PUBLISHED:September 16, 2010

Writing competition/call for papers - UNC Center for Civil Rights

Born and raised in Mount Gilead, North Carolina, Julius L. Chambers graduated summa cum laude from North Carolina Central University in 1958 and first in his class from UNC School of Law in 1962. He was Editor-in-Chief of the North Carolina Law Review, the first African American student to hold this position. In 1963, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, selected Chambers as its first legal intern. In the 47 years since then, Chambers has made a monumental impact in the national civil rights arena, aggressively and tirelessly working for equal justice in the areas of public education, housing, voting rights, employment and criminal law. He has pioneered nation-changing litigation (Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education; Griggs v. Duke Power Co.; Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody), co-founded a successful civil rights law firm, and led a major state university as its Chancellor.

The UNC Center for Civil Rights, under the leadership of Professor Julius L. Chambers as its Director, is still working to advance the unfulfilled American ideal of justice and opportunity for all. An important part of the center’s work and Chambers’ legacy is a commitment to inspiring and training the next generation of social justice advocates.

The center invites all North Carolina law students to compete for the opportunity to participate in an innovative publishing project in conjunction with its 2010 conference honoring the work of Professor Chambers, entitled:

“The Unfinished Work”: Advancing New Strategies in the Struggle for Civil Rights
The Friday Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
November 1-2, 2010

Eligibility: Open to all students currently enrolled in any law school located in the state of North Carolina.

Topic: Submissions should build on Professor Julius L. Chambers’ body of work by discussing a current social justice struggle relevant to North Carolina. Papers may address any combination of legal issues relevant to the modern civil rights movement, including K-12 and higher education; housing and community development; criminal and racial justice; employment; voting rights; and/or economic justice.

For assistance in shaping a paper topic, students may contact the Center for Civil Rights’ Community Development Fellow Peter Gilbert (pgilbert@email.unc.edu) or Education Fellow Benita N. Jones (benitajn@email.unc.edu).

Submission Requirements: Entries must be original, unpublished works between 6-10 single-spaced pages (including endnotes). The work should begin with a title page and must contain the title of the submission, the student's name, year, school and contact information including street address, phone number(s), and email address. To ensure a blind and impartial evaluation of all papers, writers should include personally identifying information (such as the writer’s name or school) only on the submission’s title page.

Award: The UNC Center for Civil Rights is a partner in “Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement”, an online publishing and scholarly communications initiative (https://lcrm.lib.unc.edu/voice/works/). The LCRM project has created an online repository and publishing platform for past and current civil rights-related materials. To date, the Center has provided this project with a selection of papers submitted by presenters from its previous conferences.

The best law student paper submitted for this competition, as judged by this year’s Conference Planning Committee, will be published in the Long Civil Rights Movement online collection dedicated to this conference. The writer of the winning paper also will receive a scholarship to attend the conference. The winning writer also may receive a nominal monetary prize.

Submission Date: All entries must be received VIA E-MAIL by 5 p.m. on Friday, October 15, 2010.

Please send entries to: Adrienne M. B. Davis, Center for Civil Rights, Director of Research, Community Services and Student Programs, ambdavis@email.unc.edu