President Holley on the future of civil rights lawyering
Mount Holyoke President Danielle R. Holley spoke about the past, present and future of civil rights lawyering at the University of Houston Law Center.
On Feb. 17, the University of Houston Law Center hosted its Dean’s Distinguished Black History Month Lecture, featuring Mount Holyoke College President Danielle R. Holley. The event reflected on historical resilience and called modern legal professionals to action.
During her keynote address, The Past, Present and Future of Civil Rights Lawyering, Holley outlined essential pillars for the next generation of advocates: moral clarity, historical understanding, legal imagination, solidarity and stamina.
Holley believes that the journey toward justice requires an honest reckoning with the nation’s legal origins. “The first thing the future of civil rights lawyering requires is moral clarity. It requires us [to speak] the truth about history,” she said.
She explained that progress extends beyond the courtroom. “It requires legal imagination,” she said. “Legal imagination means we need to think about justice as [being] shaped not only in courtrooms but [also] inside law schools, firms, agencies and the courts.”
“Lawyers must be committed to justice and must be willing to challenge institutions from within and not just critique them from the outside,” she said. “It also requires solidarity. No one can do this work alone. Civil rights progress has never been the work of a single community acting alone.”
When referencing the stamina needed for systemic change, she said, “Civil rights law is not a sprint. This is a really long-term problem that we have to solve.”
