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Dees was one of the principal architects of an innovative strategy of using civil lawsuits to secure a court judgment for money damages against an organization for a wrongful act and then use the courts to seize its assets (money, land, buildings, other property) to pay the judgment.
Dees was one of the principal architects of an innovative strategy of using civil lawsuits to secure a court judgment for money damages against an organization for a wrongful act and then use the courts to seize its assets (money, land, buildings, other property) to pay the judgment.


SPLC lawyers used this legal strategy to hold the Klan accountable for the acts of its members. In 1981, Dees successfully sued the [[Ku Klux Klan]] and won a seven million dollar judgment for the mother of [[Michael Donald]], a black lynching victim in Alabama.<ref name=AStone>Andrea Stone, "Morris Dees: At the Center of the Racial Storm," ''USA Today,'' 3 August 1996, A-7</ref><ref name="UKA1987Times">{{cite news | url=http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/58240562.html?dids=58240562:58240562&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Feb+13%2C+1987&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&edition=&startpage=2&desc=The+Nation+Klan+Must+Pay+%247+Million | title=The Nation Klan Must Pay $7 Million | publisher=[[Los Angeles Times]] | date=February 13, 1987 | first= | last= | accessdate = 2007-09-18}}</ref> Payment of the judgment bankrupted the United Klans of America and resulted in its national headquarters being sold to help satisfy the judgment. All funds secured in this manner were paid to the family of the deceased.
SPLC lawyers used this legal strategy to hold the Klan accountable for the acts of its members. In 1981, Dees successfully sued the [[Ku Klux Klan]] and won a seven million dollar judgment for the mother of [[Michael Donald]], a black [[lynching]] victim in Alabama.<ref name=AStone>Andrea Stone, "Morris Dees: At the Center of the Racial Storm," ''USA Today,'' 3 August 1996, A-7</ref><ref name="UKA1987Times">{{cite news | url=http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/58240562.html?dids=58240562:58240562&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Feb+13%2C+1987&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&edition=&startpage=2&desc=The+Nation+Klan+Must+Pay+%247+Million | title=The Nation Klan Must Pay $7 Million | publisher=[[Los Angeles Times]] | date=February 13, 1987 | first= | last= | accessdate = 2007-09-18}}</ref> Payment of the judgment bankrupted the United Klans of America and resulted in its national headquarters being sold to help satisfy the judgment. All funds secured in this manner were paid to the family of the deceased.


A decade later, in 1991, Dees obtained a judgment of $12 million against [[Tom Metzger]]'s [[White Aryan Resistance]].<ref name=AStone/> He was also instrumental in securing a $6.5 million judgment against [[Aryan Nations]] in 2001. Dees' most famous cases have involved landmark damage awards that have driven several prominent [[neo-Nazi]] groups into [[bankruptcy]], effectively causing them to disband and re-organize under different names and different leaders.
A decade later, in 1991, Dees obtained a judgment of $12 million against [[Tom Metzger]]'s [[White Aryan Resistance]].<ref name=AStone/> He was also instrumental in securing a $6.5 million judgment against [[Aryan Nations]] in 2001. Dees' most famous cases have involved landmark damage awards that have driven several prominent [[neo-Nazi]] groups into [[bankruptcy]], effectively causing them to disband and re-organize under different names and different leaders.

Revision as of 00:32, 30 July 2009

Morris Dees
Born
Morris Seligman Dees, Jr.

(1936-12-16) December 16, 1936 (age 87)
Shorter, Alabama[1]
Occupation(s)civil rights and social justice activist

Morris Seligman Dees, Jr. (born December 16, 1936) is the co-founder and chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and former direct mail marketeer for book publishing.[3] Along with his law partner, Joseph J. Levin Jr., Dees founded the Center in 1971,[4] the start of a legal career dedicated to suing racist organizations and other controversial discrimination cases.

Agricultural and business background

Dees was born to a farming family in Alabama in 1936.[3] After graduation from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1960, he returned to Montgomery, Alabama and opened a law office. He ran a book publishing business, Fuller & Dees Marketing Group, which grew to become a successful company in its own right. After what Dees described in his autobiography as "a night of soul searching at a snowed-in Cincinnati airport" in 1967, he sold the company in 1969 to Times Mirror, the parent company of the Los Angeles Times. He used the revenue generated by the sale to found the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971.[5]

Dees' new legal firm began taking part in civil rights cases that frequently put him in the spotlight. He filed suit to stop construction of a white university in an Alabama city that already had a predominantly black state college. Then in 1969, he filed suit to integrate the all-white Montgomery YMCA.[6] In an address on March 1, 2007, at the University of Texas School of Law, Judge Keith Ellison described Morris Dees as “his generation's most valiant and effective soldier in the fight for civil rights and civil liberties.”[7]

Dees was one of the principal architects of an innovative strategy of using civil lawsuits to secure a court judgment for money damages against an organization for a wrongful act and then use the courts to seize its assets (money, land, buildings, other property) to pay the judgment.

SPLC lawyers used this legal strategy to hold the Klan accountable for the acts of its members. In 1981, Dees successfully sued the Ku Klux Klan and won a seven million dollar judgment for the mother of Michael Donald, a black lynching victim in Alabama.[8][9] Payment of the judgment bankrupted the United Klans of America and resulted in its national headquarters being sold to help satisfy the judgment. All funds secured in this manner were paid to the family of the deceased.

A decade later, in 1991, Dees obtained a judgment of $12 million against Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance.[8] He was also instrumental in securing a $6.5 million judgment against Aryan Nations in 2001. Dees' most famous cases have involved landmark damage awards that have driven several prominent neo-Nazi groups into bankruptcy, effectively causing them to disband and re-organize under different names and different leaders.

Dees' legal actions against racial nationalist groups have made him a target of criticism from many of these organizations. He has received numerous death threats from these groups, and a number of their web sites make strong accusations against him and the Southern Poverty Law Center.[10] Over 30 people have been jailed in connection with plots to kill Dees or blow up the center.[11] Most recently a July 29, 2007, letter allegedly came from Hal Turner, a white supremacist talk show host, came after the SPLC filed a lawsuit against the Imperial Klans of America (IKA) in Meade County .[11] During the IKA trial a former member of the IKA said that the Klan head told him to kill Dees.[12]

Dees' work was featured on the National Geographic's "Inside American Terror" in 2008.[13] The story of Dees' campaigns against white supremacist hate groups was fictionalized in a 1991 TV movie entitled Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story. Over the last several years, Dees has presented numerous lectures on civil rights and justice at universities.[14][15][16] In 2009, he was the keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony for San Francisco State University.[17]

Morris Dees Justice Award

In 2006, the law firm of Skadden Arps Meagher & Flom partnered with the University of Alabama School of Law to create the Morris Dees Justice Award in honor of Dees, an Alabama graduate, for his lifelong dedication to public service. The award is given annually to a lawyer who has "devoted his or her career to serving the public interest and pursuing justice, and whose work has brought positive change in the community, state or nation,"[18] as illustrated by the lives of the following recipients.

The first recipient of the award was U. S. District Judge William Wayne Justice, of the Eastern District of Texas, who received it November 16, 2006 at a ceremony in Skadden offices in New York City.[19] Judge Justice was recognized for his lifelong efforts to protect civil rights and safeguard constitutional rights during more than 30 years as a federal district judge, hearing notable cases dealing with integration, prisoners' rights (Ruiz v. Estelle, 1972), procedural due process, equal access to education (United States v. Texas, 1970), free public education for children of illegal immigrants (Plyer v. Doe, 1982), dilution of voting rights, and care for the mentally challenged.[20]

In 2007, the award was presented to Arthur N. Read, general counsel for Friends of Farmworkers, Inc., a legal services provider in Philadelphia, for dedicating his career and life to providing a voice for the disadvantaged and advocating on behalf of the underprivileged.[21] In Vlasic Farms, Inc. v. Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (2001), he won for workers in Pennsylvania's mushroom industry the right to organize, and in El Concilia v. DER (1984), Read won a class-action lawsuit arguing that Pennsylvania had failed to inspect migrant camp housing for workers, bringing such housing largely into compliance with state and federal law.

In 2008, the award went to immigrant rights advocate Cheryl Little, Executive Director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, a non-profit legal assistance organization in Miami, for her dedication to protecting the rights of immigrants, especially Haitian refugees, throughout her professional career.[22] Little is considered one of the country’s leading experts on immigration law.[23]

Political activity

He served as President Jimmy Carter's national finance director in 1976, and as national finance chairman for Senator Ted Kennedy's 1980 Democratic primary presidential campaign against Carter.[24]

Dees ran for the board of the Sierra Club as a protest candidate in 2004, qualifying by petition.[25] His campaign was not designed to win election, but to publicize the views of some board members and candidates running for election in a bid to return population control to the organization's agenda. Dees received 7554 votes, coming in 16th out of 17 candidates in the election.

The Dees 1991 autobiography A Season for Justice was updated in 2003 with new material about his case against the Aryan Nations in Idaho and reissued as A Lawyer's Journey: The Morris Dees Story in a biographical series published by the American Bar Association.

Controversy

In February 1994 Dan Morse in the Montgomery Advertiser published multiple articles alleging financial mismanagement, poor management practices, and misleading fundraising. The newspaper summarized its investigation as producing evidence of "a complex portrait of a wealthy civil rights organization essentially controlled by one man: Morris Dees."[26] Morse referred to Dees as "a giant success story--a self-made millionaire by the age of 29, a chief fundraiser for four presidential candidates, a nationally recognized civil rights lawyer."[26] Morse cited Dees's former business partner from the 1960s who said Dees was a very driven person. Others noted that "a continuous stream of positive media accounts had added to the Dees legend."[26] In response to the criticism, Joe Levin of the SPLC told the paper: "The Advertiser's lack of interest in the center's programs and its obsessive interest in the center's financial affairs and Mr. Dees' personal life makes it obvious to me that the Advertiser simply wants to smear the center and Mr. Dees."[27]

Books by Dees

  • Dees, Morris and Steve Fiffer (2003). A Lawyer's Journey: The Morris Dees Story. Chicago: American Bar Association. ISBN 1570739943.
  • Dees, Morris (1997). Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0060927895.
  • Dees, Morris, and Steve Fiffer. (1993) Hate on Trial: The Case Against America's Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi. New York: Villard Books. ISBN 067940614X.
  • Dees, Morris (1991). A season for justice : the life and times of civil rights lawyer Morris Dees. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 068419189X. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |origmonth=, |month=, |chapterurl=, and |origdate= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Footnotes

  1. ^ "SPLCenter.org: Morris Dees Biography" (html). Southern Poverty Law Center. 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-25.
  2. ^ Dees 1991, p. 94
  3. ^ a b "Attorney Morris Dees pioneer in using 'damage litigation' to fight hate groups". CNN. September 8, 2000. Retrieved 2007-08-17.
  4. ^ Dees, Morris, and Steve Fiffer. 1991. A Season For Justice. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 132-133. ISBN 068419189X
  5. ^ "Poverty Law Center Scores in South". Los Angeles Times. December 14, 1975. Retrieved 2007-05-17.
  6. ^ "Smith v. Young Men's Christian Association". Southern Poverty Law Center. June 11, 1969. Retrieved 2007-09-18.
  7. ^ Judge Keith Ellison. http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/centers/publicinterest/docs/JudgeEllisonAddressJudgeJusticeReception.pdf
  8. ^ a b Andrea Stone, "Morris Dees: At the Center of the Racial Storm," USA Today, 3 August 1996, A-7
  9. ^ "The Nation Klan Must Pay $7 Million". Los Angeles Times. February 13, 1987. Retrieved 2007-09-18.
  10. ^ "Group is accused of plotting assassinations, bombings. 2 others will plead guilty Thursday." St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) (May 13, 1998): pB1.
  11. ^ a b Klass, Kym (August 17, 2007). "Southern Poverty Law Center beefs up security". Montgomery Advertiser. Retrieved 2007-09-18.
  12. ^ "Former member: Ky. Klan plotted to kill attorney". Associated Press. Nov. 13, 2008. Retrieved 2007-09-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ "Micheal McDonald clip on KKK: Inside American Terror". National Geographic. 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
  14. ^ "Morris Dees Speaking". Emporia State University. 2006. Retrieved 2007-09-18.
  15. ^ "Civil Rights Legend Morris Dees to Discuss Litigating Against Hate Groups". University of Texas at Austin. March 2007. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
  16. ^ "Morris Dees to speak on "The Current Status of Hate Groups in the United States"". University of Michigan. March 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-18.
  17. ^ Zinko, Carolyne (2009-05-23). "Civil rights icons lead S.F. State graduation". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-05-25.
  18. ^ Morris Dees Justice Award. http://www.morrisdeesaward.com [accessed 1/13/09]
  19. ^ “Civil Rights Legend Morris Dees to Discuss Litigating Against Hate Groups, March 1.” University of Texas at Austin School of Law News & Events. Press release, February 12, 2007. http://www.utexas.edu/law/news/2007/021207_dees.html [accessed 1/13/09]
  20. ^ “Texas Federal Judge Wins Morris Dees Justice Award.” Southern Poverty Law Center. Press release, October 2, 2006. http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=216 [accessed 1/13/09]
  21. ^ “UA School of Law and Skadden Law Firm Honor Farmworker Activist with 2007 Morris Dees Justice Award.” University of Alabama News. Press release, October 8, 2007. http://uanews.ua.edu/anews2007/oct07/law100807.htm [accessed 1/13/09]
  22. ^ ”Immigrant Rights Advocate Wins 2008 Morris Dees Justice Award.” Morris Dees Justice Award. Press release, September 25, 2008. http://www.law.ua.edu/deesaward/2008PressRelease.pdf [accessed 1/13/09]
  23. ^ “Cheryl Little Wins 2008 Morris Dees Justice Award.” Immigration Prof Blog. Press release, October 3, 2008. http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2008/10/cheryl-little-w.html [accessed 1/13/09]
  24. ^ "Kennedy to Tell Candidacy Prior to Thanksgiving". Los Angeles Times. October 28, 1979;. Retrieved 2007-07-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  25. ^ "Morris Dees' Sierra Club candidate statement seeks tolerance". Southern Poverty Law Center. January 22, 2004. Retrieved 2007-05-17.
  26. ^ a b c Dan Morse. "A complex man: Opportunist or crusader?", Montgomery Advertiser, February 14 1994
  27. ^ Dan Morse and Greg Jaffe. "Critics question $52 million reserve, tactics of wealthiest civil rights group", Montgomery Advertiser, February 13 1994, page 15A.

References

  • Dees, Morris, and Steve Fiffer. 1991. A Season For Justice, (Dees' autobiography) New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 068419189X
  • Hall, Dave, Tym Burkey and Katherine M. Ramsland. 2008. Into the Devil’s Den. New York: Ballantine. ISBN 9780345496942

Official

Other

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