{"id":42595,"date":"2022-03-18T09:17:10","date_gmt":"2022-03-18T13:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=42595"},"modified":"2022-03-18T09:19:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T13:19:34","slug":"coming-soon-the-alphonse-a-gerhardstein-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2022\/03\/coming-soon-the-alphonse-a-gerhardstein-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming Soon: The Alphonse A. Gerhardstein Papers"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Alex Temple, ARB Archivist<\/em><\/p>\n

The University of Cincinnati Archives & Rare Books Library is very fortunate to have received a large collection of the work of civil rights lawyer Al Gerhardstein. The collection represents nearly 40 years of cases supporting a broad spectrum of civil rights work.\u00a0 Gerhardstein began his career in litigation in 1976, working for the Legal Aid Society of Cincinnati, supporting equitable access to legal counsel for low-income people.\u00a0 Two years later, he joined Robert Laufman in practice \u00a0opposing employment discrimination, police misconduct, and championing prisoners\u2019 rights. His work snowballed from helping individuals finding their rights in the legal system to a legacy of fighting for systemic change in support of civil rights on a national level.\u00a0 The collection\u2019s focus includes, women\u2019s reproductive rights, prisoners\u2019 rights, LGBT rights, and addressing police misconduct.<\/p>\n

Notable cases in Gerhardstein\u2019s portfolio supporting women\u2019s reproductive rights, which are included in the collection, include Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati v. Project Jericho, et al. In Planned Parenthood v. Project Jericho, Gerhardstein fought to protect people trying to access services at the Planned Parenthood Association\u2019s temporary location from harassment by picketers, following the firebombing of the Margaret Sanger Center, where abortion services were previously administered.\u00a0 Harassment including grabbing women attempting to access services, intimidation, and blocking access.\u00a0 59 protestors were arrested and charged with contempt due to a violation of an injunction to regulate their protest.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Gerhardstein\u2019s highest-profile casework in support of prisoners\u2019 rights was for the prisoners of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio (Case No.: 1:93-cv-436). The Lucasville Riots took place over 11 days in April 1993, resulting in the death of 9 inmates and a corrections officer.\u00a0 Prison officials were charged for failure to protect inmates from the forces that caused the riot and during the riot from death, injury and property loss and for the unconstitutional conditions of confinement since the riot ended.\u00a0 In another case (Case No. 4:97-cv-1995), Gerhardstein challenged the conditions at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center (NOCC), Ohio\u2019s first private prison.\u00a0 Untenable conditions included high rates of violence, deaths, escapes, excessive force, prolonged solitary confinement, and poor medical care.\u00a0 The court challenge ended with an agreement to change the population allowed into the facility, as well as monitoring to act within standards set by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.\u00a0 Ultimately, the inability to meet these standards led to the closure of the facility.<\/p>\n

Following the shooting death of Timothy Thomas by Cincinnati Police officers on April 7, 2001, and subsequent city-wide protests, Gerhardstein led legal counsel in case (Case No. C-1-99-3170) to form the Cincinnati Collaborative Agreement, which became seen as a national model for police reform.\u00a0 The Collaborative Agreement included reforms on police use of force, accountability measures, terms to ensure bias-free policing, implementation of the Citizen\u2019s Complaint Authority for citizen review of police complaints, and measures to improve trust via Community Problem Oriented Policing.<\/p>\n

However, Gerhardstein\u2019s most recognized work was in support of marriage equality, in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges (Case No. 1:13-cv-501).\u00a0 Jim Obergefell and his husband, John Arthur, were legally married in the state of Maryland in July 2013.\u00a0 However, their marriage was not recognized by the state of Ohio.\u00a0 The discriminatory act on the state level led to Gerhardstein leading council for several consolidated cases challenging states\u2019 refusal to recognize same-sex marriages performed out-of-state.\u00a0 The case ended with the nation-wide legalization of same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n

The Alphonse A. Gerhardstein papers are currently being processed, but we will announce when the collection is open for research here on our blog. \u00a0In the meantime, please email the Archives and Rare Books Library at archives@ucmail.uc.edu<\/a> or call 513-556-1959 for more information on the collection.<\/p>\n

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By: Alex Temple, ARB Archivist The University of Cincinnati Archives & Rare Books Library is very fortunate to have received a large collection of the work of civil rights lawyer Al Gerhardstein. The collection represents nearly 40 years of cases … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[1250,2106,58],"class_list":["post-42595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-uclibraries","tag-civil-rights","tag-gerhardstein-collection","tag-urban-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42595"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42601,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42595\/revisions\/42601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}