School of Law Magazine

SOME OF THE ISSUES THAT THE CJP STUDENTS ADDRESSED LAST SEMESTER

Pretrial bail and detention reform

The use of the powerful sedative ketamine on subjects of police actions who are deemed to be agitated and the involuntary inclusion of such individuals in a study comparing ketamine to other sedatives The effectiveness of juvenile residential treatment programs and the measures available to regulate them The disproportionate discipline experienced by students of color in Minnesota schools The TSA’s possible disproportionate use of hair searches of women wearing hijabs The predatory rates that are being charged inmates and their families for phone calls into and out of prisons and jails

to sustained efforts to impact change on any given issue. “There’s this perception the law moves really slowly – that it’s a lot of paper pushing. The CJP’s work helps emphasize that as you talk with clients – and it could be around housing, juvenile justice, any number of issues – you realize face to face with someone that this paperwork needs to get done, that this policy needs to get written, because there are people being affected by this today. Right now, right in front of you. It puts a face to what you’re doing and why you’re doing it,” Meadows said. “There’s always someone who’s going to need help. Seeing those faces makes you keep your emphasis where it should be, on those people, and helps keep your own spark up as you’re doing this work.” Across its many clinics, the School of Law helps ensure that human emphasis. For students who work within the CJP, that emphasis means a growing understanding of their connectedness to the communities, and people, they serve. As Tutu described in 1999, “A person with ubuntu is open and

available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self- assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” The cold presents a different issue, a different urgency, than for the Atlanta community in which Meadows grew up. As a Minneapolis resident and School of Law student, it’s no longer something Meadows doesn’t think about; it’s her issue now, too. “You recognize it’s your job to give back, to extend a hand to your neighbor who needs help. What’s good for someone in the community is good for Minneapolis,” she said. “I want to make the city better as a whole, and I understand better [now] my place in that. The CJP enhances your legal education as well as

your community.” Ubuntu, indeed.

Spring 2020 Page 31

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