Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School

The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School (CHHIRJ) honors and continues the unfinished work of Charles Hamilton Houston, one of the 20th century’s most important legal scholars and litigators. Houston engineered the multi-year legal strategy that led to the unanimous 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, repudiating the doctrine of “separate but equal” schools for black and white children. By facilitating a continuous dialogue between practitioners and scholars, he ensured that legal scholarship would resonate outside the academy, and that new legal strategies would be immediately incorporated into the training and practice of lawyers. CHHIRJ uses this model to address contemporary challenges in our increasingly multi-racial society. Our long-term goal is to ensure that every member of our society enjoys equal access to the opportunities, responsibilities and privileges of membership in the United States. The Institute serves as a critical bridge between scholarship, law, policy and practice and is well-positioned to bring together critical players from many spheres to devise and implement research-based solutions and remedies.