A longtime advocate for youth and women, and a board member of LGBT-supportive Southern Poverty Law Center, will headline an event this weekend in Philadelphia that seeks to share the social-justice efforts abounding at SPLC.
Marsha Levick will address the Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia at its Sunday Platform meeting, 11 a.m. Jan. 29 at 1906 S. Rittenhouse Square.
“Why Support the Southern Poverty Law Center?” will explore the mission and work of the agency and its compatibility with the values of The Ethical Society.
Levick has served on the SPLC board for the past three years, bringing to the agency her long career in juvenile law.
She co-founded the Juvenile Law Center, a national nonprofit based out of Philadelphia working to protect the rights of youth in the child-welfare system, in 1975 and served as its executive director until 1982. She currently serves as JLC deputy director and chief counsel. She also previously served as legal director and executive director of the National Organization for Women Legal Defense and Education Fund.
While Levick said JLC does not get involved in much direct representation, the agency did work on behalf of a young transgender woman a few years ago who was facing discrimination from the system, a challenge not uncommon for LGBT youth, she said.
“We were successful in helping her navigate that process,” Levick said. “We definitely deal with a lot of issues we see in terms of confinement and incarceration, where the facilities are confused about where to place the kids and how to help them.”
This summer, JLC co-authored a brief in support of petition for review to the U.S. Supreme Court in Adar V. Smith, a case challenging Louisiana’s ban on same-sex adoption. The Supreme Court ultimately declined to hear the case.
“We engage in cases like this when we see circumstances where there is a connection between the child-welfare system and lingering discrimination against gays and lesbians that can end up hurting the child,” Levick said.
Juvenile justice has been one of the cornerstones of SPLC, Levick said.
The agency advocates on behalf of youth, the poor, immigrants and the LGBT community, among other marginalized groups.
“SPLC really started because of the civil-rights movement,” Levik said. “It was initially established to address issues of racial justice and poverty in the South. Over the past more than 40 years, it’s continued to evolve and reexamine legal arenas in which the human rights and civil rights of people are directly affected, and the LGBT area is one where we know this is still happening. SPLC correctly views LGBT rights as a civil-rights concern and recognizes that, as an organization, they have the skills, resources and expertise to try to bring to bear change in this area.”
SPLC’s LGBT-focused work has run the gamut from a suit challenging “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to the monitoring of antigay hate groups.
Recently, the organization has directed increased attention to the issue of anti-LGBT bullying in schools — this past year taking legal action against a school that sought to prevent two girls from participating in a school event as a couple, as well as against a Minnesota school district plagued by LGBT youth suicides that it says has failed to adequately address anti-LGBT bullying.
“I think [SPLC’s] entrée into that case sparked their broader interest in looking at these issues with young people, particularly in states in the South, where there are so many instances of bullying are where LGBT youth are particularly vulnerable,” Levick said. “The consequences can be devastating, so this is one issue SPLC really wants to pay attention to.”
SPLC’s LGBT agenda will be one of the areas Levick will address during her Ethical Society discussion, which is free and open to the public.
“SPLC is an extraordinary organization and has a very broad agenda with respect to racial justice, civil rights and poverty, and they have a message that I’m very happy to carry to the Ethical Society,” she said.
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