Would you recognize racial injustice in yourself?
Jeanne Brown | Published on 2/1/2025
In January of 2024, Paul Rodriguez became the new Public Defender. One of his first changes was to create the Racial Justice Unit in May 2024. It began with one person, Sadaf Hane, who was our speaker for the January 2025 Criminal Justice Interest Group’s meeting, with Paul speaking to us at the beginning of the meeting. There is now a second person in that unit along with a data analyst. Its creation was a response to the Racial justice Acts (RJA) that were passed over the last few years in California. The first Act was to address any discrimination currently going on in the local justice system. This could be by police, the D.A.’s office, the Public Defender's office or judges… anywhere during the course of a person being in the criminal justice system. The second RJA was to address any discrimination committed in the past where justice may have been denied due to racial discrimination. Ms Hane explained to us the obstacles and incentives for this unit. The justice system is made up of humans with our own biases and defenses. No one wants to be thought of as being unjust yet that is what this unit needs to uncover in order for these humans to recognize their own mistakes, whether implicit or explicit. Much of her time is spent now on helping people throughout the system recognize these errors made by themselves and others. She hopes to slowly break down their defensiveness and become willing to see when they may have erred. She is working with a professor at Stanford to create a curriculum that can be used in law schools on this topic. There are literally thousands who may have potential claims. I won’t go into all the details she shared but when asked how the League might help, she answered that we can help by educating the public.
Our meeting ended with our members volunteering for assignments to research various topics related to the conditions in our county’s jails.