MacArthur grant nonprofit winners include law school center, retired justice's civics program
The MacArthur Foundation is awarding grants ranging from $350,000 to $1 million to nine nonprofits, including a law school’s human rights center and a civics program founded by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
The Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley’s law school received a $1 million grant, while iCivics received a $750,000 grant, according to this announcement. The full list of groups who received a 2015 MacArthur Award for Creative & Effective Institutions is available here.
The Los Angeles Times has a story on the grant to the Human Rights Center, which uses science and technology such as DNA analysis to gather evidence of war crimes. The MacArthur grant will fund an endowment and expand the center’s sexual violence program, according to the MacArthur Foundation website.
The iCivics website has classroom resources and online video games that put students in the role of president, jurors or lawyers advising citizens of their rights, according to the MacArthur website. O’Connor has led a push to bring back civics education, pointing to test results showing that fewer than half of America’s eighth graders know the purpose of the Bill of Rights.
Other groups receiving MacArthur grants include the John Howard Association of Illinois, an independent watchdog over Illinois prisons (getting $500,000), and the National Institute on Money in State Politics, which collects campaign finance data (getting $1 million).
