More than 100 Berkeley Law students work each year at the East Bay Community Law Center, helping to push forward myriad initiatives that serve disenfranchised people of color.
Recent examples include:
• Working with community organizers to end police presence in the Oakland Unified School District and address the over-expulsion of Black children.
• Monitoring implementation of the newly in-force Assembly Bill 2138 (written by the center’s Clean Slate team) to end tacit racial discrimination of state occupational licensing boards.
• Hosting conversations on the center’s legal and social work strategies to support African Americans and low-income communities of color amid COVID-19, economic unrest, and police violence.
• Addressing displacement and historic redlining through the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act and Local Preference Policy the center is developing with the City of Berkeley, to empower renters and increase access to affordable housing.
• Winning eviction moratoriums at the city and county level so low-income tenants of color and essential workers can stay housed during the pandemic.
• Partnering with community groups in Berkeley to remove police from traffic, infraction, and parking enforcement, in response to violence Black people frequently experience during traffic stops.
• Helping Trans clients update their ID documents, affirming their rights and curbing violence and discrimination especially often endured by Black Trans clients that can occur when their gender presentation or identity is read as not matching their documents.