Metro

Bill Goodman from page A19

A Lifetime
Of Defending
Civil Rights

Who: William "Bill" Goodman, civil
rights attorney

Positions: Partner in Goodman &
Hurwitz, Detroit; teaches constitu-
tional law, Wayne State University
Law School, Detroit; former law
director, Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR), New York

Age: 68

Resides: Detroit

"The Civil Rights struggle was a base that allowed people themselves to enforce the Constitution of the United States," says
Bill Goodman.

lawsuits against the FBI on behalf of
Walter and Frances Bergman and the
Liuzzo family. As Freedom Riders to the
South, the Bergmans were beaten, he so
badly he was confined to a wheelchair for
life, and Viola Liuzzo was murdered by the
Klu Klux Klan.
When hearings were conducted in 1975
by the U.S. Senate Select Committee to
Study Governmental Operations, it came
out that an FBI informant had participat-
ed in the beatings and had given the FBI
advance notice of the plans.
"Bill was instrumental in our winning
this lawsuit, which really was of historic
proportion:' says Moss, an Ann Arbor resi-
dent who grew up in Southfield.
He also successfully represented the
Detroit chapter of the NAACP in cases
against the insurance industry for redlin-
ing and against the city of Dearborn for
a law that prohibited non-residents from
using its public parks.
"Bill Goodman is on the perfect
avenue to continue the work of his father,
Ernie Goodman:' says attorney Mayer
Morganroth, principal in Morganroth &
Morganroth, Southfield, who found him-
self on the opposing side in the mayoral
proceedings.
"I think his work is outstanding;'
Morganroth says. "He's always advancing
causes and people whether he makes money
or not. His heart is in the right place'
Although Goodman isn't observant,
"some sort of Jewish humanism has guid-
ed me he says.

9 11 Tests Constitution
After his dad died in 1997, Goodman

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November 13 • 2008

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became legal director of the Center for
Constitutional Rights, with headquarters
in New York City.
"I was largely responsible for shaping
the center's docket after 9-11:' he says.
"The CCR became involved in cases that
are still a major part of its work and con-
tinue to dominate the American political
scene years late'
They include the Guantanamo deten-
tions and extraordinary rendition cases
and the case filed against the president
and the National Security Agency for ille-
gal electronic surveillance.
"In particular, I developed and initiated
Turkmen v Ashcroft. This case challenges
the Bush/Ashcroft post-9-11 policies that
criminalized thousands of immigrants of
Middle Eastern and South Asian descent.
"President [George W.] Bush and Vice
President [Dick] Cheney have been largely
responsible for making it harder to get
courts to correct the injustices of govern-
ment," Goodman says.

Better Times Ahead

But many of these situations will "go

away" under an Obama presidency,
Goodman predicts. "I think that (Gitmo'
will slow down because the new president
will end or diminish it as well as black
sites [secret CIA prisons] and extraordi-
nary renditions:'
It was during two years as a partner in
Moore & Goodman, a New York civil rights
law firm, that the firm along with the CCR
settled the NYPD racial profiling case.
That was also when Goodman served
as lead counsel for Sheik Mohammed Al
Moayad in the cutting-edge criminal trial

in which he was convicted of terrorism. "I
lost. I was very sad:' Goodman says.
Last month, however, the guilty verdict
was reversed by the Second Circuit Court
of Appeals. "I feel vindicated since the
appeals court held that the trial judge
should not have overruled my objections
and should not have allowed the admis-
sion of all sorts of prejudicial and irrel-
evant evidence Goodman says.

Return To Roots
Goodman moved back to Detroit from
New York in 2007 because he felt his three
teenage boys "needed a male parent close
at-hand" rather than his every other week-
end visits.
He and his former wife, Julie Hurwitz,
formed a new civil rights law firm, located
in a historic house on East Jefferson that
also houses his brother Dick's law firm,
Goodman & Kalahar.
There, Bill proudly displays a photo-
graph taken of his father at age 89 as he
was arrested for his sit-in in support of
the wrenching Detroit newspaper strike.
His dad and Crockett, who later served
as both a Detroit Recorders Court judge
and in the United States Congress, were
on his mind as Obama was elected the
nation's 44th president. "I think my dad
would have been absolutely thrilled and
Crockett even more so:' Goodman says.
Goodman also thought about the
African Americans he worked with in the
heat of the Civil Rights movement. "I was
working with wonderful young people,
passionate and articulate and brilliant.
There was no reason they should be held
back — and they were held back." ❑

Education: Graduated Mumford High
School, Detroit; A.B., University of
Chicago, 1961; J.D., University of
Chicago, 1964, Associate Editor,
University of Chicago Law Review

Honors: Champion of Justice Award,
Michigan Trial Lawyers Association,
2003; Public Interest Trial Lawyer
of the Year, Trial Lawyers for Public
Justice, 2003; Honoree, National
Lawyers Guild, Detroit Chapter
Annual Dinner; Honoree and Keynote
Speaker, Columbia Law School Public
Interest Awards Banquet, 2006

Family: Six children: Amy, 42, graph-
ics designer, Chicago; Michael, 40,
on leave of absence as director of a
community foundation, Livingston,
Mont.; David, 36, social worker
(MSW) who works with disturbed
teenagers, Portland, Ore.; Jacob, 21,
senior studying film and media at
the University of Chicago; Nicholas,
18, freshman at Hampshire College
Amherst, Mass., and Daniel, 15,
10th grader at the Roeper School,
Bloomfield Hills; two grandchildren

Heroes: Len Holt, an African
American civil rights lawyer he
worked with during the Civil Rights
struggle, and Albie Sachs, a white
attorney who defended people
charged under South Africa's rac-
ist statutes and repressive security
laws, whom he met during a trip to
South Africa during the Apartheid
period. "Both had tremendous cour-
age."

