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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E193]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING THE WORK OF ARMAND DERFNER
______
HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON
of the district of columbia
in the house of representatives
Friday, February 22, 2019
Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of
Representatives to join me in recognizing the important contributions
of Armand Derfner to the advancement of civil rights in the United
States.
In 1940, on his second birthday, Armand Derfner and his Jewish
parents fled Nazi Germany to America. Derfner graduated from Princeton
University in 1960. He would go on to receive Princeton's Koren Prize
in History and a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship directly
following his graduation. Derfner attended Yale Law School, where he
was the Note & Comment Editor of the Yale Law Journal and was Order of
the Coif.
Following his graduation from Yale Law School, Derfner clerked for
Chief Judge David L. Bazelon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit. Derfner then became an associate at
Covington & Burling.
After practicing law in the District of Columbia, Derfner moved to
Jim Crow Mississippi to practice as a civil rights lawyer. His passion
for social and political justice led to his being stalked. His dog was
even poisoned, and he and his wife were shot at multiple times.
While in Mississippi, Derfner acted as a civil rights attorney for
the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In 1968, Derfner represented
voters in Greenwood, Mississippi, on the first day that the Voting
Rights Act became effective. At just 29 years old, Derfner argued and
won his first Supreme Court case. From the 1960s through the 1990s,
Derfner played a vital role in civil rights cases, taking many of them
to the Supreme Court. Derfner argued before the Supreme Court five
times and won every case. These Supreme Court arguments helped shape
the Voting Rights Act and its amendments.
Derfner also contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Attorneys
Fees Awards Act in 1976 and the Equal Access to Justice Act of 1980. It
was Derfner's work that led to the freeing of the Charleston Five, a
protest group that was falsely accused of inciting violence. In the
1980s, while still attached to civil rights work in Mississippi,
Derfner worked closely on civil rights issues with Massachusetts
Senator Edward Kennedy and simultaneously taught at American
University.
In 2002, Derfner was awarded the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award by
the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice. In 2009, the American Bar
Association named Derfner's firm, Derfner & Altman, Public Interest
Lawyers of the Year. He is an honorary lifetime trustee on the Board of
Trustees for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Derfner
has just been named the recipient of the 2019 Commitment to Justice
Award from the Center for Heirs' Property Preservation.
I ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Armand
Derfner for his dedication to civil rights and for his significant
contributions to recognizing equal justice under the law.
____________________