50 years in the fight for equal justice
Victor Geminiani, founding director of Hawaiʻi Appleseed and career advocate for low-income and underserved communities, will retire on August 31, 2019.
In 1969, after graduating from Villanova Law School, Victor Geminiani became a National Service VISTA volunteer lawyer and joined three other young lawyers in an office of the Atlanta Legal Aid Society. In his first week, he helped organize a rent strike against a private landlord in a 200-unit housing complex to protest the substandard conditions in the complex. This launched a legal career—indeed a life—devoted to securing the rights of the poor and the vulnerable, including as Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Hawaiʻi from 1994 till 2005, and of Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice from 2007–2019.
After 50 years of service to communities throughout the country, Geminiani will retire from Hawaiʻi Appleseed at the end of August, 2019. Geminiani’s long-time colleague and co-executive director of Hawaiʻi Appleseed for the last two years, Gavin Thornton, will succeed him as executive director.
“Victor has never hesitated simply because something has not been tried before,” said Thornton. “His courage and convictions have propelled him to wage worthy battles for equity and justice in Hawaiʻi and throughout the nation, and to find creative solutions to complex poverty issues.”
As a young attorney, Geminiani filed one of the first federal class action jail closure cases in Georgia and secured permanent injunctions against two jails on the grounds that their inhumane conditions resulted in cruel and unusual punishment. Later in his career, while with the Legal Aid Society of Hawaiʻi, Geminiani became the key individual driving the landmark lawsuit captioned Legal Aid Society of Hawaiʻi v. Legal Services Corporation. Geminiani assembled co-plaintiffs and arranged for pro bono representation by prominent national law firms and the national American Civil Liberties Union, while also actively participating in its prosecution.
The resulting injunction by the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi voided federal prohibitions against Legal Services Corporation (LSC)-funded organizations bringing class actions, undertaking lobbying efforts, or engaging in other activities. The suit led LSC to change its regulations to permit organizations affiliated with LSC funded organizations to engage in class actions and lobbying. These changes led Geminiani to found Lawyers for Equal Justice (LEJ), which became Hawaiʻi Appleseed in 2011.
During his years with LEJ and Hawaiʻi Appleseed, Geminiani led the nonprofit, public interest law firm and policy organization through a series of victories for low-income Hawaiʻi residents. These include:
Successfully petitioning a federal court to enjoin the state from eliminating essential medical services to indigent Micronesians residing in Hawaiʻi, saving many lives;
Achieving several settlements totaling more than $3 million on behalf of tenants whose rents had been unfairly inflated by failing to make federally-mandated adjustments for increased electricity charges;
Successfully bringing suit against the state under the McKinney-Vento Act for failing to permit homeless children to attend their home schools and requiring the state to pay related transportation costs;
Compelling the state to satisfy federal requirements for timely processing food stamp (SNAP) applications, resulting in the state improving from the worst in the country in processing such applications to one of the best;
Requiring the state to significantly raise the rates paid to volunteer parents raising our foster children; and
Bringing lawsuits to compel the state to correct deplorable living conditions in some of Hawaiʻi’s oldest and largest public housing projects.
The public housing suits did what many thought impossible: they moved the state to commence or accelerate much needed repairs, such as restoring hot water and repairing elevators, which was especially important to the many elderly and severely disabled tenants who reside in public housing. In one of these cases, Hawaiʻi Appleseed’s efforts resulted in a $150 million redevelopment of one housing project, and also resulted in substantial increases in annual legislative appropriations to maintain public housing generally.
It was Geminiani’s recognition of a need to promote better laws and policies to truly give all of Hawaiʻi’s residents an opportunity to thrive—rather than simply enforcing existing policies through class actions—that led him to transform LEJ into Hawaiʻi Appleseed. With this change came a greater emphasis on research, policy analysis, community education, coalition building and legislative and administrative advocacy.
Since 2011, Geminiani has led Hawaiʻi Appleseed and its coalition partners in a wide range of advocacy efforts aimed at increasing the minimum wage, lowering the state tax burden on low- and moderate-income residents, increasing affordable housing, improving access to school meals for low-income children and limiting the proliferation of illegal vacation rentals.
Under Geminiani’s leadership, Hawaiʻi Appleseed continued to broaden its scope and deepen its impact. In 2018, the organization launched the Hawaiʻi Budget & Policy Center (HBPC) project to conduct data-driven research on Hawaiʻi’s state and county budgets and tax policy. This work built upon earlier tax-policy efforts of Hawaiʻi Appleseed, such as spearheading a coalition that successfully pushed through a state Earned Income Tax Credit in 2017 after several years of advocacy. Led by Beth Giesting, HBPC is part of a national network known as the State Priorities Partnership, consisting of 43 state budget centers—just one in each participating state—coordinated by the national Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
At the beginning of 2019, Hawaiʻi Appleseed revived the Lawyers for Equal Justice name, creating a litigation-focused project within Hawaiʻi Appleseed under Geminiani’s leadership. LEJ hired Thomas Helper as the project’s first litigation director, and he will take over leadership of the project upon Geminiani’s departure. LEJ is currently litigating a case to preserve the affordability of 142 units in the Front Street Apartments complex on Maui, as well as a case aimed at ensuring Hawaiʻi’s youth receive appropriate mental health services. The revival of LEJ is a fitting end to Geminiani’s long, distinguished career—a return to his roots of zealous legal advocacy and the vigorous pursuit of equity and justice for low-income and marginalized people.
“I was fortunate early in my career to find a meaningful way to use my law degree to support my passion for fair treatment and equality of opportunity for all along with freedom to exercise your rights to access some part of the American Dream,” said Geminiani. “I have been especially fortunate to have worked together with so many special people to help make a difference in this place we all love.”
