Justin Hansford Explained

Justin Hansford
Birth Date:1981
Birth Place:Washington D.C., U.S.
Alma Mater:Howard University
Georgetown University Law Center
Occupation:Professor of Law
Employer:Howard University School of Law
Known For:Professor of Law, Civil Rights Advocate
Awards:Fulbright Scholar award

Justin Hansford (born 1981) is a Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law[1] and the founder and executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center.[2] [3] [4] He was nominated by the United States to serve as a founding member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD).[5] [6] [7] [4] Hansford was previously a democracy project fellow at Harvard University, a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, and an associate professor of law at the Saint Louis University School of Law.[8] [9] [10]

Education and career

Hansford received his B.A. from Howard University and his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. While a law student at Georgetown, he founded The Georgetown Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Perspectives.[11] [12] He was awarded a Fulbright Scholar award to study the legal career of Nelson Mandela, and served as a clerk for Judge Damon J. Keith on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.[13] [14]

Hansford is a scholar and activist, specializing in critical race theory, human rights, and law and social movements.[15] He is a co-author of the Seventh Edition of Race, Racism and American Law.[16] [17] He is also a member of the Stanford Medicine Commission on Justice and Equity. He serves as Marcus Garvey's son's lawyer in the effort to posthumously exonerate Marcus Garvey for mail fraud.[18]

Activism

Living in St. Louis at the time, Hansford immediately became involved in the legal efforts and political protests following the death of Michael Brown in 2015.[19] [20] One of his most prominent efforts was to write a human rights shadow report for a group he helped create, Ferguson to Geneva,[21] then he traveled to Switzerland to present the report along with the family of Mike Brown and other advocates and protesters from Ferguson. Hansford's "rebellious," hands-on advocacy in the justice movement has been written about by Howard law professor Harold McDougall in his article, "The Rebellious Law Professor: Combining Cause and Reflective Lawyering".[22]

During this period, Hansford was arrested while serving as a legal observer in a protest near Ferguson, causing debate in legal academia regarding the propriety of faculty political activism.[23] [24] Following his arrest, much of Hansford’s work focused on issues surrounding police brutality and free speech. His work on police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement has been featured on Democracy Now,[25] PBS,[26] and CNN.[27] He contributed to advocacy for protester treatment, including co-authoring a United States Supreme Court amicus brief in Doe v. McKesson and writing for Yale Law Journal and the New York Times.[28] [29] [30] Hansford has also been vocal about the consequences of his repeated exposure to tear gas and trauma from police aggression during protests.[31]

Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center

In 2018, Professor Hansford founded Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University School of Law.[4] The center was designed to serve as Howard University's flagship institutional setting for the study and practice of civil rights, human rights, and racial justice law and advocacy.

In 2018, along with Howard University law students, Hansford began working to help draft the Movement for Black Lives Reparations toolkit, designed to support grassroots reparations campaigns.[32] [33] In 2019, Hansford founded the first Movement Lawyering law clinic in the nation at Howard University School of Law. Through the clinic and the center, Hansford immediately became active, serving as a movement lawyer for the reparations movement. In the same year, the center successfully requested a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on reparations enslavement and Hansford continued to articulate the legal theory for reparations using international law.[34]

In 2020, the center partnered with Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs to establish the African American Redress Network.[35] [36] In 2021, the center hosted a national convening on reparations and provided legal support to Evanston, Illinois, for its pioneering housing-based reparations ordinance, the first in the nation.[37]

In 2023, Hansford delivered a speech on reparations at the United Nations advocating that “reparations is what justice looks like in the 21st century".[38]

In 2024, Hansford appeared in the documentary “The Cost of Inheritance” which aired nationally on PBS.[39]

Justice for Marcus Garvey

Hansford is part of the leadership team for Justice for Garvey,[40] an effort to posthumously pardon famed civil rights leader Marcus Garvey and exonerate him from his 1923 prosecution to mail fraud which has been argued to have been politically and racially motivated by J. Edgar Hoover and others. He co-authored a piece for The Root on the project: "Black History Matters: Why President Obama Should Pardon Marcus Garvey."[41] [42] [43]

Awards

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Howard University Law Professor Receives D.C. Rising Star Award from the National Law Journal . 2024-02-23 . The Dig at Howard University . en.
  2. Web site: Sustainable Development Goals: A Roadmap for Collective Impact Part 2 Cleveland State University . 2024-02-23 . levin.csuohio.edu.
  3. Web site: U.S. Candidate for the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent .
  4. Web site: The Election of Justin Hansford to the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent .
  5. Web site: Carnahan . Ashley . 2023-06-04 . Biden appointee calls on UN to create reparations tribunal: 'What justice looks like in the 21st century' . 2024-05-01 . Fox News . en-US.
  6. Web site: WHC Cosponsors Visit by Professor Justin Hansford . 2024-05-01 . www.worldhistory.pitt.edu.
  7. Web site: 2023-03-23 . Opinion: An antidote to the GOP war on Black history . 2024-05-01 . CNN . en.
  8. Web site: Civil rights activist Justin Hansford appointed Executive Director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard Howard University School of Law . 2019-06-19 . law.howard.edu.
  9. Web site: Justin Hansford C-SPAN.org . 2024-05-01 . www.c-span.org.
  10. Web site: Constitution Series - June 2020 Justin Hansford . 2024-05-01 . Sandra Day O'Connor Institute . english.
  11. News: admin . 2013-12-11 . Justin Hansford . 2017-02-27 . SLU LAW . en.
  12. Web site: Justin Hansford . 2024-04-28 . Diversity at Stanford Medicine . en-US.
  13. Web site: Justin Hansford Howard Profiles . 2024-05-01 . profiles.howard.edu . en.
  14. Web site: Reparations for Racial Discrimination in the U.S. The Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil and Political Rights . 2024-05-01 . holder.college.columbia.edu.
  15. Web site: Justin Hansford Howard University School of Law . 2024-05-01 . law.howard.edu.
  16. Book: Ellis . Atiba . Race, Racism, and American Law: Leading Cases and Materials, 2023 . Harris . Cheryl I. . Hansford . Justin . Akbar . Amna A. . McFarlane . Audrey G. . 2023-01-31 . Aspen Publishing . 978-1-5438-5029-1 . en.
  17. Web site: 2020-21 Symposium: Race and the Pandemic – Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice . 2024-05-01 . en-US.
  18. Web site: 2016-08-17 . On His Father's 129th Birthday Marcus Garvey's Son Seeks Presidential Pardon . 2024-02-23 . NBC News . en.
  19. Web site: Justin Hansford HuffPost . 2024-05-01 . www.huffpost.com . en.
  20. Web site: 2014-11-03 . Parents Of Michael Brown To Speak Before U.N. Committee In Geneva . 2024-05-01 . STLPR . en.
  21. Web site: Ferguson to Geneva – Police Violence In America Is A Human Rights Issue. . 2017-02-27 . ferguson2geneva.com . en-US.
  22. Web site: The Rebellious Law Professor: Combining Cause and Reflective Lawyering .
  23. Web site: Hansford . Justin . 2014-10-24 . I went to Ferguson to protect the protesters. I got arrested instead. . 2024-05-01 . Vox . en.
  24. Web site: Police Arrest SLU Law Professor and Legal Observer During Saint Louis Protests .
  25. Web site: Howard Prof. Justin Hansford & Abolitionist Andrea Ritchie on Tyre Nichols & Calls for No More Police . 2024-05-01 . Democracy Now! . en.
  26. PBS NewsHour How can Ferguson law enforcement break a pattern of bias? Season 2015 PBS . en . 2024-05-01 . www.pbs.org.
  27. Devastated Witness Breaks Down Detailing George Floyd's Death The 11th Hour MSNBC . en . 2024-05-01 . www.youtube.com.
  28. Web site: Supreme Court of the United States - DERAY MCKESSON vs JOHN DOE .
  29. Web site: The First Amendment Freedom of Assembly as a Racial Project . 2024-05-01 . www.yalelawjournal.org.
  30. News: Beydoun . Khaled A. . Hansford . Justin . 2017-11-15 . Opinion The F.B.I.'s Dangerous Crackdown on 'Black Identity Extremists' . 2024-05-01 . The New York Times . en-US . 0362-4331.
  31. News: Schwartz . Oscar . 2020-08-12 . After the protests, lingering trauma: the scars of 'non-lethal' weapons . 2024-05-01 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  32. Web site: Reparations-Now-Toolkit-FINAL .
  33. Web site: 2018-11-30 . Justin Hansford on Human Rights and the Movement for Black Lives Yale Law School . 2024-05-01 . law.yale.edu . en.
  34. Web site: 2019-09-23 . International Human Rights Bodies Provide a Case for Reparations ACLU . 2024-04-28 . American Civil Liberties Union . en-US.
  35. Web site: 2021-12-07 . Our Team . 2024-05-01 . African-American Redress Network . en-US.
  36. Web site: Reparations for Racial Discrimination in the U.S. University Life . 2024-05-01 . universitylife.columbia.edu.
  37. Web site: Letter to Evanston City Council Regarding Reparations Measure Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center . 2024-04-28 . thurgoodmarshallcenter.howard.edu . en.
  38. Web site: 2023-05-31 . Justin Hansford's Remarks at the Opening of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) . 2024-04-28 . @ . en-US.
  39. America ReFramed The Cost of Inheritance Season 12 Episode 1 PBS . en . 2024-04-28 . www.pbs.org.
  40. Web site: Home - Justice4Garvey. Justice4Garvey. en-US. 2017-02-27.
  41. News: Black History Matters: Why President Obama Should Pardon Marcus Garvey . 2017-02-27 . The Root . en-US.
  42. Web site: Using the Human Rights Framework for Racial Justice: A Conversation with Justin Hansford Global Studies Center . 2024-05-01 . www.ucis.pitt.edu.
  43. Web site: Wiley Rein Hosts Luncheon Featuring Professor Justin Hansford, in Celebration of Black History Month . 2024-05-01 . www.wiley.law . en-US.
  44. Web site: Justin Hansford Biography . 2024-05-01 . pdaspeakers.com.

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