Mara Verheyden-Hilliard

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard in 2007

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard Title constitutional rights lawyer

Bio

From her Netroots profile:,

"Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), where she also directs its project, the Center for Protest Law & Litigation. As a civil rights and constitutional rights litigator, Mara focuses on complex trial and appellate litigation, particularly concentrated in the areas of free speech, assembly, and other protected First Amendment activity and its intersection with Fourth Amendment rights. Her work is grounded in partnership with the activists and communities she serves. During her more than 25 years of practice, Mara has represented numerous political activists and organizations involved in the environmental, racial, and social justice movements, extending from grassroots community members to well-known personalities and activists. Litigating constitutional rights cases nationwide, including being certified as lead class counsel, Mara has won landmark changes in law and police practices in the handling of free speech activities, as well as securing tens of millions of dollars in damages for persons and organizations who have suffered deprivation of fundamental rights. Mara received her B.A. from Hampshire College and her J.D. from Columbia University Law School.

Pro-Hamas Letter

In the wake of a terror attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, Harvard University students signed an open letter blaming Israel. After the students received negative media coverage, the ANSWER Coalition jumped to their defense in an open letter titled: "Open letter against intimidation at Harvard: Defend the freedom to speak in support of Palestine!" Mara Verheyden-Hilliard signed the letter. Excerpt:

We stand together against the racist harassment and demonization of Pro-Palestine student activists at Harvard and elsewhere across the country. These attacks are designed to intimidate, weaken, and silence people's right to speak out in support of the Palestinian people's struggle against occupation and apartheid. Their educational and professional futures are being threatened and right wing political operatives have even rented a TV truck to drive around campus displaying the students' faces. Some are even receiving death threats..."

Solidarity with North Korea

Larry Holmes, Workers World Party’s first secretary, led a three-person, party delegation to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the end of July, 2013. The DPRK was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.

According to Holmes: "We were not the only ones from the U.S. There was a delegation from the Socialist Workers Party. Progressive attorneys Ramsey Clark and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard were there, as was the ANSWER Coalition.

National Lawyers Guild

The 2009 National Executive Committee of the National Lawyers Guild included Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Committee Representative, Mass Defense, Washington, DC.

National Conference on Socialism

The Party for Socialism and Liberation held a National Conference on Socialism, December 6-7, 2008 in Los Angeles, CA.

The International Solidarity Session was chaired by Ena Valladares (Los Angeles), Kerbie Joseph (New York City), and Javier Lavoe (New York City) and featured a presentation by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Speaking on the plenary were;

• Yousef Abudayyeh, National Coordinator, Free Palestine Alliance
• Christine Araquel, Chair, KmB Pro-People Youth and Secretary General, Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines
• Jollene Levid, Secretary General, GabriPela Network U.S.
• Sarah Sloan, Party for Socialism and Liberation
• Sakoda Hidefumi, International Affairs Department, Japanese Communist League
• Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Attorney and Co-Founder, Partnership for Civil Justice
• Miguel Edgardo Mira Lopez, Director, Center for the Study of Investment and Commerce and leader of the Movement for Peace and Social Justice in El Salvador
• Berny Moto, FMLN - Los Angeles
• Ben Becker, Managing Editor, Liberation Newspaper
• Muna Coobtee, Party for Socialism and Liberation and National Council of Arab Americans
• Jim Lafferty, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild - Los Angeles
• Marcella Daneshinia, Party for Socialism and Liberation
• Proving Ground, a Marxist multimedia performance piece

Statements were read by Jennifer Zaldana from the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE), and the People’s Socialist Party of Mexico (PPSD).

"NO WAR, NO WAY"

Jan 19, 2003, ANSWER brought together an impressive array of speakers at two rallies—one that began at 11 a.m. in the sprawling National Mall, and a concluding rally at the Washington Shipyard.

Moonanum James, co-chair of United American Indians of New England and a Vietnam-era veteran, opened the rally by connecting the U.S. government’s ongoing racist war against Native peoples with their preparations for a racist war against Iraq.

Anti-war speakers included Charley Richardson and Nancy Lessen from Military Families Speak Out and Liz McAlister, partner and widow of the late peace activist Philip Berrigan. “No blood for oil!” demanded disabled Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, author of “Born on the Fourth of July.”

Speaking out for labor against the war: Brenda Stokely, president of AFSCME 1707 and Local 215 as well as a co-convener of New York City Labor Against the War; Fred Mason, president of statewide Maryland and D.C. AFL-CIO; Michael Letwin from U.S. Labor Against War and Dr. Nadia Marsh from Doctors and Nurses Against the War.

ANSWER speakers included Youth and Student Coordinator Peta Lindsay, Elias Rashmawi from the Free Palestine Alliance. Jennifer Wager from IFCO/Pastors for Peace, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard from PCJ and Larry Holmes and Brian Becker, both from the International Action Center.

Speakers representing other anti-war coalitions included Bill Fletcher, Jr., co-chair of United for Peace and Justice; Damu Smith from Black Voices for Peace; Medea Benjamin from Global Exchange, and Miles Solay from Not In Our Name.

Jesse Heiwa, from Queers for Peace and Justice, New York, pointed to the growing coalition of lesbian, gay, bi and trans organizations against the war. Brooklyn-based activists Viola Plummer from the December 12th Movement and City Councilman Charles Barron raised the need for anti-racist solidarity, including fighting for reparations. Singer Patti Smith and D.C. cultural artists Pam Parker and Lucy Murphy performed.

"People say NO war"

After the massive Oct. 26 2002 anti-war march, in which the broad avenues surrounding the White House were packed solid with demonstrators, there "can no longer be a shred of doubt about it: grassroots sentiment in the U.S. is opposed to the Bush administrationplans for a "pre-emptive" war on Iraq".

People came to D.C., the heart of the federal government, from every state in the U.S. The International ANSWER coalition, which initiated the call for the protest, reported 150 organizing centers around the country. Hundreds of chartered buses caused gridlock in the White House area. Tens of thousands also streamed into the city by car, van, plane and train.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the ANSWER steering committee opened the rally and introduced her three co-chairs: Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation; Michel Shehadeh of the Free Palestine Alliance, and Larry Holmes of the International Action Center. Shehadeh and Holmes are also ANSWER steering committee members.

Delegation to Iraq

While the U.S. prepares for war against Iraq, formerU.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark arrived in Iraq, August 2002, with a five-person fact-finding peace delegation.

The delegation metwith high government officials, family members of people who were killed in the U.S. bombing of Basra August 26, and visitinghospitals and food distribution centers. The group is touring Basra at the site of yesterday's bombing raid that killed eight civilians.

The purpose of this trip is to report on the latest effects of U.S.-led UN sanctions against the Iraqi civilian population, and to show solidarity with the people of Iraq who are facing the prospect of an imminent US war of aggression. Ramsey Clark is the

founder and chairperson of the U.S.-based International Action Center, which has campaigned against the devastating economic sanctions on Iraq for the last decade.

The delegation also included Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, an attorney and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice, Johnnie Stevens, co-director of the People's Video Network, Kadouri al-Kaysi, coordinator of the Committee in Solidarity with the Iraqi People, and Brian Becker, co-director of the International Action Center.

National Campaign to Defend Civil Rights

Representatives and supporters of the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) coalition held a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., June 18 2002, to announce the National Campaign to Defend Civil Rights. The group announced a major demonstration on June 29 at the headquarters of the FBI and Justice Department.

"Our community is uniting with other civil rights and anti-war organizations to mobilize for the June 29 demonstration protesting the attacks on civil rights and civil liberties," stated Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation.

Rainbow Coalition/PUSH leader Joe Leonard explained that his organization was mobilizing for the June 29 protest because President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft's use of racial and political profiling was "a threat to all the hard won civil rights gains of past generations."

"The Bush administration is substantially expanding the FBI and CIA authority to conduct domestic spying in the absence of probable cause or criminal conduct and is authorizing indefinite detention for citizens and non-citizens at the sole discretion and the direction of George Bush and John Ashcroft--without charge or trial, and without access to an attorney," Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice explained in analyzing the government's latest move.

Other speakers at the news conference included: Lubaba Abdallah, Muslim Student Association of U.S. & Canada; the Rev. Graylan Hagler, senior minister, Plymouth Congregational Church; Macrina Cardenas, Mexico Solidarity Network; Peta Lindsay & Daniel Keesler, ANSWER youth and student organizers; Chuck Kaufman, national coordinator, Nicaragua Network; Damu Smith, Black Voices for Peace; and Brian Becker, co-director, International Action Center.

Muslims being Targeted

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard was cited in a New York Times article titled "A NATION CHALLENGED: AMERICAN MUSLIMS; Raids, Detentions and Lists Lead Muslims to Cry Persecution" dated March 27, 2002:

"As Muslims we condemned the terrorist acts of Sept. 11, said Akmal M. Muhammad, an imam who spoke at the meeting. But we must also insist that the Bush administration stop practicing terrorism in reverse against us.

Though the number of Muslims in the United States has been estimated by some to be as high as six million, Muslims tend to be more loosely organized than adherents of some other major religions and do not often speak with a unified national voice. But groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council say they are trying to change that to protest what they describe as a pattern of discrimination against Muslims since the terrorist attacks.

They have objected not only to the raids but to secretive detentions of Muslims around the country. They also criticized a Justice Department request last week that some 3,000 young men who came to the United States recently from predominantly Muslim countries agree to talk with law enforcement authorities.

The efforts to single out foreigners is reminiscent of the way the government treated Japanese-Americans during World War II, when they were put in internment camps because of fears they might sabotage American facilities or spy for Tokyo, said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice, a liberal legal group that has joined a coalition of groups protesting treatment of Muslims. The government apologized decades later for the way it had treated Japanese-Americans.

It's not O.K. to deny people their civil rights and then later apologize and let them go, Ms. Verheyden-Hilliard said.