NEW YORK — Twenty-four years after five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongfully imprisoned and convicted for raping and beating a White female jogger in Central Park, hundreds of activists converged in the park Saturday to demand that the city settle a lawsuit filed by the men now known as the “Central Park Five.”
Holding signs and chanting, the activists also called attention to an online petition that is currently circulating, calling on Columbia University to fire part-time law professor Elizabeth Lederer who along with Linda Fairstein were the lead prosecutors who handled the botched 1989 case.
“Elizabeth Lederer was among those who destroyed the lives of these young men by moving forward with her case even though there was no credible evidence, except coerced confessions demanded by police officers,” says Charles Johnson, a community activist and an alumnus of the Ivy League school. “It’s scary to think that she is now training the next generation of lawyers. She really needs to go.”
Fairstein, who headed the Manhattan sex crimes unit from 1976 until 2002, stepped down from her position in 2002 and is now a novelist. But Lederer still works full-time as an assistant district attorney. She could not be reached for comment, and David M. Schizer, dean of the law school, did not return several calls seeking comment.
Though the Black Law Student Association at Columbia has not formally taken a position on Lederer, several students contacted by Diverse anonymously expressed concerns about her visible teaching role on campus.
Calls for Lederer’s ouster intensified recently after a documentary made by filmmaker Ken Burns and his daughter Sarah was broadcast on PBS. Trisha Meilli, a 28-year-old investment banker, was raped and beaten, reportedly by a “wilding” mob of Black and Latino youth.
