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Black Families Overlooked, Misunderstood, and Underserved in the Family Courts

Jenae' Anderson, Zenell Brown and Viola King
Racial justice is critical to the American justice system and the mission to advance justice for all. As stakeholders examine efforts to create fairness in the justice system, it is imperative that internal standards and practices are critically examined. Implicit bias and racial inequality must be…

How to respond when a coworker says something offensive

Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow
First, when a colleague makes a biased remark, the situation usually feels tense and adversarial, which makes it more likely you’ll freeze up or bungle your reply. Second, as we’ve noted, sometimes an immediate response is necessary—you don’t want to let a harmful comment…

Immigrants and Public Benefits - Public Charge Information

MLRI
This page describes an immigration policy called Public Charge. It is generally safe to get benefits you and your family are eligible for. See Q&As below. This information is not legal advice. If you have questions, contact an immigration attorney. To see which immigrants are eligible for…

Framework for Evaluating Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps

upEND
The questions in this document provide a guide to analyze whether proposed reforms to family policing further entrench the family policing system or move us closer to abolition of family policing. The questions we ask are a reflection of the world we want to build—one without family policing…

Black Women’s Best Framework

Coined by Janelle Jones (2020), “Black women best” is an economic principle that argues if Black women—who, since our nation’s founding, have been among the most excluded and exploited by the rules that structure our society—can one day thrive in the economy, then it…

Centering Blackness: the Path to Economic Liberation For All

Anne Price, Jhumpa Bhattacharya, and Dorian Warren, Insight Center
This paper intends to provide a collective framework that addresses the intentional disinvestment, dehumanization, and exclusion of Black people from economic prosperity. The authors provide a detailed and thorough guide on how changemakers and policy experts can center Blackness at the forefront of…

Five Habits of Cross-Cultural Lawyering and More

Sue Bryant and Jean Koh Peters
Website that provides teaching and practice materials about cross-cultural lawyering in clinical legal education. We believe that all lawyering is cross-cultural, so teaching about cross-cultural lawyering is necessary if clinical students are to provide quality representation to their clients. We…

IMCO Policy Priorities for Healey-Driscoll Administration

Massachusetts Immigration Coalition (IMCO) Policy Priorities for the Healey-Driscoll Administration

IMCO Policy Priorities for the Campbell Administration

Massachusetts Immigration Coalition (IMCO) Policy Priorities for the Campbell Administration

Closing the Gap: The Need for Allies

Kelly Stout Sanchez
I was at a mediation in a large products liability case. A senior partner at my firm and I had been working on the case with out-of-state co-counsel. At one point in the mediation, the out-of-state counsel was talking with our clients about what to consider when and if the defendants got into a…

Equity Analysis Tool: NCLER Capacity Building Module

National Center on Law and Elder Rights
From the introduction: "The Equity Analysis Tool is intended to provide a flexible outline to approach equity issues in any particular project, policy or case and to be easily incorporated to a program’s every day work. This Tool provides a general framework for analyzing the…

Getting to Know Afghan Newcomers: Considerations for Culturally Aware Communication

Farid Saydee
In the last year, over 80,000 Afghan newcomers have arrived in the United States. As with most populations, there is a lot of diversity and complexity among Afghans, and knowledge of these nuances helps us better serve newcomers. Culturally aware communication is especially essential for strong…

Adultification Bias

Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality
Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality's website featuring their work to address how adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers. The quantitative data, collected under the leadership of Dr. Jamilia Blake, showed that even in the age bracket of…

Temporary Assistance For Needy Families: Sanctioning And Child Support Compliance Among Black Families In Illinois

Kathryn Kaplan, Suniya Farooqui, Jamela Clark, Emily Dobson, Rita Jefferson, Niya Kelly, Katherine Buitrago, Kimberly Drew, Aces Lira, Maxica Williams, Taishi Neuman, and Yoojin Kim
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a federal cash welfare program for low-income, working families with children in the United States that requires participation with child support enforcement, if one parent is noncustodial, to receive the cash benefit. Cash assistance has been linked…

The Adultification of Black Girls

Anti-Racism Daily
Black girls are perceived to be more mature and held responsible for how others see them, even as society consistently strips them of their autonomy. Black girls are disciplined and reprimanded more than their white peers, particularly in school. Generally, Black girls are more likely to…

Math teachers in virtual classes tend to view girls and Black students as less capable

Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, Ian Thacker, and Joseph Cimpian
Our experiment suggests teachers are identifying Black students as potentially having disabilities more often than white students who produced the same answers to math problems. Further, girls are not being given equal chances to be placed in gifted programs even when they give answers identical to…

The Case Against Summary Proceedings: Process as Racism and Oppressio

Andrew Scherer, Seton Hall Law Review
This Article argues that because of the many ways in which summary eviction proceedings privilege landlords and disadvantage tenants, their very structure is patently unfair. Moreover, because of the racialized nature of landlord-tenant relations, the summary eviction process perpetuates a…

The Lingering Legacy of Redlining on School Funding, Diversity, and Performance

Dylan Lukes, Christopher Cleveland
Between 1935-1940 the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) assigned A (minimal risk) to D (hazardous) grades to neighborhoods that reflected their lending risk from previously issued loans and visualized these grades on color-coded maps, which arguably influenced banks and other mortgage lenders…

Why schools’ going back to ‘normal’ won’t work for students of color

Adriana Villavicencio
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools were failing to adequately serve children of color. As a scholar of racial equity in K-12 education, I see an opportunity to go beyond getting students caught up. Rather than focus only on trying to close pandemic-related gaps, schools could…

EBT Skimming Flyer: SNAP benefits missing from your account?

MLRI
EBT card users are having their SNAP and cash benefits stolen following skimming of their card information by thieves. Attached is a flyer describing the issue and sharing information about what victims can do - please feel free to distribute this flyer to your community partners.

Changing the Housing Narrative by Talking About Race and Values

Glenn Harris, Michael McAfee & Dorian Warren
Three social change leaders discuss how to move the narrative about housing away from a focus on individual actions toward values, racial justice, and the well-being of all.

Dollars to Megabits, You May Be Paying 400 Times As Much As Your Neighbor for Internet Service

Leon Yin and Aaron Sankin, The Markup
An investigative piece that shows that across the country, AT&T, Verizon, EarthLink, and CenturyLink disproportionately offered lower-income and least-White neighborhoods slow internet service for the same price as speedy connections they offered in other parts of town.

Can’t we all just get along? A guide to conflict management styles

Allaya Cooks-Campbell
Conflict is an unavoidable part of any workplace, as well as in any relationship. Whether you’re at odds with a coworker, your spouse, or your best friend, how you manage those conflicts makes all the difference. It’s an essential part of building strong personal relationships and maintaining…

Black women endure legacy of racism in homeownership and making costly repairs

Robin Bartram
According to a 2022 analysis of federal census data by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, nearly a third of homeowners who earn less than US$32,000 – about 4.8 million people – spent nothing on maintenance or improvements. I have noticed worrying trends in the…

Affirmative action bans make selective colleges less diverse – a national ban will do the same

Natasha Warikoo, Tufts University
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in two lawsuits on Oct. 31, 2022, brought by a group that opposes affirmative action in college admissions. Here, Natasha Warikoo, a sociology professor at Tufts University and author of the newly released “Is Affirmative Action Fair?: The…

Equity in the Distribution of the Emergency Rental Assistance Program: A descriptive study of equity in the first-ever nationwide eviction prevention program

US Department of the Treasury
The first and second rounds of the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program provided over $46 billion USD in funding to states, territories, Tribal governments, counties, and cities (“grantees”) to prevent eviction and housing instability in the wake of the pandemic. Overseen by the…

Diverging Pathways: Immigrants’ Legal Status and Access to Postsecondary Credentials

Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix, MPI
This issue brief uses MPI’s unique methodology for assigning legal status to immigrants in the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to explore the characteristics of adults without postsecondary credentials, broken down by U.S. citizenship and legal status. In doing so, it…

Unpacking the Term Hispanic and the Homogenizing of Diasporas

Jumko Ogata-Aguilar
Hispanic? Latino/a/e/x? The terms have been used interchangeably to describe people with roots in Spain or Latin America. The lumping of the terms, specifically Hispanic, has been used to refer to a person from Spain, Chile, the Philippines, or Equatorial Guinea. But the ambiguous nature blurs…

How to Be an Ally

Maria Fernandez, Employment Practice Solutions
Article describing some steps and ideas to achieve supportive and inclusive work environments through better allyship.  We can all use allies, both in our personal and professional lives. Spend a few moments reflecting on your best work experiences. What comes to mind? You likely…

Do No Harm Guide: Additional Perspectives on Data Equity

Jonathan Schwabish, Alice Feng, Wesley Jenkins
When created with intention, data-based research can present a rich tapestry of evidence. Each data point a length of yarn, intertwining to present an engaging visual reflection of the research. But without enough high-quality yarn, enough colors and lengths, enough time spent weaving, or enough…

Hierarchy and Justice

Cyndi Suarez
In today’s organizational climate, where leaders are being held accountable for shifting their organization from a white supremacist culture to a more justice-oriented one, critiques of hierarchy are a key leadership challenge. I often hear leaders express frustration at not knowing how to respond…

How To Improve Race, Ethnicity, And Language Data And Disparities Interventions

Neil P. Rowen Brianna Van Stekelenburg Raman Nohria Robert S. Saunders Rebecca G. Whitaker
Considerations for state-based, multi-stakeholder approaches to collect, validate, and share REL data with the ultimate goal of advancing equity through clinical quality and social driver interventions that can improve the health and well-being of historically marginalized communities.…

Bullying incidents at Boston’s Mission Hill K-8 School spur federal lawsuit

James Vaznis, Boston Globe
The Boston school system is grappling with a federal lawsuit over its failure to protect students from bullying and retaliation at the now defunct Mission Hill K-8 School, as well as noncompliance with disability and civil rights laws, as the financial and emotional toll from the school crisis…

Let’s Talk Microaggressions And, no I’m not being “too sensitive”

Lola Rosario
It’s easy to be told non-white folks are being “too sensitive” or we should just “get over it.” All that does is exacerbate the situation — and pretend that what was said wasn’t such a big deal.  Of course, it’s a matter of perspective. What may…

Care Work in Massachusetts: A Call for Racial and Economic Justice for a Neglected Sector

Anne Calef and Luc Schuster
Care work has forever been critical to the health and basic functioning of our society. With the steady aging of our population, care jobs are also among the fastest growing in our economy. These jobs are staffed predominantly by immigrant women and women of color, so despite their societal…

Student Health Insurance Flyer

Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
In Massachusetts, college students must have health insurance. Students will be enrolled in their school-based insurance, unless they have other coverage and waive the school-based insurance by their school's deadline.    MLRI made the attached flyer (see English and Spanish…

Health Equity Policy Framework

MA Public Health Association
From the author: MPHA’s newly revised Health Equity Policy Framework, which guides our staff, Board, and Policy Council and helps us keep health equity and dismantling structural racism at the core of our policy work. Although many nonprofit organizations are committed to the…

Record Requests

MLRI & others
Attached are sample documents making a public record request to the MassHealth agency, and appealing from the agency's failure to supply the requested records.  The Secretary of State oversees compliance with the state public record law & puts out a guide to the law. This…

Closing the "SNAP Gap" and Moving Toward a Common App! 2022 Updates!

MLRI
What is the MA SNAP Gap? The SNAP Gap is the difference between the number of low-income Massachusetts residents receiving MassHealth who are likely SNAP eligible and the number of people actually receiving SNAP. In Massachusetts, the size of this gap is approximately 700,000 MA…

We All Have A Role In Changing Dominant Narratives To Those Of Racial Justice

the Opportunity Agenda
What does it take for people to change their minds and shift dominant narratives about social issues? It starts with having conversations that can dismantle inaccurate perceptions. Stories must be told through an affirmative lens and focus on shared values. The narrative you are trying to advance…

States Can Reduce Medicaid’s Administrative Burdens to Advance Health and Racial Equity

Suzanne Wikle, Jennifer Wagner, Farah Erzouki, and Jennifer Sullivan
Medicaid is the largest health insurer in the United States, at over 80 million enrollees.2 Its numerous benefits to enrollees include greater likelihood of completing school, higher wages, better health outcomes, and less medical debt compared to those who are uninsured, as well as services that…

Building a Guaranteed Income to End the "Child Welfare" System

Melody R. Webb, Esq.
It is time for policy makers to reimagine and dismantle the child welfare system. This Article provides background on disparities in the child welfare system and argues that policymakers have used the child welfare system to police poverty and regulate Black families. It asserts that poverty…

We Thought You’d Never Ask! Learning From Boston’s Black Community What Supports Its Health, Resilience & Wellbeing

Fenway Health and Black Boston COVID Coalition
A report of key findings, voices that informed those findings, and powerful wtories shared by Boston’s Black community.  The report reflects community research to learn more about what works to improve the health care, health, resilience, and wellbeing of Boston’s Black…

Toward Evidence-Based Antiracist Policymaking: Problems and Proposals for Better Racial Data Collection and Reporting

BU Center for Antiracist Research
This policy report examines the state of racial and ethnic demographic data collection and reporting in the U.S., and offers policy recommendations to improve such systems. In particular, this report demonstrates the need for a standardized and nation-wide system of racial data collection and…

2022 Important MA 2nd chance legislation

pquirion@gbls.org
SEE ATTACHED FACT SHEETS AND ASK THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE TO FAVORABLY REPORT THE BILLS  H1763  S10372. An Act providing easier and greater access to record sealing (Rep. Malia, Sen. Friedman). Requires automatic sealing of records after the applicable waiting period by the…

Self Represented Litigation Network

SRLN
SRLN connects lawyers, judges and allied professionals who are creating innovative and evidence-based solutions so that self-represented litigants have meaningful access to the courts and get the legal help they need. Click the "Go to Website" link below to access resources from…

SIJ Deferred Action Memorandum and FAQ

MLRI
USCIS implemented a new Deferred Action/EAD policy for Special Immigrant Juveniles (SIJs) subject to the backlog (SIJs not immediately eligible to adjust to lawful permanent resident status). While we don't know everything about this policy yet, we are gratified that USCIS is finally…

MLAC's Economic Benefits Statements

Massachsuetts Legal Assistance Corporation
The work of MLAC-funded legal aid programs substantially boosts the Commonwealth’s economy each year by bringing in millions of federal dollars, improving the economic condition of low-income clients and other residents and saving the state millions in costly social services. Click the…

Senate Ways and Means FY 2023 Budget Proposal: MLRI's Preliminary Analysis of Selected Issues

MLRI
On May 10, 2022, the Senate Committee on Ways and Means released its budget proposal for fiscal year 2023 (FY 23), which is referred to as Senate 4.  MLRI offers this preliminary analysis of selected budget topics affecting low-income residents of the…

¡Avancemos Ya! Persistent Economic Challenges and Opportunities Facing Latinos in Massachusetts

Trevor Mattos, Boston Indicators Phillip Granberry, Ph.D. and Vishaka Agarwal, Gastón Institute at UMass Boston
From the introduction: Massachusetts is among the wealthiest states in the country, and yet Latino communities here have struggled economically relative to Latinos nationwide. There have been some bright spots—poverty rates have decreased and Latinos now have higher rates of…