Civil Rights Corps is a left-wing criminal justice reform group that primarily uses lawsuits to challenge policies it considers unjust. Civil Rights Corps asserts that the American legal system is biased against low-income individuals and racial minorities. ¹

Ideology

The Civil Rights Corps is dedicated to making fundamental changes the American criminal justice system, which the organization’s website describes as “a system that is built on white supremacy and economic inequality” as well as “injustice and brutality.” Civil Rights Corps claims that “Black, Brown, and low-income communities… are the primary target of the criminal system.” ¹

In an interview on “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah, Civil Rights Corps founder Alec Karakatsanis spoke out against what he calls “copaganda,” or pro-police propaganda. Karakatsanis claimed that the media purposefully shifts public attention to some forms of criminal activity over others for corporate benefit. For instance, the media allegedly highlights an ongoing wave of retail theft over a longstanding trend of “wage theft,” or the illicit refusal of employers to pay full wages to low-wage employees. Copaganda also allegedly distracts from the root causes of poverty, including poverty and a failure to provide social services. ¹

Civil Rights Corps endorsed the Socialism 2024 radical-left advocacy conference. ²

Policy Advocacy

Civil Rights Corps supports left wing criminal justice policies, including opposing pre-trial detention and increasing monitoring of judges and prosecutors. CRC especially focuses on what it calls “ending the criminalization of poverty,” or opposing criminal justice policies that place a financial burden on accused criminals, particularly low-income individuals, such as cash bail. Civil Rights Corps has launched and supported lawsuits throughout the United States to challenge such policies. ³

Civil Rights Corps’s most notable victory was Singleton et al. v. Cannizzaro, which was launched in 2017 with support from the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Louisiana, Venable LLP, and Silence Is Violence. The suit accused the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office of repeatedly “fabricating subpoenas to coerce survivors and witnesses of harm into submitting to private, out-of-court interrogations.” In 2021, Orleans Parish settled with payments to three plaintiffs and agreements to end the practices as well as submitting to independent third-party review. ⁴

Civil Rights Corps and Pure Justice run the Houston Police Accountability Collaborative, a program that provides resources and legal support to “survivors of police abuse.” ⁵

Civil Rights Corps and Public Justice run Right to Hug, a project that advocates for looser regulations on prison visits. ⁶

Grantmaking

In 2022, Civil Rights Corps donated primarily to left-wing criminal justice reform groups, including $37,500 to Pure Justice, $30,000 to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, and $27,500 to the Texas Jail Project. Civil Rights Corps also donated $22,500 to the Tides Foundation. ⁷

Leadership

Alec Karakatsanis is the founder of the Civil Rights Corps and was listed as the organization’s executive director on its 2022 tax return. Previously, Karakatsanis worked as a civil rights lawyer and public defender with the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia and as a federal public defender in Alabama. He also co-founded Equal Justice Under Law, a left-wing criminal justice reform organization. ^{8 9 7}

Danielle Dupuy-Watson has been the chief executive officer of Civil Rights Corps since October 2022. Prior, she worked at the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies and as the executive director of the Million Dollar Hoods Project which maps the costs of mass incarceration in racial minority neighborhoods. ¹⁰

Claudia Withers has been the chief operating officer of Civil Rights Corps since July 2019. Earlier, Withers served as the managing director of equity programs at the National School Boards Association, the chief operating officer at the NAACP, chief operating officer at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, director of public policy at the Center for Women Policy Studies, the deputy general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education, and as the executive director of the Fair Employment Council of Greater Washington. ¹¹

CRC board member Zoe Towns is the senior director for criminal justice reform at FWD.us, a liberal expansionist immigration and criminal justice policy advocacy group founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. Earlier, she was the criminal justice project director at the Pew Charitable Trusts. ¹²

Funding

In 2022, Civil Rights Corps received a $480,000 grant from the Ford Foundation “to challenge systemic injustice in the U.S. legal system.” ¹³

In 2018, Civil Rights Corps received a $25,000 grant from the Open Philanthropy Project. The group also received a grant from the group in 2016. ¹⁴

In 2016, Civil Rights Corps received a $200,000 grant from Good Ventures for “general support.” ¹⁵

1. “About.” Civil Rights Corps. Accessed July 25, 2024. https://civilrightscorps.org/about/.
2. “Endorsing Organization.” Socialism 2024. Accessed July 26, 2024. https://socialismconference.org/endorsing-organizations/.
3. “Our Work.” Civil Rights Corps. Accessed July 26, 2024. https://civilrightscorps.org/our-work/.
4. “Landmark Settlement Brings an End to Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Fake Subpoenas and Unconstitutional Intimidation Practices.” October 5, 2021. ACLU. Accessed July 26, 2024. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/landmark-settlement-brings-end-orleans-parish-district-attorneys-fake-subpoenas-and.
5. “Houston PAC.” Civil Rights Corps. Accessed July 26, 2024. https://civilrightscorps.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Updated-2023-Houston-PAC-Hotline-One-Pager.pdf.
6. “Homepage.” Right to Hug. Accessed July 26, 2024. https://www.right2hug.org/.
7. “Civil Rights Corps Form 990.” ProPublica. Accessed July 25, 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/813422012/202332369349301303/full.
8. “Alec Karakatsanis.” Civil Rights Corps. Accessed July 25, 2024. https://civilrightscorps.org/alec-karakatsanis-founder/.
9. “Alec Karakatsanis.” Pulitzer Center. Accessed July 25, 2024. https://pulitzercenter.org/people/alec-karakatsanis.
10. “Danielle Dupuy-Watson, PhD.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 25, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-dupuy/.
11. “Claudia Withers.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 25, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiawithers/.
12. “Zoe Towns.” Civil Rights Corps. Accessed July 26, 2024. https://civilrightscorps.org/zoe-towns/.
13. “Civil Rights Corps.” Ford Foundation. Accessed July 26, 2024. https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/civil-rights-corps-145095/.
14. “Civil Rights Corps — General Support (2018).” Open Philanthropy. Accessed July 26, 2024. https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/civil-rights-corps-general-support-2018/.
15. “Civil Rights Corps – General Support.” Good Ventures. Accessed July 26, 2024. https://www.goodventures.org/our-portfolio/grants/civil-rights-corps-general-support/.