Fordham International Law Journal, Vol. XLIV Statement of Solidarity
The Fordham International Law Journal, Vol. XLIV writes to express our solidarity with the Fordham Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and the greater Black community. The ILJ Board strongly condemns all acts of violence and racism, including the recent senseless killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade. These acts of violence are illustrative of the United States’ history of racially charged brutality by police and private citizens alike against African-Americans, and of our country’s inexcusable failure to rectify the glaring disparities in our judicial and criminal justice systems..
As an academic journal, the ILJ has a responsibility to educate our peers and to provide a forum for candid conversation on the nature, causes, and effects of pervasive racism in the United States. Law students and lawyers are uniquely positioned to combat prejudice in many industries and areas of American life, and have a duty to illuminate the policy implications involved and guide others on the actions that must be taken. To this end, the ILJ Board of Editors hopes to stimulate this difficult, but imminently necessary discourse and has compiled a list of academic articles addressing racism against African Americans in the United States in five areas of law:
Criminal Justice
Labor & Employment
Media
Family Law
Voting Rights
We ask those in privileged positions to educate themselves on the systemic racism within the United States. We challenge those in the legal community to confront the bias in our ranks, for we cannot be effective advocates when we ourselves do not recognize the egregious legacy of wrongs done against the Black community.
And to our BLSA peers and colleagues, we stand with you. We understand our solidarity is not enough, and ILJ commits itself to be a vehicle of change. We commit to doing more, and doing better.
Sincerely, Board of Editors, Volume XLIV Fordham International Law Journal
RACISM AND THE LAW
Racism in Criminal Justice
Police unions sometimes block efforts to reform criminal justice programs, particularly those that would foster accountability and transparency in police units' interactions with African-Americans (a.k.a. "sunshine legislation").
By framing their policy agendas as benefiting the public interest, police unions have achieved increased protections for officers, rather than greater accountability in recent years.
Read: Katherine J. Bies, Let the Sunshine In: Illuminating the Powerful Role Police Unions Play in Shielding Officer Misconduct, 28 Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 109 (2017), available at https://law.stanford.edu/publications/let-the-sunshine-in-illuminating-the-powerful-role-police-unions-play-in-shielding-officer-misconduct/.
Racism in the Workplace
Discrimination in the workplace is not limited to clear hurtful statements and obvious prejudicial actions from colleagues and supervisors.
Discrimination happens at a more subtle level when someone unconsciously holds a Black individual to a higher standard than a non-Black peer.
Read: Christopher Cerullo, Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist? Reconciling Implicit Bias and Title VII, 82 Fordham L. Rev. 127 (2013), available at http://fordhamlawreview.org/issues/everyones-a-little-bit-racist-reconciling-implicit-bias-and-title-vii/.
Racism in the Media
Statements disseminated in the media regarding crimes allegedly committed by Black individuals are often racialized and biased.
These pre-trial publicity biases can be mitigated, particularly through reform in jury instructions and voir dire processes.
Read: Bryan Adamson, Reconsidering Pre-Indictment Publicity: Racialized Crime News, Grand Juries, and Tamir Rice, 8 Ala. C.R. & C.L. L. Rev. 1 (2017), available at https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/745/.
Racism in Family Law
For the African-American community in NYC, Family Court often represents a battleground for the custody of children where value judgments and decision-making tainted by racial bias carry the day.
Conditions in Family Court that perpetuate biased practices include the use of caseworkers to conduct investigations in private child custody proceedings, which undermines the due process rights of litigants.
Read: Leah A. Hill, Do You See What I See – Reflections on How Bias Infiltrates the New York City Family Court – The Case of the Court Ordered Investigation, 40 Colum. J.L. & Soc. Probs. 527 (2006-2007), available at https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/400/.
Racism in Voting Rights
Implicit bias infiltrates the voting process from initial resource allocation to election day, especially when officials have discretion in decision-making.
Analyses of structural barriers to voting--and subsequent discrimination--can and should be considered in our current legal framework of voting rights.
Read: Arusha Gordon & Ezra D. Rosenberg, Barriers to the Ballot Box: Implicit Bias and Voting Rights in the 21st Century, 21 Mich. J. Race & L. 23 (2015), available at https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol21/iss1/2/.
ORGANIZATIONS TO MOVE FORWARD
Though we are in the midst of a global pandemic which is keeping us apart, we urge our fellow Fordham Rams to consider supporting these organizations which are committed to assisting the Black community during this difficult time:
1. George Floyd Memorial Fund : funds will be used to cover funeral expenses, counseling, lodging/travel for court proceedings, assistance to the family of George Floyd, and the care and education of George Floyd's children.
2. The Loveland Foundation: organization established in 2018 by activist writer and lecturer Rachel Cargle; proceeds go to providing free therapy sessions for black women and girls, giving access to often cost-prohibitive therapy to those who need it.
3. Campaign Zero: donations go to identifying solutions, providing research & data to organizers and policymakers, and advocating to end police violence nationwide.
4. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund: proceeds go to helping the NAACP win landmark cases, protect voters, and advance the cause of racial justice, equality, and an inclusive society.
5. Black Visions Collective: an organization dedicated to black liberation and collective liberation; donations go towards supporting the organization's strategic campaigns to expand the power of Black people across Minnesota.
6. Community Bail Funds (Community Justice Exchange): the National Bail Fund Network is made up of over 60 community bail and bond funds across the country. Proceeds go to freeing people by paying bail/bond and fighting to abolish the money bail system and pretrial detention.
7. The ACLU: leading nonprofit that works to defend and preserve individual rights and liberties; proceeds go to funding the ACLU's work to protect voting rights, demand that vulnerable people in prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers be released, and reform policies that unfairly target people of color.
8. National Bail Out : Black-led and Black-centered collective of abolitionist organizers, lawyers and activists building a community-based movement to support our folks and end systems of pretrial detention and ultimately mass incarceration; proceeds go towards bailing out community members, providing supportive services, and resource groups who are organizing to transform the criminal justice system.
9. Black Lives Matter: global organization whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities; donations go towards fighting to end state-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people, and end white supremacy.
10. Color of Change: the nation's largest online racial justice organization, aims to help people respond effectively to injustice around the world, moving decision-makers in corporations and government to create a less hostile world for Black people in America; donations go towards supporting the organization's work in challenging injustice, holding corporate and political leaders accountable, commissioning research on systems of inequality, and advancing solutions for racial justice.
11. The Innocence Project: organization that works to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing, and to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice; proceeds go towards supporting the organization's mission.
12. Minnesota Freedom Fund: community-based nonprofit that combats the harms of incarceration by paying bail for low-income individuals who cannot afford to, as they seek an end to discriminatory, coercive, and oppressive jailing; proceeds go towards supporting these efforts. (*please note that this organization has been flooded with support, and is now asking that individuals to donate to smaller community-based groups*)
13. Unicorn Riot: educational non-profit media organization; proceeds go to helping Unicorn Riot build a platform that focuses on primary source reporting and on-the-ground coverage, bringing people fact-based, non-corporate media.
14. Reclaim the Block: organization that organizes Minneapolis community and city council members to move money from the police dep't into other areas of the city's budget that truly promote community health and safety; donations go towards ensuring that Minneapolis funds real investments in community safety - including violence prevention, housing, resources for youth, emergency mental health response teams, etc.
15. Communities United Against Police Brutality: Twin-Cities based organization that was created to address police brutality; its goal is to create a climate of resistance to abuse of authority by police organizations and to empower local people with a structure that can take on police brutality and actually bring it to an end; donations go towards supporting this mission.
16. The Equal Justice Initiative: non-profit that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. Challenges the death penalty and excessive punishment, and works to provide re-entry assistance to formerly incarcerated people; donations go towards ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the US, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
17. The Brennan Center for Justice: donations go towards the organization's efforts to make elections fair, end mass incarceration, and preserve individual liberties - in Congress, the states, the courts, and the court of public opinion.
18. The Southern Poverty Law Center: organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society; uses litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy to work towards realizing equal justice and equal opportunity in America. Donations go towards supporting the organization's legislative battles and critical ballot initiatives.