Summer 2004

Fighting Discrimination Through The Legal System
By Matt Keegan, Esq.
Matt Keegan is an attorney with the Augusta law firm of Johnson & Webbert. He and other members of his firm counsel and represent Native Americans who have unfairly been denied service at places open to the public or who have otherwise been discriminated against because of their race. He can be contacted at 623-5110.

I f you believe you were the victim of race discrimination, it is very important to contact an attorney. The attorney can advise you promptly and can evaluate your potential case and help you collect the evidence you will need to prove your case.

In order to win a discrimination case in court it is very important to have some type of evidence or proof that the poor treatment or unequal treatment you received happened because you are a Native American.

Often a dirty look or an irritated tone of voice will make you suspect that you are being discriminated against. However, your own personal reaction to someone else's facial expression or voice is often viewed as relatively weak evidence or no evidence at all in the legal system. The strongest type of evidence for a court case would be a racial insult or some type of negative comment about Native Americans.

Another type of evidence would be that non-Native Americans were treated better in the same circumstances. For example, you were made to wait in a restaurant for over an hour when non-Natives without reservations who arrived after you were seated in five or ten minutes.

Another useful type of evidence is when you can prove that the store or restaurant lied to you about the reasons for the poor service. For example, the host at the restaurant might tell you that white customers were seated before you, even though they arrived after you, because they had reservations. If, however, the host has no list of people with reservations, the host is likely lying. Being able to show that this kind of thing happened can help to prove that discrimination occurred.