Events

Nusrat Choudhury, Deputy Director, ACLU Racial Justice Program, will discuss modern-day debtors' prisons. The ACLU is fighting against the punishment of people who cannot pay money to courts simply because of their poverty, through arrest, jailing, driver's license suspensions, etc. Since courts generate revenue for local governments, these practices funnel poor and low-income people into cycles of debt, poverty, and involvement with the legal system. The program will be moderated by Jayne Huckerby, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of Duke's International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC). This Human Rights in Practice event is organized by the IHRC and the Center for International and Comparative Law. Co-sponsored by Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Human Rights Law Society and International Law Society. The event is open to all; lunch provided. For more information, please contact Balfour Smith at bsmith@law.duke.edu.

Nusrat Choudhury

Nusrat Choudhury is the deputy director of the ACLU Racial Justice Program, which is dedicated to advancing opportunity and equality for communities of color in the United States by fighting white supremacy and drivers of inequality in education, housing, the economy, and the criminal legal system. She leads litigation and advocacy challenging police racial profiling and “debtors’ prisons”—the illegal arrest and jailing of people unable to pay money to courts.

Ms. Choudhury’s litigation and advocacy against debtors’ prisons has exposed and reformed practices in Georgia, Mississippi, Washington, and South Carolina, and has led to the development of national guidance promoting the fair and equal treatment of rich and poor in courts. She has advocated against racial profiling and unlawful stop-and-frisk practices in numerous cities, including through Collins v. The City of Milwaukee, a federal lawsuit that resulted in a landmark 2018 court-ordered settlement agreement requiring sweeping reforms.