The Elusive Search for Justice

By Dean Michael Waterstone

Recently, the state of Mississippi and federal government announced they were ending efforts to bring any further cases in the 1964 civil rights murders of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney. This is unfortunate. Successfully bringing cold cases so many years later is incredibly difficult. Many of the culpable individuals have died and memories of witnesses have faded. But despite being understandable as a legal matter, this decision saddens me. There was only one prosecution by the state of Mississippi against any of the individuals involved in this atrocity, and the effort demonstrated how difficult justice can be to obtain but how crucial it is to pursue.

I know because I was there. In 2005, the state of Mississippi brought murder charges against Edgar Ray Killen, a self-avowed “preacher” who had coordinated the connection between the gang of Klansman and sheriff's office. At the time, I was a first-year law professor at the University of Mississippi, teaching civil rights law. I went down to Neshoba County for the murder trial, and brought one of my students from the area with me. It was a moving experience that I will never forget.

Remember, this had been a crime that had captivated the entire nation. The three civil rights workers were in Mississippi to register black voters during Freedom Summer. They were murdered by Klansmen working in direct connection with the sheriff's office. President Johnson sent the National Guard to find the bodies of the missing civil rights workers. But the state of Mississippi, the entity primarily responsible for seeking justice, did nothing. Forty years later, a community coalition of whites, blacks, and Native Americans issued a “call for justice,” urging officials to bring prosecutions against anyone who was still alive. This culminated in Killen’s trial.

Fifty Years After the Civil Rights Act: Celebrating the Latest Milestone on the Journey Toward Racial Equity in Health Care

By Professor Brietta Clark

Fifty years ago this July, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act was viewed by many as a powerful symbol of the nation's commitment to racial equality. It was the most comprehensive civil rights law enacted up to that point - tackling discrimination in employment, education, voting, public accommodations, and federally funded programs, such as those financing health care. And although health care discrimination has not typically garnered as much attention as discrimination in other settings, inequality in health care was seen as a serious problem that the Civil Rights Act was needed to address.

People understood that good health was integral to one's ability to realize the other opportunities protected by the Act, such as finding employment, getting an education, and being an engaged citizen. In addition, discrimination in health care was pervasive and often had dire consequences. Many hospitals and physicians refused to treat Blacks because of their race; this included women in labor, patients with serious illnesses that could have debilitating effects, and even people in need of emergency, life-saving treatment. Indeed, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is reported to have said that "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin by recipients of federal funds, has been an important tool for fighting discrimination in health care. In theory, tying anti-discrimination protections to federal funding would give the government greater leverage to enforce Title VI against health care providers who wanted those funds. In reality, Title VI's power as an anti-discrimination tool depended on the federal government's willingness to devote significant resources to health care to ensure that this leverage existed.