About the Author Sandy Hudson is a recent graduate from UCLA Law where she specialized in Critical Race Theory. Sandy founded Black Lives Matter - Canada, and also co-founded the Black Legal Action Centre, a specialty legal aid clinic in Ontario, Canada. A multidisciplinary creative, Sandy also co-founded the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism, co-hosts the Sandy & Nora Talk Politics...
Abstract During the coronavirus pandemic, movements for penal abolition and racial justice achieved dramatic growth and increased visibility. While much public discussion of abolition has centered on the call to divest from criminal law enforcement, contemporary abolitionists also understand public safety in terms of building new life-sustaining institutions and collective structures that improve...
Abstract Nashville, Tennessee was once heralded as a desegregation success story. Three decades after the United States Supreme Court’s seminal decision in Brown v. Board of Education, schools in Nashville were, in a statistical sense, desegregated. Since then, Nashville schools have returned to a far more segregated state, mirroring many cities across the United States where desegregation...
Abstract The COVID-19 death toll is staggering and has impacted the funeral industry more than any other event in recent memory. Funeral service providers have been on the frontlines of this pandemic doing the work of the dead—transporting, storing, and disposing our dead. They have performed a critical service during uncertain times. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the funeral industry was...
Abstract From Uber to Home Depot to Starbucks, companies are increasingly asking customers to rate workers. Gathering data from these ratings, many firms utilize algorithms to make employment decisions. The proliferation of customer ratings raises the possibility that some customers may review workers negatively for racist, sexist, or other illegal reasons. Absent a legal framework to address...
Abstract The proliferation and use of technology by law enforcement is rooted in the hope that technological tools can improve policing. Improvement, however, is relative. Quantitative data and qualitative experience have proven the criminal legal system a site of racial injustice and rank brutality. Police are one of the principal instruments of those harms. For the communities who bear the...
Abstract The police killing of George Floyd added fuel to the simmering flames of racial injustice in America following a string of similarly violent executions during a global pandemic that disproportionately ravaged the health and economic security of Black families and communities. The confluence of these painful realities exposed deep vulnerabilities and renewed a reckoning with the long...
A Mother's Crown I wear my heart on my sleeve Being tugged by little hands So my heart may fall And be caught by the tiniest fingers I wear my crown proudly ButI never forget to adjust theirs Which sits upon their curly, soft hair Upholding their sovereign royalty When the days are darkest And the tears are falling freely Their voice brings me smiles and relief They don’t know they keep me strong...
Freedom Song Freedom is worth fighting for Dignity is worth dying for Hope is worth hunting for Your Soul is worth sacrificing for What’s right is worth rising up for Lighting up the night sky is the Moon’s favorite chore After half the world’s ignored her for too long She can’t wait to throw open the Sky’s door Poke her face out over the ocean Searching for someone to adore One Sun’s rise away...
WELCOME FROM THE UCLA LAW REVIEW Alanna Kane, Editor-in-Chief and Hope Bentley, Symposium Editor “What does it look like to build a city, state, or nation invested in communities thriving ratherthan their death and destruction? To ask this question is the first act of an abolitionist.” - Patrisse Cullors[1] We are honored to welcome you to our 2022 annual Symposium: Toward an Abolitionist Future...
ABSTRACT Voter identification laws (“voter ID laws”), laws that require voters to present identification when voting, launched the modern Voting Wars. After the Supreme Court blessed Indiana’s voter ID law in Crawford v. Marion County, voter ID laws proliferated across the country. Their prevalence belies their notoriety. They remain one of the most hotly contested category of election laws and...
ABSTRACT This Comment outlines the intersections of abolition theory and decolonization theory, and then proposes that Tribal Nations become leaders in reconsidering systems of punishment and instead create systems of care and liberation. It argues that because abolition is a decolonial project, tribes should adopt abolitionist practices in their own communities. Part I provides an overview of...
ABSTRACT Racist policing and the racially discriminatory use of force by police officers pose a serious challenge for a legal system committed to equal justice. Yet litigants cannot easily contest the systemic racism that permeates police departments across the country. Individuals injured by police violence may not have the resources to pursue systemic claims and there are barriers to...
ABSTRACT This Comment argues that a recent vein of litigation involving the FHA should be considered a promising type of reparations litigation, one uniquely positioned to achieve reparative ends that other types of this litigation have failed to accomplish. The FHA litigation involves more than a dozen local governments that have filed complaints against mortgage lenders. These municipal...