committee conducts an investigation and determines whether or not an attorney needs to be consulted.
a. If it is determined that an attorney does not need to be involved, the Branch’s Legal Redress Committee shall resolve the issue internally.
b. If it is determined that an attorney should be consulted, the Branch’s Legal Redress Committee shall refer the Complainant to the State Conference by filling out a CA/HI NAACP Stop the Hate Case Synopsis Form.
i. The State will then refer the Complainant to a contracted law firm and pay for the consultation between the Complainant and the firm. After a referral has been made and consultation has taken place, the decision to take on the Complainant’s case rests solely with the firm.
WHO IS ELIGIBLE:
Currently, Californians who are/were the victims of racial harassment or discrimination in employment, housing, and other situations that violate their civil rights. We are actively looking for law firms in additional areas of practice, and we welcome recommendations from Branches on new law practice areas that could be included.
Please contact Taneicia Herring (therring@cahinaacp.org) with any questions.
The Legal Redress form can be found here:
Legal Redress Complaint Form
