McDonald's Corporation, Number One on Fortune's List of Best Companies for
Minorities, to Receive Corporate Leadership Award
CHICAGO, Aug. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Pulitzer Prize winning author Studs
Terkel will receive special recognition (in an award to be accepted by Alex
Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here, about life in a Chicago
Housing Authority development); and Judd Miner, longtime civil rights
attorney, founder of the Chicago Council of Lawyers, and former City of
Chicago Corporation Counsel, will receive the Edwin A. Rothschild Award for
Lifetime Achievement in Civil Rights, at the 35th annual meeting of the
Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Other award winners include 2004 Pro Bono Award winners Matt Piers,
partner in the law firm of Gessler Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym Ltd., and
lead counsel in Lewis v. City of Chicago, in which the Lawyers' Committee
represented over 6,500 African Americans who passed the Chicago Fire
Department's 1995 written entrance examination, but were denied an opportunity
to be hired as firefighters, and in which a decision from the trial judge is
expected in summer 2004; and Cindy Hyndman, partner in the firm of Robinson
Curley & Clayton, P.C., also counsel in Lewis v. City of Chicago.
Maryanne C. Woo, an associate in the firm of Sachnoff & Weaver, will
receive the Committee's Outstanding Young Lawyer Award for her contributions
to the Committee's legal team representing various organizations of African-
American, Hispanic, Asian and women contractors who intervened in a lawsuit
challenging the constitutionality of the City of Chicago's affirmative action
ordinance for construction contracts.
McDonald's Corporation, whose combined sales of its minority franchises
make it the largest black enterprise in the country, will receive the
Corporate Leadership Award, to be accepted by McDonald's General Counsel,
Gloria Santona.
Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page will keynote the 35th annual
meeting, to be held in the Grand Ballroom of the Palmer House. Mr. Page's
theme is: "A New Century of Rights Under Seige." Mr. Page will address
Patriot Act threats to civil liberties and reassessments of civil rights, as
civil rights advocates try to answer, for the 21st century, Dr. Martin Luther
King's question: "Where do we go from here?"
Commenting on the receipt of the award, Ms. Santona said, "McDonald's is
honored to be recognized by the Chicago Lawyers' Committee and Chicago's
leading law firms for our joint commitment to equal justice. In fact,
McDonald's demonstrates this commitment every day through its hiring
practices, supplier diversity and franchising opportunities. McDonald's has
the largest number of minority franchises in the quick-service industry, and
35% of all our purchases are from minority-owned firms. We're proud of this
record and seek to surpass it every day."
And Clyde Murphy, Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee, noted, "We
are pleased to have such a distinguished group of honorees for our 35th
anniversary, and look forward to celebrating the work of the Chicago Lawyers'
Committee with our many partners in the struggle for equal justice."
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee was founded in 1969. Its founders stated
the Committee's mission this way: "...the poor and the black can become full
and equal participants in our economic and political systems only when they
achieve the power to deal on equal terms with public and private institutions.
An essential element of that power is access to expert legal resources." For
further information about the Chicago Lawyers' Committee, or for tickets to
the annual meeting, call (312) 630-9744 or go to: http://www.clccrul.org .
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