Civil Rights Attorney Earns Loyola 校友会’s Highest Honor 

(New Orleans, La. – February 24, 2022) Next month, the 皇冠app官方版下载 校友会 will bestow its highest award on a nationally recognized education civil rights attorney and policy advocate. Victor Jones, 全国有色人种协进会法律辩护和教育基金的律师, 将会获得2022年调解员荣誉奖. This top award honors an outstanding graduate of Loyola whose life exemplifies the values and philosophy of Jesuit education — namely moral character, 为人类服务, 以及无可置疑的诚信.

“Victor Jones is the perfect recipient for this prestigious award,” said Dean Madeleine Landrieu, J.D. ‘87, H ‘05. “他体现了为他人做律师意味着什么. We are so very proud of him and his work and grateful for the many ways he reaches back to inspire others.”

Mr. Jones, 他2012年从洛约拉大学获得法律学位, 你会在星期天接受这项重要的荣誉吗, March 27, 2022, 在校友会的年度爵士早午餐和颁奖典礼上. 购票地点: promisesurfing.net/jazzbrunch.

受到同行的高度评价, Jones was selected by his classmates during law school to serve as their Student Commencement Speaker. Thereafter, he received an award from the Louisiana State Bar Association for volunteering over 100 hours of free legal services in child welfare proceedings in the greater New Orleans area. 

为洛约拉服务, Jones continues to mentor students through Loyola's Black Law Student Association, advising them throughout law school and assisting them with locating summer jobs and postgraduate opportunities. He has also served as a guest lecturer and guest judge for Loyola’s intramural moot court competitions.

Jones currently serves as an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the nation's oldest racial justice organization founded by Thurgood Marshall. In this role, he is one of the few remaining plaintiffs' school desegregation lawyers, 对路易斯安那州和阿拉巴马州正在进行的废除种族隔离的案件提起诉讼. 他对黑人和贫困公立学校学生的服务, demonstrates the Jesuit tradition of using your knowledge to better enhance the quality of lives of others. 

Previously, as lead attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, he filed suit against Sophie B. 新奥尔良的赖特特许学校, 成功使用小说, private sector contract theories to prevail in a civil rights student discipline case. Since then, the case has become a national template for education attorneys to ensure that students are provided with due process in discipline proceedings and are not subjected to exclusionary discipline practices that often disproportionately impact Black and disabled students.

他代表47人提起诉讼,500 Louisiana Medicaid-eligible children with mental illnesses who were not receiving home and community-based services. The lawsuit is regarded in the public health law community as the largest children’s mental health federal class action lawsuit filed in the Deep South. 

在立法方面, in June 2019, he co-drafted and successfully lobbied an education civil rights data advocacy bill that passed through the Louisiana House and Senate with zero opposition, Act 148 in 2019.

In 2020, he successfully represented two disabled students of color attending public schools in Jefferson Parish, who were suspended for 6 days and recommended for expulsion for allegedly waiving weapons on camera during virtual school instruction. 他的作品在当地和全国媒体上都有刊登, and prompted national dialogue on the “virtual school to prison pipeline.”

As General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor for the Louisiana Board of Regents in 2020 and early 2021, he drafted and successfully advocated for state-level higher education legislation matters concerning: student sexual misconduct prevention and victim’s rights; “cradle to career” longitudinal data; college access for military veterans; and increasing dual enrollment opportunities for urban and rural high school students. 

Jones has served as a subject matter expert in the civil rights of children and young adults, having provided media commentary on these issues in over 30 news articles, in local, state, 以及自2019年以来的国家出版物.

In February, 2021, New Orleans Magazine named Jones among “Six Changemakers of Color Leading the Way.在他的众多成就中, he was also named among Thomson Reuters Super Lawyers® Louisiana Rising Stars, 民权司, 2021. In 2020, he was named to The National Black Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 and received Gambit Weekly’s New Orleans 40 Under 40 Award in 2020. He earned the Louisiana State Bar Association Pro Bono Century Award in 2016. 

为新奥尔良皇冠365官方app服务, Jones has served as a member of the Audubon Commission (appointed by Mayor LaToya Cantrell), 杜兰大学课外活动的顾问成员, 泰勒教育中心, a support and advocacy organization for public school teachers in the Greater New Orleans area, and a mentor to the Legal Education Advancing Diversity (LEAD) Program, 迪拉德大学, 这是一项针对泽维尔大学法律预科学生的指导计划, Dillard, 以及新奥尔良南方大学. He has also served as a board member for the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights and Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center, as well as a volunteer attorney for the Louisiana Pro Bono Project.