Our commitment to diversity extends to our pro bono legal work. We are particularly proud of our work in obtaining the first posthumous Presidential pardon in history, for Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper.
Lt. Flipper was the first African-American to graduate from West Point and to serve as a commissioned officer in the regular US Army. He was court-martialed in 1881 on trumped-up charges and discharged from the military. Lt. Flipper was granted a full pardon in a nationally televised White House ceremony attended by his descendants.
In addition, Arnold & Porter LLP has won several significant gender discrimination cases, including Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, a US Supreme Court case in which Arnold & Porter, together with the National Women's Law Center, argued that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs) provides a means of redress for one student's sexual harrassment of another. A divided Court held that schools may be liable for student peer harassment if the harassment is pervasive, if school officials are aware that the harrassment is occurring, and if the school takes no action to prevent the harassment from continuing.
In coordination with Lambda Legal, our attorneys have represented a man who sued the US State Department because of its prohibition on hiring persons with HIV in the Foreign Service. Arnold & Porter attorneys have worked with the Human Rights Campaign on its opposition to the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment and regularly staff the Whitman-Walker Legal Services Clinic for persons with HIV and AIDS. Our attorneys assisted Lambda Legal in its successful challenge to the Montgomery County, Maryland Board of Election's decision to place on the November 2008 ballot an already-enacted county ordinance granting antidiscrimination protection to transgender individuals. The European competition practice in the firm's Brussels office assisted Amnesty International Belgium in the preparation of a compilation of international treaty provisions relating to rights and protections afforded LGBT individuals.
The firm maintains special ties with many important public interest organizations that provide critical legal services to the disadvantaged, including the National Women's Law Center, the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, the National Partnership for Women & Families, and Lambda Legal.
Arnold & Porter LLP is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, veteran’s status, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Our firm's policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment. To achieve our goal of equal opportunity, Arnold & Porter maintains an affirmative action plan through which it makes good-faith efforts to recruit, hire, and advance in employment qualified minorities, females, disabled individuals, and covered veterans. EOE M/F/V/D.