In lieu of flowers, please consider contributions to a public interest organization of your choice.
The Partnership for Civil Justice, a public interest organization, took the city to federal court on behalf of two antiwar groups, the National Council of Arab Americans and the Answer Coalition, which had been denied permits for a rally in 2004.
Michel Lee Scarsdale, N.Y., Oct. 21, 2009 The writer, a lawyer, is a senior adviser to the public interest organization Public Health and Sustainable Energy and formerly served on a panel of lawyers and doctors concerned about the inadequacy of regulatory standards to protect public health from the effects of environmental toxins.
"Princeton Alumni Want Undergraduates to Change World" (Education page, June 15) clearly describes the work of Princeton Project 55, an alumni-based public interest organization that has placed more than 1,200 Princeton students and recent graduates in paid positions at nonprofit agencies across the United States.
"It's an enormous victory for New Yorkers and for everyone who comes to New York City, not only for their free-speech rights, but for their rights to public space that belongs to the people," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer for the Partnership for Civil Justice, a public interest organization that challenged the regulation on behalf of two antiwar groups.
As Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, a public interest organization, put it, "There will be an incentive for whichever candidate is losing in the affected states to look for litigating opportunities as a result of the disrupted election".
But I also sought the views of public interest organizations and academic experts.
Furthermore, because of privacy laws, private individuals, academics, reporters and public interest organizations cannot effectively serve as watchdogs.
"Most of the money donated to political candidates, parties, and interest organizations comes from Americans at the top of the economic ladder," he writes.
Yet as voters are often described as badly informed and incompetent, the danger of manipulation by resourceful actors (parties, strong interest organizations, corporations, media) is a major issue.
The N.R.A. has been perhaps the best example of a dynamic common to many special interest organizations: it flourishes amid adversity.
