2024 has been jam packed with organizing and protesting so it’s only fitting that both of our annual celebration awardees are not just exemplary members of our movement lawyering community, they’re also dedicated activists.
This year’s Arthur Kinoy People’s Law Awardee Andy Thayer was once described as “a gigantic pain in the butt for law enforcement” by a retired Chicago Police Deputy Commander in a 2012 Sun-Times profile. For decades, Andy has been a mainstay of Chicago’s social justice movement, organizing campaigns and supporting young activists, all while serving as Loevy + Loevy’s office manager since 2003. As co-founder of the multi-issue, LGBTQ Gay Liberation Network, he has long worked to provide an intersectional voice within the LGBTQ community, helping spearhead the fight for equal marriage rights in Illinois years before “mainstream” activists joined the fight. He has focused on raising issues not popular with corporate gay activists such as support for Chelsea Manning, solidarity with Palestinians, opposition to gentrification, and opposing United States’ many wars.
NLG Chicago is also excited to honor Rifqa Falaneh with the Trailblazer Award. Throughout 2024, our Mass Defense Committee has worked with Rifqa to support students targeted by their universities for activism in support of Palestine. She is the Michael Ratner Justice Fellow at Palestine Legal where she challenges the censorship, surveillance, and suppression of advocates for Palestinian liberation. She is the founder of Bar None at UIUC Law, a civil rights organization dedicated to uplifting the legal struggles of marginalized communities. In the summer of 2022, Rifqa was an Ella Baker intern at the Center for Constitutional Rights where she worked on Palestine solidarity cases, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and research on aiding and abetting a tort in New York for international crimes. She previously served as President of SJP DePaul and helped re-establish SJP Chicago in 2019.
We hope that you’ll join us on September 28th at Haymarket House to honor these incredible members of our movement lawyering community!
