Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
non-profit organization in the USA
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) is a national non-profit civil rights organization formed in 1968 by Jack Greenberg to protect the rights of Latinos in the United States. Founded in San Antonio, Texas, it is currently headquartered in Los Angeles, California and maintains regional offices in Sacramento, San Antonio, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.
Background
MALDEF was founded in San Antonio in 1968 under the direction of Jack Greenberg. With the help of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), MALDEF got a $2.2 million grant from the Ford Foundation. The grant provided scholarships for more Mexican-American lawyers.
In its first three years, MALDEF handled mostly legal-aid cases. Then MALDEF took part in employment discrimination and school funding cases with LDF, including Supreme Court cases through friend-of-the-court briefs. Demetrio Rodriguez et al. v. San Antonio Independent School District was a defeat, with the court ruling against equal financing of education. White, et al.
The public source identifies “Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund” as non-profit organization in the USA. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mexican, American and Legal.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6825742. VIAF identifies the subject as 139550484. The Library of Congress control number is n80044402. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.