United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund (UEAALDF) is a coalition of student organizers, activists, and attorneys committed to achieving integration and equality in America. This requires organizing and providing legal support to a new mass, integrated, youth-led civil rights movement that unites black, Latina/o, Asian, Pacific Islander, Arab, Native American, and white in a common struggle for equality. Affiliated with the college, high school, and middle school student organization BAMN (Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary), UEAALDF successfully conducts legal action and organizes protest to achieve its aims.

From 1997 to 2003, UEAALDF and its affiliate BAMN spearheaded the historic pro-affirmative-action student intervention in the landmark Grutter v. Bollinger case and organized the 50,000-person March on Washington that succeeded at getting the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold affirmative action in colleges and universities throughout the nation. This effort was recently chronicled in Eyes on the Prize III (2025).

We stand at a crucial juncture in race relations in America. Either we revive the struggle of Martin Luther King for genuine integration and equality, or we witness a New Jim Crow—a new, more hypocritical version of separate and unequal under the guise of "post-racial" politics.

Contribute to UEAALDF today to move America forward. UEAALDF is comprised mainly of student and youth activists who abound in leadership ability and determination, but lack adequate financial support. Below is more information about UEAALDF's current work. UEAALDF is a 501(c)(3) organization. Checks may be made out to UEAALDF and mailed to P.O. Box 24462, Detroit, MI 48224. Donations may be made using PayPal.

Defending Affirmative Action and Integration

UEAALDF has been fighting in the courts and in the streets to stop the right wing's effort to dismantle affirmative action and the gains of the Civil Rights Movement.

In Arizona in summer 2008, a small group of student activists with BAMN (an affiliate of UEAALDF), working on only a shoestring budget, defeated a multimillion-dollar fraudulent ballot petition drive by California Republican Ward Connerly that aimed to qualify an anti-affirmative-action initiative for the state ballot. This stunning victory was achieved through petition blocking and public protest, and speaking out about the initiative's fraud and racist aims.

UEAALDF pursued a federal lawsuit to overturn state bans on affirmative action in California (Prop 209), Washington (Initiative 200n), and Florida (One Florida Initiative) and strengthen affirmative action and integration nationwide. In November 2006, UEAALDF filed a federal challenge against Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative-action Michigan constitutional amendment, Proposal 2, and organized educational tours to mobilize students across the country to win this case. See UEAALDF's videotaped deposition of anti-affirmative-action activist Ward Connerly

On December 19, 2008, UEAALDF scored a victory defending the voluntary K-12 school desegregation plan of Los Angeles. UEAALDF mobilized hundreds of students and won the right to enter the case on their behalf, and argued aggressively for the preservation of Brown v. Board of Education.

Ending Separate and Unequal Treatment for Immigrants: We Are All America

UEAALDF is giving leadership to the potentially immense and powerful struggle for immigrant rights, organizing youth action to win the Dream Act, win a national Cesar Chavez Holiday, and to establish sanctuary schools and cities across the country. After BAMN student leaders organized walkouts in Los Angeles public schools on Cesar Chavez's birthday demanding that the school district honor the state's official Cesar Chavez holiday, the district voted March 24, 2009 to establish the holiday. UEAALDF's current work to win the California and Federal Dream Acts (which would end the discriminatory denial of college financial aid for undocumented immigrant students) is an opportunity to advance the struggle against racism and for equal educational opportunity in America.

We Need Your Support

Please make a generous donation today. UEAALDF is a 501(c)(3) organization. Checks may be made out to UEAALDF and mailed to P.O. Box 24462, Detroit, MI 48224. Donations may be made using PayPal.

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