Racial Equity & Justice

The connection between race and poverty in America is undeniable. It is rooted in years of systemic discrimination and biases that created conditions of inequality. Understanding and addressing issues of race, implicit bias, and developing an agenda to affirmatively advance racial equity is critical to ensure economic and social justice.

MLRI’s Race Equity Project was created to identify issues impacting the state’s communities of color and to devise strategies, in collaboration with communities, to diminish systemic barriers and promote equal rights and equal opportunities.

Our racial equity project focuses on:

• Forcefully challenging structural racism and implicit bias embedded within public systems, policies and practices
• Working collaboratively with legal services and community based organizations to advance a social justice agenda and to create a racial equity lens to legal aid advocacy
• Actively engaging in statewide and national coalitions to advance racial equity