June 19, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Mt. Airy hero honored for service to the powerless
by AMY GARDNER CRANSTON

David Culp, attorney from Mt. Airy, holds up the award he was given for his decades of service to victims of all forms of discrimination.

When David Culp, 65-year-old Assistant Professor of Law at La Salle University, graduated fourth in his class from Kansas University School of Law in 1969, his academic success opened many doors to high-paying jobs in prestigious law firms. However, the long-time Mt. Airy resident chose a different path. For almost 40 years, Culp has dedicated his life as a civil rights lawyer to representing those who have been discriminated against and underserved.

“I did corporate litigation first with a firm in Kansas City,” Culp told the Local this week, “but I used to sit in the library stacks reading about civil rights litigation. That’s what I really wanted to do, and that’s why I then went to work for the federal government.”

In recognition of Culp’s dedication to service, he was recently awarded La Salle University’s Brother Scubillion Rousseau Justice Award. The award was developed to honor La Salle faculty or staff members who understand their roles in creating a more just world. Remembered as the “catechist of the slaves,” Brother Scubillion Rousseau dedicated the last 34 years of his life to educating the enslaved natives of the island Reunion in the Indian Ocean.

When Culp accepted the award, he said, “I am very touched by the honor; it is wonderful to know there are other kindred spirits who share your values and dedication to social justice.”

“Dave is known to students and faculty alike as a person who habitually speaks out for the disenfranchised and the disempowered. Anyone who has taken his classes will readily tell you that he has infused his classes with a respect for the dignity for all people, and he has sensitized his students with a sense of social responsibility for those less fortunate than themselves,” said Majid Tavana, Ph.D., Professor of Management Information Systems at La Salle.

After graduating from Kansas University School of Law, Culp went on to earn his Masters of Law degree, with a concentration in Constitutional Law, from Columbia University School of Law. In 1975, he began working for the U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare. During his time working for the federal government, Culp helped desegregate school districts in the Midwest.

In 1978, Culp was named Deputy Regional Attorney for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Philadelphia, and he was named Acting Regional Attorney in 1981. In these roles, Culp was responsible for prosecuting Medicare fraud and civil rights violations against women, the handicapped and elderly, as well as people who had been discriminated against on the basis of race, national origin or religion.

Culp has been a partner in the law firm of Berry & Culp, P.C., a private practice he operates with his wife, Isobel Berry, since 1984. In private practice, he has remained dedicated to civil rights with approximately 80 percent of the work focused on civil rights litigation, including cases involving sexual harassment and discrimination based on race, age and handicap. “These battles are won in small, incremental steps,” he said.

In 1987 Culp took a racial discrimination case, (Perry v. Command Performance) all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — pro bono. The case involved a local African American woman in her 50s who went to a hair salon in the King of Prussia Mall and was refused service by a stylist who “does not do black hair.” Culp’s client, who was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she witnessed horrific examples of racism as a child, claimed that she was humiliated and sickened by the hair salon incident.

“She really did not bring the case to win a lot of money,” said Culp. “She would not even have brought the case if they had just given her a simple apology. This woman had been a hair model in France, and she actually had fine hair. We put an expert on the stand who made it clear that there is not all that much difference in the hair of black people and many white people who have coarse hair.”

The trial judge ruled against Culp’s client, but that judgment was overturned by the Third Circuit Court on appeal and sent back to the original judge for a new trial. However, Culp and his client then lost again, and they appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case. However, in 1998 the U.S. Supreme Court did take two similar cases and ruled that employers may not foster or condone racial discrimination. “We do feel that we were eventually vindicated,” said Culp, “because the Supreme Court did establish the very standard that we had sought.”

According to Tavana, “David Culp’s entire legal career has been one of service to social justice, and he brings that devotion into his work at La Salle.”