Expanding Economic Opportunity
The Expanding Economic Opportunity Project is committed to opening avenues of opportunity and challenging discrimination and inequality, so that everyone has a chance to contribute and thrive in American society. Because the economy works best when it works for everyone, opportunity has never been a zero-sum game. This project focuses on preserving and strengthening civil rights protections in law and policies that have the potential to benefit everyone and dismantle discriminatory barriers. We pursue advocacy, advise leaders, advance policies, build tools, and convene thinkers to advance equal opportunity and help connect people from all communities to the levers of opportunity, including people from communities of color and others historically sidelined in our economy.
Transportation Justice
The Transportation Justice Project explores the role of transportation infrastructure in creating or dismantling barriers to opportunity. Transportation has always been both a reflection and a driver of inequality. Our transportation systems shape who gets to feel like they belong, who enjoys access to the opportunities that this country offers, who gets to live with safety and dignity, and who gets locked out and left behind. Transportation is the infrastructure of equitable education, good health, economic opportunity, and a vibrant democracy. Rooted in the belief that mobility is a civil right, this project examines how roads, highways, transit systems, and land use decisions have historically divided and displaced communities—particularly communities of color—and how those patterns continue today. We work to reform transportation policy and planning to support equitable development, repair past harm, and ensure that all communities have safe, reliable, and affordable access to opportunity. Our work includes legal and policy research, community-driven advocacy, litigation, and collaboration with transportation planners, government agencies, and impacted residents.
Rights in Common
The Rights in Common Initiative is grounded in the belief that communities have collective rights—not just individual ones—to protect, access, and govern the places and resources that shape their lives. In an era of accelerating privatization, exclusion, and disinvestment, this project seeks to affirm and strengthen the legal and political claims that communities hold over shared spaces and systems—from parks, sidewalks, and libraries to broadband, public utilities, and community institutions.
The project supports efforts to resist the erosion of the commons and to build models of community-led stewardship, governance, and equitable access. Through legal research, policy development, public education, and strategic partnerships, Rights in Common works to uphold the right of communities to shape their environments and exercise democratic control over the resources essential to their wellbeing and collective future. The Project also works to reclaim and reimagine the legal, cultural, and political significance of public space and shared resources that are essential to civic life and community flourishing. Through legal analysis, public education, and collaborative policy design, we support a vision of the commons that centers dignity, belonging, and democratic participation.
The Right to Remain
The Right to Remain Project aims to protect the ability of long-standing residents—particularly in historically marginalized communities—to remain in place and benefit from investments in their neighborhoods. As gentrification, displacement, and speculative development reshape cities and towns, this project focuses on housing justice, anti-displacement policy, community land ownership, and the legal tools necessary to ensure dignity, stability, and opportunity for residents. We work alongside communities to develop and advance strategies that protect residents, support equitable development, and promote community-led planning. The project draws from civil rights law, housing policy, and grassroots advocacy to affirm that people have a right not only to housing, but to remain and thrive in the communities they call home.
Voice and Power
The Voice and Power Project is dedicated to advancing the First Amendment rights that enable communities—especially those historically excluded from power—to speak, protest, organize, and shape the policies that affect their lives. At the heart of community equity is not only access to opportunity, but the ability to demand justice, challenge injustice, and exercise collective power.
In a time of increasing criminalization of protest, suppression of dissent, and shrinking public space, this project defends the rights of communities to express themselves freely, to assemble peacefully, and to participate meaningfully in democratic life. We provide legal research, advocacy, strategic counsel, and public education to ensure that laws and policies protect—not silence—community voice. The Voice and Power Project also works to expand civic infrastructure that supports community engagement. By defending these foundational freedoms, we strengthen the ability of all communities to claim their place, assert their dignity, and shape their futures.