The Clearinghouse presents a collection of documents and information about
U.S. civil rights cases in selected categories:
- child welfare
- election and voting rights
- immigration
- jail conditions
- juvenile institutions
- mental health facilities
- mental retardation facilities
- nursing home conditions
- policing (racial profiling and other issues)
- prison conditions
- public housing
- school desegregation
An outstanding feature of this collection are the the number of docket
sheets, pleadings, complaints, decrees, and official correspondence from
the Special Litigation Division of the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division. Most of these documents are not widely available from free sources.
Instead, documents were obtained from Pacer (the federal courts fee-based
docket and e-filing system), the National Archives, the American Civil
Liberties Union's National Prison Project, and the litigants and their
attorneys.
In addition to browsing by categories, users may search the collection. The
General Search feature has fields for case name, type, docket number, state,
and U.S. district or circuit court. A People Search option is also available.
Users are invited to suggest cases for inclusion in the collection. An
email form is provided for this purpose.
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