Current Cases
Case Status: Victory in District Court
Ultima Services Corporation v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, et al.
March 5th 2020CIR is representing Ultima Services Corporation, a company that can no longer compete for contracts that make up the core of its business because its owner, Celeste Bennett, is the wrong race. For more than fifteen years, Ultima has contracted with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Agriculture...
Past Cases
Case Status: Settled on Favorable Terms.
Cocina Cultura LLC v. State of Oregon et al.
November 20th 2020CIR has filed suit against the State of Oregon, Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services, and two Oregon non-profits, which established a coronavirus relief fund that exclusively provides federal grant money to black applicants, in violation of the Constitution and federal anti-discrimination law...
Case Status: Case settled on favorable terms
Swanigan v. University of Connecticut
June 4th 2014CIR is representing Pamela Swanigan, a graduate student in English at UConn. The suit alleges that Swanigan was not allowed to compete for a highly prestigious, merit-based scholarship despite being the top applicant the year she applied. Instead, Swanigan was routed into an academically less prestigious Multicultural Scholars Award, which is designed to increase diversity. This happened solely because of her race -- she is both African American and white...
Case Status: Victory. City agreed to eliminate racial quota.
Rau and Katapadi v. NYC Dept. of Ed.
January 14th 2008CIR filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York challenging the use of separate, lower admissions standards for white students at prestigious Mark Twain Intermediate School, a magnet school located in Coney Island, NY...
Case Status: Victory. Case settled on favorable terms.
Ng v. New York City Dept. of Education
November 19th 2007CIR filed a class action lawsuit challenging the New York City Department of Education ’s policy of excluding Asian American and white students from a test preparation course because of their race...
Case Status: Victory
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative Litigation: BAMN v. Russell et al.; Russell v. Brandon; Schuette v. BAMN
December 18th 2006CIR represented Eric Russell in his defense of the constitutionality of a state constitutional amendment sponsored by Ward Connerly and Jennifer Gratz to ban the use of racial preferences in state programs...
Case Status: Victory. Case settled on favorable terms
Smith v. Virginia Commonwealth University
September 26th 2006CIR successfully challenged a race-exclusive summer journalism workshop...