James C. Harrington is a Texas civil rights lawyer and founder of the

Texas Civil Rights Project Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas, that advocates for voting rights, racial and economic justice, and criminal justice reform. It was formed in 1990 by attorney James C. Harrington. ...

. Dedicated to social justice, he fought for workers' rights alongside Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. Harrington had a reputation for taking on powerful adversaries, including the

Texas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) is the supreme court, court of last resort for civil matters (including juvenile delinquency cases, which are categorized as civil under the Texas Family Code) in the U.S. state of Texas. A different court, the ...

and the

Texas State Bar The State Bar of Texas (the Texas Bar) is an agency of the judiciary under the administrative control of the Texas Supreme Court. It is responsible for assisting the Texas Supreme Court in overseeing all attorneys licensed to practice law in Te ...

. He worked on a variety of cases, including civil rights, worker's rights, racial discrimination, as well as many cases under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Harrington was an adjunct law professor at

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, popular with students who sought more than a theoretical perspective. James

Early life

Influenced by his Irish Catholic childhood and summers working with migrant farm workers in Michigan, Harrington grew up wanting to help the poor. At first he studied to be a priest, however after eight years he had a revelation that he could be a more effective advocate as a lawyer. He enrolled in law school at the University of Detroit, where he met Rebecca Flores. They married in 1972. The next year they moved to Texas and Harrington began working for the Texas branch of the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

Career

Harrington worked with the Texas branch of the American Civil Rights Union from 1973 to 1990. He collaborated with the organizing and litigation efforts of

United Farm Workers The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing ...

and

Cesar Chavez Cesar Chavez (born Cesario Estrada Chavez ; ; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later merged ...

to secure farm workers' rights to sanitary facilities, toilets, and drinking water in the fields. Harrington served as Chavez' lawyer for 18 years. They also secured unemployment benefits, workers’ compensation, and the right to know about dangerous chemicals used in the workplace. In 1981 they won a Texas ban on the use of the short-handled hoe, which caused permanent injuries to farm workers. In 1978, Harrington founded Oficina Legal del Pueblo Unido, Inc. (OLPU) as a grassroots foundation in South Texas. Its South Texas Project, led by Harrington, became the Texas Civil Rights Project in September 1990. The establishment of Texas Civil Rights Project marked the end of Harrington working for the Texas Civil Liberties Union. He said that the TCLU more interested in classic civil liberties issues, like free speech, while he was focused on racial justice issues. Under Harrington's leadership, the TCRP had a significant impact, winning many civil rights cases. These included the areas of disability rights, rural economic justice, compliance with Title IX, the criminal justice system, racial discrimination, police brutality and the right to privacy. After leading the TCRP for 25 years Harrington retired in 2015. In a departing piece published in the

Texas Observer ''The Texas Observer'' (also known as the ''Observer'') is an American magazine with a liberal political outlook. The ''Observer'' is published bimonthly by a 501(c)(3) Since retiring from TCRP, Jim Harrington has served as the director of Proyecto Santiago at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Austin and was ordained to the priesthood in 2020. In 2023, Harrington authored a complaint asking the Texas State Bar to stop

Ken Paxton Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr. (born December 23, 1962) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the Attorney General of Texas since January 2015. Paxton has described himself as a Tea Party conservative. Paxton was re-elected to a th ...

from practicing law in the state, accusing him of abuse of office and other misconduct, including bribery and organized crime. Three former State Bar of Texas presidents and ten other lawyers joined Harrington in the complaint.

Bibliography

* (2014) ''Three Mystics Walk Into A Tavern'' (by James C. Harrington and Sidney G. Hall III)

References

External links

FROM MICHIGAN’S STRAWBERRY FIELDS TO SOUTH TEXAS’S RIO GRANDE VALLEY: THE SAGA OF A LEGAL CAREER AND THE TEXAS CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT, CUNY Law Review (vol. 19.2)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrington, James C. Living people American lawyers Activists from Texas Year of birth missing (living people) Labour lawyers American civil rights lawyers