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The Racial Justice Act: A Real Solution or a Just Step in the Right Direction?
Get PDFThe 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
The First Amendment, Global Corporate Responsibility Standards, & the Quest for Online “Speech Nirvana”
No full textWith large and powerful social media companies operating as worldwide speech regulators, it is unsurprising that governments have attempted to not only regulate how these companies address platform speech but also pressure them to deliver preferred speech outcomes. In 2024, the Supreme Court decided two cases addressing both themes in the U.S. context. In Moody v. NetChoice, the Court explained how legislation regulating private platform curation of usergenerated content runs afoul of First Amendment protections. And, in Murthy v. Missouri, the Court appeared to erect significant hurdles to challenging alleged governmental coercion of such platforms. These cases have left many wondering what can be done to achieve the legitimate societal aim of promoting broad and fair protections for user-generated speech on large social media platforms while addressing illicit governmental interference with such discourse. This Essay seeks to spur a dialogue about the potential for global corporate responsibility and free expression standards to provide a way forward. Under such standards, companies would apply a principled free expression framework in curating platform speech as well as proactively resist illicit governmental pressure. That said, as corporate adoption of these standards remains voluntary, this Essay urges a range of stakeholders to seize this norm-building moment to encourage platform adoption of these global standards or otherwise risk cementing unprincipled approaches to online speech
