Race Equity

Inspired by the exponential growth in non-Hispanic white populations, MLRI’s Race Equity unit was created to identify issues impacting the state’s burgeoning communities of color, devise effective strategies to diminish systemic barriers, and promote equal rights and equal opportunities. 

Because the 2000 census also revealed that one out of three Latinos; one in five African Americans; one in six Asian Americans; and one out of fifteen whites live in poverty, the Race Equity unit also pursues advocacy to ensure that race does not define, maintain or worsen the poverty status of low-income people and that they are empowered to build stronger lives for themselves and their children so that a more just and equitable Commonwealth for all can be attained.

Following a comprehensive examination of the critical legal issues facing low-income communities of color, culminating in a 2002 Clearinghouse Review article, the Race Equity unit’s primary areas of concentration are the collateral civil consequences of criminal records, employment, and education.  More recently, the unit has led a scholarly examination of the spatial concentration of poverty and is poised to pursue a place-based advocacy approach.

Advancing Comprehensive CORI Reform:

MLRI led, in collaboration with its community-based partners, a seven-year advocacy campaign resulting in Governor Patrick signing into law, Chapter 256 of the Acts of 2010, dramatically reforming the state’s criminal offender record information (CORI) system.  While passage of this legislation has helped eliminate a significant barrier to employment, job training opportunities, and housing for all racial and ethnic groups, it is particularly important for minority populations.  Key components of the law include:

• Requiring that applicants for employment be judged on their job related credentials prior to conducting a criminal background check, preventing the immediate dismissal of qualified applicants who may be listed in the state’s CORI system.
• Limiting the length of time in which criminal records are open to the public (10 years for a felony; 5 years for a misdemeanor, except for convictions of manslaughter or sexual misconduct), thus preventing youthful indiscretion or stale records from limiting the opportunity to secure employment, housing or job training.
• Allowing applicants to contest the relevance and accuracy of records by requiring employers to provide a copy of any record obtained which results in an adverse decision, a critical aspect of the reformed law given that the system is prone to inaccurate information.

MLRI’s success has inspired advocates across the country, many of whom rely on us as a resource, to seek similar reforms in their own states.

Expanding Employment Opportunity: 

Our racialized criminal justice system disproportionately targets individuals of color; not surprisingly, policies and practices that rely heavily on criminal records to screen out otherwise qualified job applicants disproportionately impact people of color.  To mitigate that impact and expand employment opportunities, MLRI has brought litigation challenging draconian policies.  We are also pursuing litigation to reform the practices of private background screening companies—a fast-growing parallel private system for obtaining criminal history information, which threatens to undermine many of the advances that we have made by reforming the state’s CORI system.

Eliminating the Racial Achievement Gap in Public Schools:

A world class education is the best antidote to poverty.  Yet, in many school districts, there is still a pronounced achievement gap between minority students and their white counterparts.  To help remedy this gap, promote quality education, and by extension improve the chances for minority students to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty, MLRI launched a pilot program in Southbridge—a community with a high Latino student population and enduring challenges—to advance comprehensive changes in the way parents, students, educators and school administrators work together.

With MLRI’s technical support, and after many years of community training, a group of concerned citizens that MLRI coalesced sought non-profit status and affiliation with a 50-year old nationally reputed entity, ASPIRA—the country’s largest organization dedicated to promoting educational excellence and leadership development for Latino youth.  Since 2010, the Southbridge group, now known as ASPIRA of MA, has successfully provided college preparatory, academic enrichment, leadership development, and college scholarships to 46 high school students through a Saturday Academy that it runs in partnership with a local community college, and a youth club.  MLRI’s technical assistance also resulted in the group securing a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant award—an unprecedented milestone for a grassroots primarily Latino organization in Southbridge—to expand the reach of its programs. 

MLRI plans to introduce similar collaborative alliances in other school districts to replicate effective approaches and strategies that help diminish the achievement gap and attain quality education.

Transforming low-opportunity neighborhoods through place-based advocacy:

With MLAC funding, MLRI led a statewide examination of the spatial and structural barriers impeding access to opportunity for low-income communities resulting in a publication, The Geography of Opportunity: Building Communities of Opportunity in Massachusetts, (2009), co-produced with the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. 

MLRI plans, in the coming year, to launch its Lawyers for Neighborhood Justice (LNJ) initiative, especially in light of the mapping analysis revealing that 95 percent of low-income Latinos, 93 percent of poor African Americans, 71 percent of poor Asian Americans and 43 of low-income whites live in low and very low-opportunity communities—typically characterized by failing schools, inadequate or poor quality housing, prevalence of poor health outcomes, high unemployment and high poverty.  The LNJ aims, in collaboration with local legal services programs, policymakers and other stakeholders, to saturate advocacy, initially, in 3 targeted low and very low-opportunity neighborhoods in order to improve conditions in the places where low-income people live, uplift families and communities, reduce spatially concentrated poverty, and expand opportunity in distressed neighborhoods.