Eve Hill, partner at Brown Goldstein & Levy, spoke at an American Bar Association event marking the 60th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on Monday, October 21. The day-long webinar series, “Keep Moving Forward: Preserving the Integrity of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” highlighted why civil rights protections are still necessary in 2024 and beyond, and what the legal community can continue to do to protect the freedoms granted by federal law in the face of challenges to roll back established freedoms and protections.
The series included three 90-minute sessions, each discussing a different element of federal civil rights protections. Eve joined the third session, “Protecting Progress: How to Fight Back Against the Undermining of Civil Rights,” as one of three panelists. The session discussed strategies to collectively and individually resist the erosion of civil rights now and in the future. Eve was joined by Dominique Calhoun, principle at Calhoun Meredith LLP and immediate past president of the National Bar Association, and S. Collins Saint, partner at Brooks Pierce. The session was moderated by Betty Balli Torres, executive director of the Texas Access to Justice Foundation and a member of the ABA Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice.
Eve’s session followed two others, one focusing on the history of civil rights and anti-discrimination legislation in the United States and the other focusing on legislative and legal challenges to the Civil Rights Act aimed at eliminating its protections and subsequent civil rights legislation. The webinar comes in light of both state-based legislation implementing restrictions affecting underrepresented and marginalized communities and the federal U.S. Supreme Court decision in SFFA v. Harvard that held that “race-based affirmative action programs violate the Equal Protection Clause.”
As one of the nation’s leading civil rights lawyers who is often tapped for her knowledge of civil rights legislation, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, Eve was well positioned to comment on the continued, and critical, importance of civil rights protections today and in the future. Eve has obtained favorable judgments and has won many high impact cases on behalf of clients fighting against systems attempting to eliminate rights granted by the Civil Rights Act and other legislation. In one case, for example, Eve obtained a federal district court victory on behalf of a married gay employee who challenged Catholic Relief Services’ withdrawal of health insurance benefits for his husband under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, and the Maryland Equal Pay Act.
Eve is known especially for her work with clients with disabilities and LGBTQ+ clients. She has been recognized by Law360 as one of just 12 “Titans of the Plaintiffs’ Bar” for 2023, as well as by Lawdragon as one of the 500 Leading Lawyers in America (2022, 2023, and 2024). Her wide-ranging experience complements Brown Goldstein & Levy’s decades of dedication to high-impact disability rights cases and its advocacy on behalf of individuals with disabilities and their families. Eve also leads Inclusivity, BGL’s Strategic Consulting Group, which works with organizations to promote the education, engagement, and employment of people with disabilities. Learn more about Eve here.
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Founded in 1982, Brown Goldstein & Levy is a law firm based in Baltimore, Maryland, with an office in Washington, DC. The firm is nationally recognized in a wide variety of practice areas, including complex civil and commercial litigation, civil rights, health care, family law, and criminal defense. Above all else, Brown Goldstein & Levy is a client-centered law firm that brings decades of experience and passionate, effective advocacy to your fight for justice.