Moses Lasky Professor of Law Suzette Malveaux joined the Colorado Law faculty in 2018. She is also the director of the school’s Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law. With expertise in the intersection of civil rights and civil procedure, she teaches Civil Procedure, Employment Discrimination, and a Constitutional Civil Rights Law seminar.
Before entering academia, you were a civil rights lawyer and class action specialist who second chaired oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. What sparked your interest in civil rights?
I grew up in a family that valued racial justice and equality. Ever since I can remember, my parents filled our home with the soulful and empowering tunes of Marvin Gaye, the Commodores, and Diana Ross and the Supremes. Our public education was supplemented with books about inspirational leaders like Rosa Parks, Dr. Charles Drew, and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In fact, long before there was a national holiday to celebrate MLK’s birthday, my parents pulled us out of school, refusing to let us attend in protest.
My parents themselves led the way. My father was the dean of Howard University Medical School and a physician with practices in Baltimore, Washington, and Columbia, Maryland. His work on health disparities in the African American community was groundbreaking at the time. It was a given that all of my doctors were Black; I was surrounded by excellence. My mother was in the trenches as a Head Start and first grade teacher, empowering children with little resources to read and hope. My father’s unwavering dedication to an HBCU over the decades and my mother’s boundless creativity, encouragement, and commitment to igniting that spark in others were my fuel.
Growing up in the segregated South, my parents faced the hardships and violations of systemic inequities. The reality of being denied access to schools, churches, and swimming pools on the basis of race shaped them. My mom would recall her brother being called the “N-word” and his being beaten up walking home after school, or her sitting at the back of the Catholic church in pews cordoned off for “Negroes.” I recall on one of the long, hot, two-day family car rides we would take every summer from Maryland to Louisiana to see my grandparents, how my dad was wrongfully pulled over by the police. He was taken to a small rural jail while us four kids and my mom were left in the car to fear the worst.
Because of these types of experiences, my parents went north and raised us in Columbia, Maryland, a planned community designed in the 1960s to promote integration on the basis of race, socio-economic status, religion, etc., and to protect the environment. Consequently, I grew up on a block with open green space, peppered with neighbors of every hue. That upbringing has shaped me today. My passion to pursue civil rights, whether as a lawyer or scholar, is part of a legacy of which I'm proud to be a part.
In your article “The Modern Class Action Rule: Its Civil Rights Roots and Relevance Today,” you write that what we know today as class action jurisprudence is rooted in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. What ties the two together?
When we talk about class actions, sometimes we just think of it as a procedural mechanism, a type of joinder that springs from the federal rules of civil procedure. That can sound quite boring! But what class actions really are in the context of civil rights cases is the opportunity for collective action. As they say, there is strength in numbers. A class action is not only a very efficient way to resolve a systemic problem in one stroke, it also enables individuals to pull their resources together to successfully challenge a sweeping injustice, like an unfair employment policy or overcharge for a loan. In a world where there are tremendous wealth and opportunity gaps, a class action is an essential tool that empowers “Davids” to take on “Goliaths.”
The modern trend of making it harder to collectively act disproportionately impacts the poor and powerless of all stripes. As my scholarship contends, “Veterans challenging untenable delays in medical benefits, women challenging sexual harassment on the job, African Americans challenging police violence, low-income people challenging draconian lending terms, and small businesses challenging monopolistic practices all benefit from a civil court system more geared toward providing them their ‘day in court.’”
I had the opportunity to learn this lesson in real practice. As a civil rights lawyer, I had the privilege to represent over 1.5 million women alleging gender discrimination against Walmart in the largest employment discrimination class action to date. After a decade of litigation, the case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court just on the question of whether it should be a class action. This illustrates how powerful this tool can be.
The history of the modern class action rule is also telling. The drafters amended the rule in 1966 in response to fierce resistance to desegregation in the South. After the Supreme Court declared American apartheid unconstitutional in the public school system in Brown v. Board of Education,
school boards across the South enacted “pupil assignment” laws to circumvent integration efforts. The rulemakers countered this “divide and conquer” strategy with a class action rule that made it easier to counter this obstructionist tactic. Armed with the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1966 class action rule, victims of discrimination were able to bring about significant reform. That power continues to be necessary today.
For six years, you served as pro bono counsel to the plaintiffs in Alexander v. State of Oklahoma, a federal lawsuit filed by victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. What did you learn by working on this case?
One of the most valuable lessons I learned by participating in this case is the importance of resilence and never giving up. As a young lawyer I was fortunate to be part of a team that inspired creativity and an unwavering commitment to justice. Surrounded by giants like Johnnie Cochran, law professor Charles Ogletree, historian John Hope Franklin, and courageous community leaders and massacre survivors, our team worked diligently to exhaust all channels. We first sought relief in the federal courts, from the district court up to the Supreme Court. When that was unsuccessful because of the statute of limitations, we turned to the legislative branch, crafting a bill that would enable our clients to have their day in court. I pivoted to the scholarly route, writing a law review article that was entered into the Congressional Record. Having exhausted the U.S. legal system, we turned to the international courts, alleging a violation of human rights. When that did not prevail, we ultimately went on an educational campaign, touring the country with our clients telling the Tulsa massacre story at churches, legal conferences, and in documentaries. Ultimately, we were able to elevate the voices of our centenarian clients and the Black Tulsa community. I learned that in order to be successful, sometimes you have to move the goal post. It was a valuable lesson about the limitations of the law; it is just one tool in the tool box.
Tell us about some of the highlights of the White Center’s recent programming.
I’m proud of the recent Rothgerber Conference, which was held April 7–8. This is an annual Byron R. White Center signature event which brings together scholars, lawyers, law students, and leaders from across the country to the law school to discuss a cutting-edge Constitutional law issue. This year’s theme centered around the book The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson, written by our new dean, Lolita Buckner Inniss. We explored various themes that emanate from the book, including educational institutional participation in slavery; government sanctioned racial massacres and remedies; modern vestiges of slavery; and the local implications of this history. To kick off the event, formerly incarcerated members of the community performed monologues and spoken word, with musical interludes. Our participants have the opportunity to reach an even broader audience by publishing their contributions in the Colorado Law Review. This was an incredibly powerful experience at such a critical time.
What advice would you give a law student or recent graduate looking to enter a career in civil rights law?
I would remind those entering a civil rights legal career to learn from those that preceded them. While the issues today are far more complex because of phenomena like the advent of social media, greater globalization of the economy, and increased diversity, so much of what happens is cyclical. With great progress there comes fear, ignorance, and backlash. I think it’s important that we treasure one another and recognize the throughline from our ancestors to ourselves today. I’m extremely grateful to my late parents for those lessons. It’s what gives me courage and inspiration to do this work.