Tony Paris, a 2007 graduate of Wayne State University Law School, fights for workers' civil rights every day - work he finds compelling and meaningful.
He's the lead attorney at Detroit's nonprofit Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice and a member of the National Executive Committee of the National Lawyers Guild.
"The Sugar Law Center has a long-standing relationship with the National Lawyers Guild, and our namesake, Maurice Sugar, was a founding member of the NLG and the first general counsel of the United Auto Workers from 1937-46," Paris said. "Maurice Sugar and the fledgling UAW recognized that legal changes did not often come from the top down but actually from the direct action of organizers, employees, activists, protestors, community groups and all those involved in civil disobedience.
"Many of Sugar Law's cases and campaigns incorporate this community element into them for this very reason. These people in the streets, fighting to have their message heard and to exercise their power, have historically been a huge part of every important social justice movement, and they deserve the best protection and representation."
Paris grew up on the east side of Dearborn, just outside the Detroit city limits.
"Walter Reuther was one of my high school's more famous graduates, and so early on I learned about him and the Battle of the Overpass, and it was through that where I learned about Maurice Sugar and became passionate about labor," said Paris, who today lives in Hamtramck.
The Battle of the Overpass was a highly publicized confrontation between Reuther, then president of UAW Local 174, and other UAW organizers with Ford Motor Co. security in 1937. Wayne State's Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs is named for Reuther, who went on to serve as president of the UAW.
Paris did his undergraduate work at Adrian College and wanted to be in Detroit for law school.
"Wayne State felt like coming home again," Paris said. "The best part about Wayne for me was some of the professors and the other progressive-minded students who are now my colleagues in the struggle. Internships and clinics were also very important. That's where I met a lot of my mentors and actually how I was first able to work at Legal Aid and Defender of Detroit and eventually found the Sugar Law Center."
A big part of the law center's work for the past three years has been to challenge the state's emergency manager law.
"Our first legal challenge to Public Act 4 - the original law which gave these emergency managers unprecedented power - was a state court action," Paris said. "It was in conjunction with a petition drive to provide voters with the opportunity for a referendum on the law. After over 200,000 valid signatures were collected to put the issue on the ballot, the powers-that-be mounted a bizarre challenge to the petitions, claiming that the 14-point font size of the title on the petitions, generated by computer software, was not faithful to the 14-point font that used to be generated by printers back in the day."
The Michigan Supreme Court said otherwise. The issue got on the ballot, and Public Act 4 was voted down in 2012 by more than 240,000 votes.
"Then, the state Legislature scrambled to pass another nearly identical law," Paris said. "Public Act 436 - only this time they drafted the law to help make it referendum-proof. It was passed in that same lame duck session conservative smorgasbord that also brought us Right To Work."
In March 2013, Sugar Law challenged Public Act 436 in federal court, arguing violation of voting rights, representative government and equal protection.
"The state of Michigan attempted to argue that our lawsuit should be stayed by Detroit's bankruptcy, but we defeated that argument and were allowed to proceed in federal court," Paris said. "We are now waiting for Judge (George Caram) Steeh to rule on the state's motion to dismiss, which was argued this past April before a packed courtroom."
Paris views workers' rights cases as civil rights cases and has represented victims of racial, sexual and gender discrimination.
Said Paris: "My greatest satisfaction comes in watching the heroic fights my clients go through, not just during the case, but what they had to endure while on the job:
- A pregnant woman being told she could no longer work because it was her choice to get pregnant.
- A woman given the choice between a sexual relationship with her boss or not having a job.
- Workers who live in fear every day that if they assert their workplace rights, they'll be deported and torn from their families.
"For them to fight through that every day at work and then to have the perseverance to see a case through with all of the ups and downs that can bring it's satisfying and inspiring to even know these people and to fight to tell their stories."
He is elated that Wayne Law is strongly emphasizing the teaching of civil rights law.
"Kudos to Dean Jocelyn Benson, Associate Dean Lance Gable, Associate Dean Noah Hall and Professor Peter Hammer for all they've done to help recruit and foster students who are interested in civil rights," Paris said. "My advice to students interested in getting into this work, first and foremost, would be to keep following what gets you fired up. I would also tell them to clerk, intern and volunteer at as many different organizations as they can. And at each one, talk to the attorneys that work there to see what their lives are like and what types of successes they strive for, and also what they've had to trade to get them.
"Life is too short to spend just as a cog in a machine. Getting out of bed because of something you feel a need to do means more than because you have a bill to pay or because you're just afraid of being fired or not making partner of the firm or something."
Paris wants law students to understand that there's more to the law than just learning it and applying it to the facts.
"There's this disease that goes around where law students and even lawyers forget that the law is living and breathing and just waiting to fulfill American promises and dreams," Paris said. "If you wanted to just recite and enforce the law, you should probably have been a police officer or something. Our job is bring the law to justice. And the law isn't necessarily just what it says today but also what it should say tomorrow."
Published: Tue, Oct 07, 2014
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