A program is looking for Montanans to represent people in courts on tribal reservations, who often lack access to legal assistance when they need it.

The Tribal Advocate Incubator Project wants to train lay advocates - that is, people who are not lawyers by profession - to represent folks in tribal courts across the state.

"Tribal lay advocates will represent tribal members in tribal court regarding civil legal matters," said Valerie Falls Down, tribal advocacy coordinator for the Montana Legal Services Association, "including divorce and custody, landlord-tenant disputes, wills and probate, real estate and land issues."

Montana's seven reservations are mostly rural, and a 2017 study found the poverty rate was 30% on the state's reservations. The Montana Legal Services Association is teaming up with the University of Montana law school and the Indian Law Section of the State Bar on this training program.

The Montana Legal Services Association provides free legal advice and services to low-income Montanans. Falls Down said cost often is a major barrier to representation in court.

"Someone who is low income would not otherwise be able to afford paying a lawyer, which is high priced," she said.

Because each tribal court system is different, she said lay advocates would have to be licensed in that system in order to represent clients.

"What we want to do with this program is, we want to train local people in each tribe," she said, "so that they can represent [clients] in their own community."

Falls Down said her organization is identifying candidates, and the program's first training will start in May.

With an average hourly wage of under $15 in 2021, many Nebraska agricultural workers would be hard-pressed to afford an attorney if they needed one for a workplace issue.

A Legal Aid of Nebraska program, the Agricultural Worker Rights Program, fills the need by providing free legal representation to income-eligible agricultural workers.

Danny Reynaga, managing attorney for the program, said discrimination is "pretty rampant," for Nebraska ag workers, and it can take many forms, from overt to subtle. But he stressed not all the complaints are actionable, and not all workers experiencing discrimination choose to pursue charges.

"They, for whatever reason, maybe are afraid of retaliation from that employer," Reynaga explained. "Maybe because they are still working for that employer. Or, perhaps, they don't want to raise a stink because they are going to need that employer to give them some sort of reference for their next job."

Reynaga pointed out their clients do not have to be Nebraska residents but their complaint must have originated in Nebraska. As with other services Legal Aid of Nebraska provides, the Agricultural Worker Rights Program has an upper income eligibility limit: 125% of federal poverty guidelines. Currently, it is $18,250 for an individual.

Reynaga emphasized under some circumstances someone earning up to 200% of federal poverty guidelines, or just over $29,000 for an individual, could qualify. He added pay-related issues are another common type of complaint.

"Ag workers tend to work very long hours, and keeping track of those hours isn't necessarily always the top priority of the employer, and so sometimes that hour tracking becomes an issue," Reynaga observed. "They're not getting paid what they're supposed to be, and what they work for."

As in other states, Nebraska is seeing more ag workers on H-2A temporary visas due to the ongoing labor shortage. Reynaga said foreign workers can be more susceptible to rights violations, sometimes because their rights were not explained to them and sometimes because of language barriers.

He explained although the people they represent typically must have legal status, an exception can be made if someone is the victim of a crime, such as labor trafficking, which he pointed out may not fit peoples' image of trafficking.

"Labor trafficking can mean somebody is being essentially held against their will because their documents are being held, or their wages are being garnished, or their employer is just overstepping their bounds," Reynaga outlined.

Reynaga acknowledged some agricultural worker rights violations are unintentional, and their outreach includes informing both employees and employers about the rights workers have. He stressed there are many good ag employers in Nebraska and many ag employees who report being happy.

The access line for the Agricultural Worker Rights Program is 1-877-250-2016.


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Groups fighting for Palestinian rights are praising a new fact sheet on religious discrimination from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, because of what it left out.

The document does not include a definition of antisemitism written by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Former President Donald Trump issued an executive order in 2019 requiring federal agencies to consider the IHRA definition when investigating Title VI complaints of discrimination.

Lina Assi, advocacy manager for Palestine Legal, said the definition and the accompanying examples conflate criticism of the Israeli state with antisemitism.

"We mostly have seen it with shutting down events and punishing students and professors that speak about life as a Palestinian," Assi recounted. "And we believe that definition not only violates our constitutional right to free speech, but also perpetuates anti-Palestinian racism and discrimination."

In a statement, IHRA said the working definition is non-legally binding, and the organization does not track implementation of it at the state or local level. Last year, pro-Israel attorneys filed a federal discrimination complaint against University of California-Berkeley after student groups passed a bylaw pledging not to host Zionist speakers.

Assi noted last March, the student government at Arizona State University questioned an event with a pro-Palestinian poet and journalist before ultimately allowing him to speak.

"A student government committee first attempted to condition the approval of the event to say that the speaker needs to refrain from criticizing Israel," Assi pointed out. "Student government officials stated falsely that the university and the federal government had adopted IHRA and that they were required by law to adhere to the definition."

The pro-Israel Brandeis Center has called for the IHRA definition to be codified into a formal rule.

Meanwhile, 17 civil rights groups wrote to the federal government, asking for the IHRA definition to be excluded from the fact sheet.

Lawmakers in the Commonwealth are considering legislation to ensure police use of facial-recognition technology also protects people's privacy and civil rights.

Massachusetts was one of the first states to implement restrictions on the technology as part of a sweeping police reform law in 2020. A special legislative commission, which included police and civil liberties activists, then developed even greater restrictions on use of facial-recognition software.

Kade Crockford, Technology for Liberty program director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, called the latest bill a 'win,' both for police and the public.

"The police can use the technology to help them solve very serious crimes," Crockford pointed out. "And the public can benefit not only from that, but also from regulations that protect our basic privacy and civil rights at the same time."

The current bill would require police to obtain a warrant to perform a facial recognition search and ensure the results of the search alone cannot be used to arrest someone or obtain a search warrant.

Facial-recognition technology can be faulty and has resulted in the false arrests and incarceration of people across the country.

A federal study found the majority of algorithms are less accurate with Black, Asian and Native American faces, while other research finds some algorithms misidentify Black women nearly 35% of the time.

Crockford argued by passing the legislation, lawmakers can prevent those types of mistakes from happening here.

"Because if they do, it would make Massachusetts a leader, not only here in the United States, but really, worldwide," Crockford asserted.

The legislation passed the House last session, but failed to get a vote in the Senate. Crockford hopes former Attorney General, now Gov. Maura Healy's previous support of the bill will improve its chances this year.