Judith Brown Chomsky is an American human rights lawyer. She was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
in 1942, and is the sister-in-law of MIT professor
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...
.
She became involved with politics when she participated in demonstrations in the 1950s for the right of
African-Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...
to use non-segregated lunch counters.
Early life
Chomsky wed David Chomsky, M.D. (1934–2021), younger brother of Noam Chomsky, in 1960; they were married for over 60 years, until his death in July 2021. Together, they had two sons. Chomsky was a graduate student in anthropology when she joined a project to organize grassroots opposition to the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
. She left graduate school and spent the next several years as an organizer with the Philadelphia Resistance, primarily with anti war GIs (
active duty
Active duty, in contrast to reserve duty, is a full-time occupation as part of a military force. In the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations, the equivalent term is active service.
India
The Indian Armed Forces are considered to be o ...
in the military) and with
Vietnam veteran
A Vietnam veteran is a person who served in the armed forces of participating countries during the Vietnam War.
The term has been used to describe veterans who served in the armed forces of South Vietnam, the United States Armed Forces, and ot ...
s. As the US participation in the war wound down, Chomsky decided that her family circumstances as a mother of two did not permit her to work as an organizer. She decided to go to law school so that she could participate in the same struggles with new skills better suited to her personal life.
Career
In 1975, with three law school friends, following her graduation from
Temple Law School
The Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law is the law school of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1895 and enrolls about 530 students.
Student body
Admission for fall 2019 entering class was highly comp ...
, she became a co-founder of the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia. After a few years, she had the opportunity to represent migrant farm laborers and to begin the
Workers Rights
Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, these rights influe ...
Law Project to serve workers who were trying to organize within their
labor organization
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (su ...
to create more democratic and active unions. She was contacted by the
Center for Constitutional Rights
The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
to help prepare a case involving civilian deaths from the Israeli occupation. This began her current work life as a cooperating attorney with the CCR, where she works on cases in their international
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
docket.
On July 19, 2008, Chomsky filed a status report on
Civil Action
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil act ...
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
was filed on August 16, 2005. In response the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...
filed a redacted and incomplete factual return on June 5, 2006. Additionally, on 26 April 2007, a DTA appeal under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005—Almerfedi v. Gates (Civil Action No. 07-cv-1132).
Chomsky served as an
election observer
Election monitoring involves the observation of an election by one or more independent parties, typically from another country or from a non-governmental organization (NGO). The monitoring parties aim primarily to assess the conduct of an electi ...
in the 1994 election in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
and in the 1984 election in El Salvador.
On June 13, 2007, she represented Colombian families in a federal
class action
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
,
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
for funding and arming known
terrorist organizations
A number of national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and fo ...
(designated by the United States Secretary of State) in Colombia to maintain its profits.
On November 26, 2008, Chomsky filed a "Petitioner's opposition to the government's motion for clarification and reconsideration of this court's November 6, 2008 case management order and supplemental amended order with regard to Waleed Said Bn Said Zaid (ISN 550) in Civil Action No. 05-CV-1646 (JDB)."
On July 19, 2008, Chomsky filed a status report on behalf of Waleed Said Bin Said Zaid. In her report Chomsky stated his petition was first filed on August 16, 2005. She reported that the United States Department of Justice filed an incomplete and redacted factual return February 22, 2006. She reported that a DTA appeal under the
Detainee Treatment Act of 2005
The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) is an Act of the United States Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on 30 December 2005. Offered as an amendment to a supplemental defense spending bill, it contains provisions re ...
had been filed, Zaid v. Gates (Civil Action No. 07-1131) on 26 April 2007.
She was one of the lawyers from the
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
. On June 9, 2009, Shell settled out-of-court with the Saro-Wiwa family and nine other plaintiffs, for a total of $15.5 million, which included a sum towards a trust benefitting the Ogoni people, though claiming it was only a gesture of sympathy and still denying culpability in his death and the deaths of the other so-called
Ogoni Nine
The Ogoni Nine were a group of nine activists from the Ogoni region of Nigeria who opposed the operating practices of the Royal Dutch Shell oil corporation. Their members included outspoken author and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa, Saturday Dobee, Nor ...