University of California Hastings College of the Law
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Special Joint Meeting of the Finance Committee & Audit Subcommittee Meeting - Notice and Agenda 04/15/2025
No full textAcademic Village Finance Authority Board of Directors Meeting - Notice and Agenda 04/24/2025
No full textThe Racial Justice Act: A Real Solution or a Just Step in the Right Direction?
No full textThe American criminal legal system is built upon racism and inequality. Some effort has been made to critique and correct the impact of those legacies. Although many steps have been taken, racism is far from erased from the legal apparatus. It demands contemporary solutions to contemporary legal dynamics. One of the attempts is the California Racial Justice Act of 2020 (RJA). The RJA has sought to remedy these challenges with a more robust understanding of how racism operates within the criminal legal system. Although the RJA appears to reflect a more nuanced understanding of how race operates, I argue that it is not a sufficient redress to the problems embedded in the system. I illustrate the limitations of the RJA by framing it as a reformist measure in contrast to the more substantial paradigmatical shift of abolition which seeks to deconstruct these oppressive systems rather than simply remedy partial issues therein.
I argue that abolition is the necessary remedy for ridding the legal system of oppression and racism by highlighting the historical conditions upon which the modern legal system was built and the inextricable relationship between such a system and racial discrimination.
First, I detail the aspirations of the RJA and contrast its goals with how the Act has performed in practice. Then, drawing upon critical legal frameworks and personal experiences with RJA advocacy work, I elucidate how the RJA could operate ideally, but demonstrate that it is still inadequate to address the needs of the people who are incarcerated and those facing trial
Racial Capitalism and the Proliferation of Charter Schools in Oakland
No full textOver the last thirty years, charter schools have flooded the American public education system. The publicly funded and privately operated alternative to neighborhood district schools is often celebrated as a means for under-resourced students to receive a quality education. However, the effect of charter school growth on districts themselves and the students who remain at traditional district schools requires greater scrutiny. A case study of Oakland reveals that intermingling private enterprise with public education has led to a disparate impact on low-income families of color and students with disabilities.
Under theories of racial capitalism, racial exploitation is central to the operation of capitalism and the free market, rather than an inadvertent side effect. Scholars of racial capitalism assert that economic structures designed to accumulate capital inherently reinforce racial inequality by systematically dispossessing vulnerable communities of essential resources. This Article employs a racial capitalism framework to argue that the economic structure imposed on school districts by charter schools reinforces inequality by divesting resources from district schools, dispossessing Black students and students with disabilities of educational opportunities, and creating conditions that lead to the displacement of Black families
