Collection Guide
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California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.
M0750
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. records
creator:
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
creator:
California Rural Legal Assistance Incorporated
Identifier/Call Number: M0750
Physical Description:
420 Linear Feet
(167 manuscript boxes; 214 cartons; 7 half-boxes. From 2016-042: 27 manuscript boxes; 2 half-boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1966-2000
Date (bulk): bulk
Abstract: The records of the California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA) contain administrative files, litigation files, and special
program and subject files, dating from the founding of the organization in 1966 through circa 2000. Materials in the collection
document CRLA's ongoing work to provide legal aid to farmworkers and the rural poor in California.
Physical Location: Special Collections and University Archives materials are stored offsite and must be paged 36-48 hours in advance. For more
information on paging collections, see the department's website: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/spc.html.
A small amount of material with privacy and confidentiality issues has been closed for 75 years from the date the material
was created. Within this guide, this material will be marked with a Restricted Material note at the file level, specifying
the extent of the closure period.
The materials are open for research use. Audio-visual materials are not available in original format, and must be reformatted
to a digital use copy.
The records of the California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA) contain administrative files, litigation files, and special
program and subject files, dating from the founding of the organization in 1966 through circa 2000. Material in the collection
documents CRLA's ongoing work to provide legal aid to farmworkers and the rural poor in California and highlights particular
priority areas where advocacy efforts were focused, including employment, education, immigration, health and environmental
safety. Also included in the collection are numerous files related to CRLA's development and survival as an organization.
The history of its funding and re-funding by the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and the Legal Services Corporation (LSC)
is particularly well documented. The majority of material within the collection originated from CRLA's central administrative
office in San Francisco, although some records from regional branch offices are present as well.
The collection was processed by Joseph Geller; with Adelina Acuña, Destin Jenkins, Kimberly Koshiyama, Ashley McDonnell Lawyer,
Beth Noyes, Liam O'Hanlon, and Rebecca McNulty Skirvin.
The California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. records were processed under a grant from the Council on Library and Information
Resources (CLIR).
This collection was given by the California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. to Stanford University, Special Collections in 1995,
2005, 2011, and 2013 (accessions 1995-085, 2005-077, 2011-059, 2011-160, and 2013-009). Materials from accessions 1995-085,
2005-077, 2011-059, and 2011-160 were processed between March 2011 and February 2013 and are listed in this finding aid.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the
Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California 94305-6064. Consent
is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission
from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner, heir(s) or assigns. See: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/pubserv/permissions.html.
Restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research
and educational purposes.
The collection is organized into nine record groups:
Record Group 1. Board of Directors
Record Group 2. Directors
Record Group 3. Administrative and Financial Files
Record Group 4. Communication and Development Files
Record Group 5. Advocacy
Record Group 6. Program Files
Record Group 7. Audiovisual Material
Record Group 8. Government Relations
Record Group 9. Born-Digital Material
Materials within an individual record group, or within a series or subseries of an individual record group, have been arranged
alphabetically by box title. Box titles and subtitles may include a general description (i.e. financial files), a format term
(i.e. pleadings) a subject term (i.e. mechanization), or the name of a specific legal case or individual person. Legal cases
are alphabetized by the name of the primary plaintiff or defendant. As a second level of arrangement, some boxes have been
organized chronologically (i.e. meeting files and similar types of material have been arranged chronologically when possible
and relevant).
The majority of the collection has been described at the box level. Descriptions are meant to give researchers an overall
sense of what will be found in the entire box but are not exhaustive and do not list the contents of every folder.
Founded in 1966 through a grant from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA)
was the first federally-funded rural legal services program as well as the first such statewide program. CRLA provides legal
services to farmworkers, particularly migrant farmworkers, and the rural poor in California. James D. Lorenz Jr. was the founding
director of CRLA and organizers César Chávez, Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong were all members of its founding Board. There
have now been five other directors: Cruz Reynoso, Martin R. Glick, Richard Baca, Alberto Saldamando, and the current director,
José R. Padilla, whose tenure began in 1984.
As one of the original "War on Poverty" programs, CRLA was nationally renowned for pursuing high-impact class actions that
benefitted millions of low-income people in California and nationally until the 1996 "Gingrich Congress" prohibited federally-funded
legal services from participating in class-action litigation. Today, CRLA continues to assist individual clients and communities
through alternative forms of litigation, remaining steadfastly committed to advocating for the rural poor as a class in order
to address the root causes of poverty. To achieve this goal, CRLA has developed an effective organizational structure, with
a central administrative office in San Francisco as well as numerous regional branch offices located near rural communities
within California. Regional offices allow CRLA to make its services available to clients where they live, while the central
office is able to direct priorities for the organization as a whole.
CRLA has traditionally focused its advocacy efforts around a set of strategic priority areas, including employment, housing,
education, immigration, civil rights, health, and environmental safety. The organization has achieved legal success in all
these areas. For example, an early CRLA advocacy effort led by Ralph S. Abascal—who joined CRLA as a staff attorney in 1968
and later became CRLA General Counsel for over twenty years—resulted in the eventual banning of DDT and other pesticides in
the early 1970s. Other examples of successful litigation include Carmona v. Division of Industrial Safety (1975), a case that
CRLA argued in the California Supreme Court and that led to the banning of
EI Corito, the crippling short-handled hoe.
Other notable CRLA cases include Diana v. Board of Education (1970), in which CRLA challenged the practice of placing non-native
English speakers into classes for the mentally disabled. CRLA was also instrumental in the passing of the Chacon-Moscone Bilingual-Bicultural
Act of 1976, and enhanced the power of this Act in the case of Comite De Padres de Familia v. Riles (1985), which further
defined the state's responsibility for supervising bilingual education programs. CRLA also achieved a victory for undocumented
immigrants by securing the addition of the Special Agricultural Worker provision to the Immigration Reform and Control Act
(IRCA). The provision allowed a million undocumented workers to become legalized. CRLA went on to litigate two of three "late
amnesty cases" filed in the federal courts in California against the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for its
misadministration of IRCA: Catholic Social Services (CCS) v. Meese (1986) and Zambrano v. INS (1988). During litigation that
spanned over twenty years, the CCS case was argued at all levels of the federal courts including before the U.S. Supreme Court.
CRLA's priorities are revisited at least once every five years in the form of Statewide Priorities Conferences, and are also
addressed through the formation of specific task forces aimed at identifying, understanding, and raising awareness about issues
affecting the organization’s rural clients. Additional changes CRLA has undergone include the establishment of a Migrant Unit,
in order to more effectively address issues faced by migrant farmworkers. Over the years, CRLA has worked hard to remain independent
and true to its original mission, which has included collaboration with other legal services groups, such as the Mexican
American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), through activities such as co-counseling and the joint filing of amici
briefs.
Despite being consistently praised by its clients and recognized by organizations such as the American Bar Association for
providing high-quality legal services CRLA has been particularly subject to politically motivated efforts to defund the organization
and has been forced to struggle for its survival. The 1970 veto by then Governor Ronald Reagan of CRLA's federal, OEO funding
is perhaps the most notable example of this type of attack.
CRLA's relations with Reagan had been tense ever since CRLA litigation successfully blocked his attempts to cut California's
welfare programs in 1967. Following these defeats in court, Reagan appointed Lewis K. Uhler, a former member of the John Birch
Society as director of the State's OEO, an appointment that seemed clearly aimed at undermining CRLA. Uhler compiled and submitted
to Reagan a report that listed 127 alleged incidents of CRLA misconduct, ranging from misuse of OEO funds to intentionally
inciting prison riots. The report failed to acknowledge any of CRLA's significant accomplishments. On December 26, 1970, Regan
vetoed the OEO $1.8 million grant for CRLA's 1971 refunding.
Although Reagan's veto was no surprise, the outrageous and libelous allegations contained in the Uhler Report prompted CRLA
and its supporters to launch an ambitious campaign to save the organization. CRLA demanded an investigation into the Uhler
charges and submitted its own report that refuted each incident cited in the Report. The Nixon administration appointed a
commission consisting of the Chief Justices of three state Supreme Courts (all of them Republicans) to investigate. This commission
conducted hearings throughout California (in which Uhler himself refused to appear or participate) and ultimately concluded
that all the charges against CRLA were false.
The Uhler Report controversy was not only a formative moment in CRLA's history but by exposing the vulnerability of legal
services to political attacks, led to the bi-partisan creation of the federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC) with the goal
of reducing state and local interference under the OEO funding scheme. This controversy and its implications have been examined
in numerous articles and studies, including the 1973 article published in The
Hastings Law Journal by legal scholars Jerome B. Falk and Stuart R. Pollak,
Political Interference with Publicly Funded Lawyers: The CRLA Controversy and The Future of Legal Services. The controversy is also treated in Michael Bennett and Cruz Reynoso's 1972 article in the
UCLA Chicano-Latino Law Review,
California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA): Survival of a Poverty Law Practice.
Reagan's gubernatorial experience with CRLA led him throughout his subsequent Presidency to consistently seek the elimination
of LSC and all federally-funded legal services. His efforts were continually blocked in Congress. Notwithstanding his inability
to eliminate LSC, Reagan used his presidential power to appoint LSC members dedicated to eliminating the programs through
politically-motivated investigations that interfered with program operations and often resulted in decreased funding. A continuing,
decades-long series of audits, investigations and extraordinary conditions imposed on funding by LSC and/or its Office of
Inspector General, have consumed thousands of hours of CRLA staff time and pro-bono efforts from supporting members of the
Bar. In 1981, to help offset program cuts due to decreases in funding, CRLA and its supporters created the CRLA Foundation
(CRLAF). The Foundation receives no federal funding, and is therefore able to undertake significant work that CRLA cannot
because of federal restrictions on LSC-funded organizations.
Despite the many challenges CRLA has faced, the organization has shown a remarkable resilience throughout its nearly fifty
years of operation. CRLA continues its unique mission, providing legal representation and other assistance to farmworkers
and the rural poor in California, and has evolved into one of the most effective advocacy programs in the United States.
[identification of item], California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. Records (M0750). Dept. of Special Collections and University
Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Mexican Americans
Legal aid -- California
Migrant agricultural laborers -- California.
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
Rosenbaum, Stephen
Pearl, Richard M.
Reynoso, Cruz
Gonzales, Richard A.
Reagan, Ronald
California Rural Legal Assistance Incorporated
Abascal, Ralph S.
White, Tony
Lorenz Junior, James D.
Uhler, Lewis K.
Baca, Richard
Glick, Martin R.
Miller, Tom
Chavez, Cesar, 1927-1993
Rasmussen, Barbara
Padilla, José R.