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UFW faces potential lawsuits over Chávez allegations
A Los Angeles attorney says women alleging childhood sexual abuse by César Chávez could have a strong legal case against the United Farmworkers decades later.
On Friday, the same week that a bombshell investigative piece alleged that civil rights icon César Chávez had sexually assaulted numerous girls and women, we interviewed noted Los Angeles attorney Luis Carrillo.
Carrillo was initially lawyer-like and analytical in his responses. I asked him the likelihood that women who alleged they’d been molested and raped by the civil rights leader when they were children could sue the United Farmworkers decades later — and win.
Of huge consequence was the detail that two girls said the assault took place in Chávez’s office. A secretary reportedly was seated outside the locked door in the exterior area, according to The New York Times .
Carrillo, who has sued and won on behalf of numerous sexual assault victims, felt the women had a strong case. First, he said, though, he would ask one of the many female attorneys on staff to simply listen to the accounts of these alleged victims so they could "be heard."
But it was the emotion that followed afterward that truly captured the story of César Chávez — the dismantling of a civil rights icon. Carrillo began to weep in his office. He shared that he so admired Chávez’s leadership on behalf of farmworkers that he traveled from Los Angeles to the Central Valley and took his baby son to meet Chávez in the San Joaquin Valley decades ago. He supplied the picture to FOX 11, showing that proud day.
When Chávez died in 1993, Carrillo traveled with his entire family for the massive funeral. He wasn’t alone. Fifty thousand people traveled to honor César Chávez. Everyone from politicians to Hollywood stars to regular people stood to pay their last respects to a man who symbolized hope and dignity. The burial was befitting of a great man.
Carrillo choked back tears, his words heavy with emotion as he recalled that day. "I thought no one could replace him. And now this?"
Luis Carrillo put into words what so many of us have been saying in the last week since the allegations of sexual assault came to light. Even Chávez’s co-leader Dolores Huerta said Chávez had raped her. For me, and countless others, March 2026 is the month that marked the end of César Chávez as a man, a movement and a myth.