HONORING THE WORK OF ARMAND DERFNER

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                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, February 22, 2019

  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of 
Representatives to join me in recognizing the important contributions 
of Armand Derfner to the advancement of civil rights in the United 
States.
  In 1940, on his second birthday, Armand Derfner and his Jewish 
parents fled Nazi Germany to America. Derfner graduated from Princeton 
University in 1960. He would go on to receive Princeton's Koren Prize 
in History and a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship directly 
following his graduation. Derfner attended Yale Law School, where he 
was the Note & Comment Editor of the Yale Law Journal and was Order of 
the Coif.
  Following his graduation from Yale Law School, Derfner clerked for 
Chief Judge David L. Bazelon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
District of Columbia Circuit. Derfner then became an associate at 
Covington & Burling.
  After practicing law in the District of Columbia, Derfner moved to 
Jim Crow Mississippi to practice as a civil rights lawyer. His passion 
for social and political justice led to his being stalked. His dog was 
even poisoned, and he and his wife were shot at multiple times.
  While in Mississippi, Derfner acted as a civil rights attorney for 
the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In 1968, Derfner represented 
voters in Greenwood, Mississippi, on the first day that the Voting 
Rights Act became effective. At just 29 years old, Derfner argued and 
won his first Supreme Court case. From the 1960s through the 1990s, 
Derfner played a vital role in civil rights cases, taking many of them 
to the Supreme Court. Derfner argued before the Supreme Court five 
times and won every case. These Supreme Court arguments helped shape 
the Voting Rights Act and its amendments.
  Derfner also contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Attorneys 
Fees Awards Act in 1976 and the Equal Access to Justice Act of 1980. It 
was Derfner's work that led to the freeing of the Charleston Five, a 
protest group that was falsely accused of inciting violence. In the 
1980s, while still attached to civil rights work in Mississippi, 
Derfner worked closely on civil rights issues with Massachusetts 
Senator Edward Kennedy and simultaneously taught at American 
University.
  In 2002, Derfner was awarded the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award by 
the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice. In 2009, the American Bar 
Association named Derfner's firm, Derfner & Altman, Public Interest 
Lawyers of the Year. He is an honorary lifetime trustee on the Board of 
Trustees for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Derfner 
has just been named the recipient of the 2019 Commitment to Justice 
Award from the Center for Heirs' Property Preservation.
  I ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Armand 
Derfner for his dedication to civil rights and for his significant 
contributions to recognizing equal justice under the law.

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