Racial Justice

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Welcome to the Racial Justice Practice Area! This practice area strives to strengthen civil legal aid’s capacity and skills to advance racial justice. In this section, you can access materials related to racial justice across multiple substantive areas. You will find articles, toolkits, webinars, slides, videos, and other resources to enhance your knowledge about racial justice and to provide guidance on how to apply a racial equity lens to your work. 

Join the Race Equity Coalition! The REC promotes racial justice advocacy in Massachusetts legal service programs by:

  • sharing ideas, tools and local initiatives
  • collaborating to recognize and eliminate systemic barriers to the advancement and inclusion of Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American people from low-income households
  • engaging in work that advances racial justice. 

The Race Equity Coalition meets approximately once a month and sends out a bimonthly newsletter. You can join the mailing group by logging into Mass Legal Services, clicking “Join Email Groups” and requesting group membership to the Race Equity Coalition. 

Latest Content

Creating an Affordability Agenda

Jonathan Sallet
Cost is the primary reason that people do not subscribe to broadband. Current research suggests that low-income people can only afford to pay about $10 per month for broadband. One set of participants told researchers that affording $20 per month would be difficult; even at $10-15/month, low-income…

Digital divide persists even as Americans with lower incomes make gains in tech adoption

Emily A. Vogels, The Pew Institute
Roughly a quarter of adults with household incomes below $30,000 a year (24%) say they don’t own a smartphone. About four-in-ten adults with lower incomes do not have home broadband services (43%) or a desktop or laptop computer (41%). And a majority of Americans with lower incomes are not…

Considerations for Ensuring Data Aggregation Is as Inclusive as Possible

Jonathan Schwabish & Alice Feng, Urban Institute
Data analysts sometimes lump together populations with small sample sizes—often racial and ethnic groups—out of convenience. But doing so can have harmful effects on those communities. Combining groups with different experiences can obscure specific communities’…

Maternal deaths in the U.S. more than doubled over two decades with Black mothers dying at the highest rate

CBS News
Maternal deaths across the U.S. more than doubled over the course of two decades, and the tragedy unfolded unequally. Black mothers died at the nation's highest rates, while the largest increases in deaths were found in American Indian and Native Alaskan mothers. And some states…

DEI: Small, Practical Steps for Major Impact

Jessica Caspe, Esq., Employment Practices Solutions
Article provides three action items any business can take to create a more inclusive organization.  For small or medium-sized organizations with limited resources to dedicate to DEI efforts, determining how to meaningfully create a more inclusive work environment can be daunting.…