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Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
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Weil Gotshal’s Quick Action In Two Civil Rights Lawsuits in Texas Restores Voting Rights for Students at Historically Black College
(May 11, 2004, Weil Gotshal News)
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP represented
the Prairie View, Texas, student chapter of the NAACP and individual students
from Prairie View A&M University, an historically black college whose
student body is 90 percent African American, in two back-to-back civil
rights lawsuits impacting the voting rights of the university students
of this small Texas town 45 miles northwest of Houston. The litigation
brought to a halt attempts by local officials to prevent students from
exercising their constitutional right to vote in a county with a decades-old
legacy of voter intimidation of minority residents. As a result of our
legal action, the students not only were able to vote in the March 2004
primary election without threat of prosecution, but also had the opportunity
to participate in additional days of early voting. Weil Gotshal represented
these clients pro bono, joined by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
Under Law as co-counsel and the NAACP, the ACLU and People For the American
Way Foundation as of counsel.
Both cases were investigated, filed and settled successfully within six
weeks.
The first case exploded onto the scene when the district attorney of Waller
County (where the university is situated) threatened to prosecute for “illegal
voting,” a felony, any student who used his or her school address to register
to vote - basing his assertion on the incorrect belief college students
do not have residency where they live during the school year. The district
attorney sparked the controversy by writing a letter in November 2004 to
the Waller County election administrator, later published in the Waller
Times newspaper, threatening to prosecute persons who failed to meet his
definition of having a legal voting address. He was accused of having racial
and political motives, and the uproar that ensued was immediate, widespread
and sustained. Prairie View students marched and demanded the same voter
registration treatment as students in predominately white universities
in Texas. Public officials and civil rights leaders protested. The Texas
Secretary of State publicly disagreed with the county district attorney.
The Texas Attorney General said college students could not be targeted
for discriminatory residency requirements. And the US Justice Department
warned the county to abide by a 1978 court order allowing Prairie View
students to register.
The Monday following the student march, Weil Gotshal and co-counsel met
to discuss filing a lawsuit in federal court seeking to enjoin the district
attorney’s illegal threats against Prairie View students who desired to
register and vote. The suit alleged violations of the Equal Protection
Clause and the Voting Rights Act. Soon after it was filed, Weil Gotshal
and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law successfully negotiated
a settlement that included a consent decree signed by the district attorney
reaffirming the right of Prairie View A&M University students to vote
in Waller County and a public apology from the district attorney in which
he encouraged the students to vote.
Weil Gotshal fashioned two additional elements into the settlement in order
to help improve race relations in Waller County: an internship for a Prairie
View student each semester in the district attorney’s office and a liaison
to facilitate communications between the university and the district attorney’s
office.
But just as the first case was being resolved, Prairie View students’
right to vote came under assault a second time, when the county drastically
cut the number of hours for early voting in Prairie View for the upcoming
primary by nearly two-thirds, from 17 hours to 6 hours - even though other
polling places in the county kept the longer hours. Early voting was especially
important because students would be on spring break during the March 9,
2004, primary election. Critics found the county’s decision to limit early
voting particularly objectionable given the county election administrator’s
acknowledgement that the cost for the extended voting period amounted to
only $196.
Students expressed their concern to Weil Gotshal and co-counsel that the
county’s action would significantly impede turnout in the election. Within
a few days, we filed a suit alleging that the reduction of early voting
days and hours violated the Voting Rights Act because it had not received
pre-clearance from the US Department of Justice, which would have been
required given Waller County’s history of voting rights violations. The
filing of the suit caused Waller County officials to reverse their decision
and restore the voting privileges they had taken away.
Weil Gotshal was joined by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under
Law in this lawsuit.
In a post-script to the second case some observers might call “poetic
justice,” two Prairie View A&M University graduate students won closely
contested primary elections, victories that were likely attributable to
the second day of early voting in Prairie View that was obtained as a result
of our having filed the second lawsuit.
Weil Gotshal Team
Partner: John B. Strasburger (Litigation/Regulatory, Houston)
Associates: Gregg. J. Costa (Litigation/Regulatory, Houston); Christopher
M. Lopez (Business Finance & Restructuring, Houston)
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