Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) has introduced the Justice Integrity Act, a bill to examine racial disparities in the criminal justice system. I am very interested in this effort to mandate the collection of data and develop remedies in ten pilot states to address the over-representation of people of color, primarily African American and Latino, in the criminal justice system. For years, the federal government has taken the lead in working with states to address the racial disparities issue in the juvenile justice system. This process, while rewarding, has been difficult to implement, even with the capable support of leading technical assistance providers on the issue. That’s because there are many factors that contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system, and it takes the mobilization of many stakeholders–from the affected person or community to the juvenile and criminal justice systems–to address it.

This bill seeks to “increase public confidence in the justice system and address any
unwarranted racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal process.” Of course, as a critical human and civil rights issue, the staggering rate at which African American and Latino men, women, and children are involved in the justice system is about much more than just increasing public confidence in the process. This is about developing systems of accountability that support public safety by adhering to research-informed reform and intervention strategies that are both culturally-competent and gender-responsive. This is an opportunity to raise not only awareness about this important issue, but also to improve the discourse on race, crime, and justice among policymakers, practitioners, and the public.

Encourage your senator to support or co-sponsor S. 3245, the Justice Integrity Act. For a complete guideline regarding how you can voice your support of this effort, visit this NAACP link. Instructions, a sample letter, and talking points are included.

A link to the full text of the bill is available through The Sentencing Project.
Click here to access Sen. Biden’s press release.

Support this initiative. It is a good start.

Copyright 2008 Monique W. Morris

It is official! With the Arizona Secretary of State’s decertification of Proposition 104, the effort to end affirmative action in Arizona has come to an end. It’s over not only because the people of Arizona obviously didn’t want part of Ward Connerly’s “Super Tuesday” campaign to eliminate affirmative action in multiple states; it’s over because the signatures that were collected to support this initiative were staggeringly ineligible. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, over 40% of the “qualifying” signatures were invalid and included the phony signatures of Jimmy Carter and Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi. Monday’s edition of The Huffington Post actually shared a photo of these invalid signatures–empirical evidence of the fraudulent activities used to support this effort to end affirmative action.

Deception has ruled this effort from the very beginning. Calling these campaigns to end the nation’s most effective civil rights policy to date “Civil Rights Initiatives” is misleading. Using jargon to confuse “preferences” with “considerations” of race in decision-making is dishonest. In fact, lies regarding the true nature and prevalence of disparity and discrimination have continued to drive the Connerly campaign. In 1996, many California voters didn’t understand that the “civil rights” initiative they were voting for would actually eliminate programs that were effective in generating equal access to opportunity, resulting in the passage of Proposition 209. The effects were seen immediately in some areas, and now we’re able to quantify them: sharp declines and segregated opportunities for people of color regarding admissions to public institutions of higher education and dramatic declines in public contracting awards to businesses owned by people of color and women of all racial groups have impacted the ability of CA’s diverse population to competitively work toward economic self-sufficiency.

Thankfully, Arizona isn’t having it. What began as a five-state effort has now dwindled to two. The effort to qualify ballot initiatives for the November election in three states–Missouri, Oklahoma, and the latest, Arizona–have failed. Only two more, Colorado and Nebraska, remain.

Congratulations to those freedom fighters who have unveiled–yet again–the deceptive tactics used to support structural exclusion and systems of inequality. Our work is not done, but this is certainly a victory worth celebrating!

For more information about the Arizona initiative, contact Mel Gagarin at the NAACP LDF at (212) 965-2783 or mgagarin@naacpldf.org.

Copyright 2008 Monique W. Morris

The Opportunity Agenda recently released a report, Affirmative Action in the Public Discourse, examining media and other messaging on Affirmative Action. I read the 36-page report with great interest and found its analysis both insightful and challenging. The report discusses the complexity of reconciling Sen. Obama’s recognition of his daughters’ privilege and his campaign’s support for affirmative action as a strategy to ensure opportunity for all Americans. It also reflects the mind-boggling way in which journalists (and the general public) confound racial “preferences” with any attempt to consider race in decision-making. For those of us who are interested in making our research and other work on racial justice relevant to consumers of news media, the report is a must-read.
Link to the full report here.