In the Spotlight: Lambda Legal’s Alphonso David

Q. During your time at Lambda Legal, you have done a significant amount of work to protect the rights of LGBT families. Based on your experience in this work, what do you think is at stake from a litigation perspective in the current battle over the makeup of the federal courts?

A. At Lambda Legal, we are committed to achieving full protections under the law for LGBT families and those living with HIV. Obviously, it causes us concern when judges with views hostile to civil rights laws are appointed to the federal bench. By their very nature, most civil rights laws operate to eradicate discrimination against a certain group of individuals or in a particular environment. Restrictive interpretations of federal civil rights laws and regulations threaten the broad scope of protections for LGBT families and those living with HIV in a variety areas, including housing, employment and public assistance.

Q. Do you see any parallels to the arguments that were made by civil rights opponents after landmark decisions like Brown v. Board of Education? And what are some of the differences?

A. There are clear parallels between ultraconservative arguments opposing school desegregation and marriage equality. In both instances, ultraconservatives have contended that courts ignore the law and abuse their power. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregating students based on race violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Ultraconservatives criticized the Court as blatantly ignoring all law and usurping congressional power. And now, decades later ultraconservatives are dusting off those same arguments to oppose marriage equality. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violates the Massachusetts Constitution, opponents argued that the courts ignored the law and assumed the power of the legislature. Of course, school desegregation and marriage equality are different issues, but the attack against the courts remains the same. We look to the courts as our arbiters of law and defenders of justice and liberty on behalf of all individuals. We should not allow opponents of equality to use recycled, inflammatory rhetoric as a shield for discrimination.

Q. How do your personal life experiences help shape your work at Lambda Legal and your thinking on the importance of independent and fair-minded courts?

A. When I was 13 years old, I emigrated with my family from Liberia to the United States. My father, who was a political leader in Liberia, and my family were in great danger after the military seized power from the democratically elected government. My personal experience living through my parents' struggle to obtain political asylum in the United States demonstrated the importance of a fair-minded court system. I fled with my family from our homeland where the systems of checks and balances, which we enjoyed before, were eliminated by the military coup. This experience further fueled my desire to practice law – that desire to work within a judicial system that stands for the rule of law and affords every individual a fair hearing and a day in court. Very often that's all our clients at Lambda Legal need, because the law and justice are on our side. It concerns me to see such blatant efforts to make one ideology – an ideology that's hostile to civil rights plaintiffs – predominant in our court system.