In a discussion that ranged from personal experiences to the impact of public policy, panelists at Wednesday’s NJSBA Virtual Annual Meeting seminar, “A Year After George Floyd: A Moment or a Movement?” discussed what – if any – progress had been made on racial justice issues in the past year.
Raymond M. Brown, a partner at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden in Hackensack, moderated the program, which included panelists Carolyn V. Chang, co-chair, NJSBA Commission on Racial Equity in the Law (COREL); Karen Thompson of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey; G. Glennon Troublefield, co-chair, COREL; and Maria P. Vallejo of Chasan Lamparello Mallon & Cappuzzo. The program also featured a video presentation from New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal.
Chang and Troublefield explained the work of COREL, which NJSBA President Kimberly Yonta established after Floyd’s murder, to identify ways to address root causes of inequities in the legal profession and the law. It recently shared an interim report to the NJSBA Board of Trustees based on the work of its subcommittees which examined systemic issues in the municipal courts; civics and education; pathways to leadership; the culture of the profession; policing; and the model penal code and propose recommendations to address them.
As Troublefield noted, the issues are not exclusively law-based.
“The goal is to develop the recommendations into specific steps that we can take, because we can’t cure in nine months what has been a 400-year-old problem. We can’t. You can only do it with the support of others,” he said.
In his introductory remarks to the panel discussion, NJSBA President-Elect Domenick Carmagnola, a member of the commission, said, “I will tell the truth—these are not easy conversations. They are not always comfortable. But in the end, I believe our profession, and the law, will be better because we are taking the time to have them.”
Thompson said in order to advance the national conversation about racism, “we have to address the historical forces that are shaping us and this conversation. If you’re used to privilege, then equality starts to look like oppression because you have to give something up. That’s kind of a baseline difficulty that comes with even trying to discuss these things…You apologize to Black people and then you justify their criminalization.”
The conversations about racism have never stopped, she said. Floyd’s murder was just the latest galvanizing moment among many over the last century in cities around the country.
“It’s not that we were not having the conversations, the problem is there’s no leg on those conversations,” Thompson said.
“We have the same answers about why they’re happening and then nothing necessarily changes. The way to change it is to listen to the communities being impacted. That means legislatures have to hear the people on the ground. We have to look at how our legal system enshrines these disparities, how it enshrines these unjust criminalization, how it enshrines the ability to abuse power as an agent of law enforcement, whether you’re on the beat as a police officer or a prosecutor.”