The Barbara McDowell Foundation received 72 applications for its 2020 grant awards. This compares with 54 received last year and is significantly more than prior years.

Children’s Rights received a grant from the Foundation in 2018 in connection with its lawsuit (M.B. v. Corsi) against the Missouri Department of Social Services addressing the unsafe administration of psychotropic medications to children in foster care which were alleged to cause an unreasonable risk of serious physical and psychological harm.

The Barbara McDowell Foundation’s Tenth Anniversary Celebration Event was featured in Law.com’s online newsletter.

Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, along with Disability Rights Advocates and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, in coordination with the Barbara McDowell Foundation’s High Impact Pro Bono Litigation Project, secured a groundbreaking settlement that will have a profound, positive impact on those with disabilities in the nation’s capital and beyond.

The Barbara McDowell and Gerald S. Hartman Foundation (“McDowell Foundation”) encourages interested nonprofit organizations to apply for a 2020 social justice litigation grant.

The Foundation published its 2018 Annual Report detailing its accomplishments over the past year.

At the Tenth Anniversary celebration of the Foundation, Vincent Gentile gave introductory remarks and introduced Jerry Hartman, President of the Barbara McDowell Foundation.

At the Tenth Anniversary celebration of the Foundation, Matthew Roberts, talked briefly about Barbara’s work at the Solicitor General’s office and read remarks of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

At the Tenth Anniversary celebration of the Foundation, Katharine Deabler-Meadows, a Staff Attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (“NCLEJ”), talked about one of the cases that that is being litigated by NCLEJ, Drinker Biddle, New Economy, and the Foundation as part of the Foundation’s High Impact Project.

At the Tenth Anniversary celebration of the Foundation, Kate Jastram, an attorney with the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, a grantee of the Foundation, talked about one of the immigration cases that her organization has been litigating with the assistance of a grant received from the Foundation.

At the Tenth Anniversary celebration of the Foundation, Judge Patricia Millett of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who was a friend of Barbara’s and a colleague at the United States Justice Department’s Solicitor General’s Office, gave a talk about the significant and positive work that the Foundation and its High Impact Pro Bono Initiative have achieved over the past ten years to honor the memory of Barbara.

At the Tenth Anniversary celebration of the Foundation held at Drinker Biddle’s event space in its Washington, D.C. office, Jerry Hartman, President of the Barbara McDowell Foundation, gave a short presentation about Barbara’s beliefs in social justice and the history of the Foundation.

Prisoner’s Legal Services of Massachusetts, a 2019 grantee, has filed suit in their grant funded case challenging the Massachusetts law, M.G.L. c. 123, § 35, that authorizes the involuntary civil commitment in Department of Correction prisons of men but not women suffering from alcohol and substance use disorders.

The Public Interest Law Center provided an update on their 2018 grant.

As part of its High Impact Litigation Project, the McDowell Foundation, in conjunction with the law firm Drinker Biddle, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, and New Economy Project, filed a federal class action lawsuit charging the NYC Transit Authority, an arm of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with systemic due process violations.

All 2019 grantees were contacted in February in accordance with the Foundation’s requirements and reported the following with respect to the progress of their case and hours invested during the first quarter of their grant cycle.

Legal Aid of the District of Columbia where Barbara served as the Director of its Appellate Project prior to her death on January 2, 2009, sent its over 10,000 contacts an email on the tenth anniversary of her death recognizing her social justice work and the efforts of the Foundation to commemorate and continue those efforts.

The Foundation received 53 applicants for 2019 grants.

The Foundation received from the 2018 Grantees their year-end reports.

For 2019 the Foundation made grants at its September 2018 annual meeting to five organizations totaling $150,000.