I recently had the privilege of attending the NYC Bar Association’s 8th Annual White-Collar Crime Institute.  Among the impressive panels was one titled “Former White-Collar Defendants Speak.”  It was moving to hear four former defendants talk about their experiences with the criminal justice system.  Three had stood trial, and one spent time in prison before his conviction was overturned.

Their paths through the legal system varied considerably, but what stood out was their common experience of trauma.  They described waves of despair and humiliation and moments of panic and...

By Natalie Gordon, M.A., DOAR analyst

Imagine that your football team makes it to the Superbowl, but only because a referee made a bad call in the previous game that determined who would advance to the championship (hint: Superbowl 2019). You might have conflicted feelings: Happiness about your team, but concerns about the ease of breaching the fairness of the whole system. These concerns are the subject of an area of research on procedural justice that has implications for the courtroom. The fairness of procedures, referred to...

by Chad Lackey,  Ph.D., Director and Emma Shuck, Consultant

Employees still struggle with the decision to report harassment and discrimination despite legal protections and increased efforts by employers to make it easier and safer. Will I be blamed or face retaliation? Will it make a difference? Will employers even take my complaint seriously? With no easy answers to these questions, victims too often decide never to report their experiences. In 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) estimated as much as three-quarters of harassment in the workplace...

DOAR congratulates Winston & Strawn and The Lawfare Project for reaching a landmark settlement with the California State University public university system, and thanks them for allowing DOAR to be involved in such an important case.

The litigation was brought on behalf of two Jewish students at San Francisco State University who alleged that SFSU and the Board of Trustees of CSU discriminated against them based on their religion  and support of Israel.  The settlement provides that CSU and SFSU recognize that support for Israel as a...