Please fill out this form to support NLG law student member, Jamie Marsicano. We are accepting signatures from allied organizations as well as individual attorneys, legal workers, law students, faculty, and concerned community members. You can read the text of the letter below and send any questions to NLG Director of Research and Education Traci Yoder at traci@nlg.org.
Deadline to sign on is Friday, May 5 at 12pmET/9amPT.
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To: Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and the members of the UNC Emergency Evaluation and Action Committee,
The National Lawyers Guild objects to the EEAC Committee's decision to ban University of North Carolina law student and NLG member Jamie Marsicano from the campus and not allow her to attend her classes after being arrested at a music festival in Atlanta this March. Along with the hundreds of UNC students, faculty, and alumni who have signed the letter protesting the EEAC decision, NLG is asking that (1) Jamie be allowed to finish this semester alongside her peers and complete all of her classes; and (2) Jamie be allowed to return to in-person classes, until she graduates, with no conditions.
The NLG has spoken out publicly condemning the domestic terrorism charges against Jamie and the others arrested. These astonishing charges were made with no available evidence and clearly in an attempt to intimidate a growing national movement against police brutality and environmental degradation. Denying bond to everyone arrested and detaining people for weeks with no evidence is a shocking and unprecedented example of prosecutorial overreach.
Along with 40+ other legal, environmental, and human rights organizations—including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—the NLG has argued that "prosecutors have made a number of alarming and specious arguments that function to criminalize not only constitutionally protected rights to speech and assembly, but also the exercise of various rights to legal counsel, support, and education." The NLG, along with a growing number of individuals and organizations, is advocating to have all charges of domestic terrorism dropped.
We are proud to name Jamie as a NLG member, student leader, and NLG Haywood Burns fellow. Jamie has been a member of the NLG since she began law school and was President of the UNC NLG Chapter last year. In that time, the UNC NLG Chapter has grown to one of our most vibrant and dynamic law school chapters, in no small part due to Jamie's skillful organizing and joyful leadership style. The NLG was honored to offer Jamie a summer fellowship to learn from a criminal defense attorney in order to prepare herself for a career as a public interest lawyer. She is an exemplary model of an aspiring movement attorney, and should be allowed to continue her studies.
As an organization that has long protected the right to dissent and fought the repression of social justice movements, NLG is alarmed to see one of our members being targeted for her political activism and being disciplined with the presumption of guilt by her law school. We urge the UNC administration to revise the EEAC decision and allow Jamie to continue her legal education.
Sincerely,
NLG National Executive Committee
