JULIAN
Founded in 2020, JULIAN’s mission is to attack discrimination in all forms through legal advocacy, organizing, policy, and innovation in order to exact justice, foster equality, and advance the doctrines of civil and human rights law. All of JULIAN’s work is dedicated to protecting and uplifting the voices of people on the bottom rungs of the American caste system. JULIAN focuses on investigating, litigating, and mounting civil rights campaigns to end modern day lynchings and tear apart systems of caste. In concert with litigation, they use community organizing to advance innovative community-identified and directed policy initiatives that build democracy and power. They work in small towns and rural communities. Their work focuses on Black, brown, indigenous, LGBTQIA people, and people with disabilities.
THE CASE
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In Secherest v. Lexington, JULIAN represents 13 Black residents of Lexington, Mississippi in a civil rights action, alleging the plaintiffs have been targeted and abused by the Lexington police department because of their race. Flagrant civil rights abuses include unlawful arrests, beatings, and taserings for legal actions and/or minor infractions. The original plaintiffs filed their claims in U.S. District Court under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and the Court’s inherent equitable power based on violations of their rights to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment; violations of their rights to be free of unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment; violations of their rights to be free of excessive force under the Fourth Amendment; violations of their rights to free speech and association under the First Amendment; and violations of their rights to be free from discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
