Open Letter from the Editors-in-Chief of Volume 37

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To say that we are excited and proud to take the helm of the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice is an understatement. 

For both of us, and many of our peers and predecessors, this journal has been a unique part of  our law school experience. White supremacy and patriarchy pervade our legal, political, and social systems and poison the ideals they claim to uphold. But the meetings of this journal have provided a place where we hear the quiet said aloud and where we work to envision a better future paved in radical ideas and revolutionary ideals. 

The world in which we take the helm, however, is a grim one. Never before have those same legal, political, and social systems felt so close to collapsing. A worldwide pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated the existing inequities of race, gender, class, ability, and more. The response of our political and legal systems have been sluggish, inadequate, and out of touch with the needs of the people they claim to serve. 

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States has engaged with the process of a long overdue racial reckoning. The extrajudicial killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd last year continue to guide our reckoning  with the racist and terrible history of policing, violence, and incarceration. Ideas like the abolition of police and prisons, once considered fringe dreams, have entered mainstream discourse and demanded that we understand our complicity in perpetuating violence against marginalized communities, and Black folks in particular. Increased and recent violence against Asian Americans, and Asian women in particular, highlights the importance of the intersectionality of racism and violence.

The spectral threat of climate change has become all too corporeal as we are now faced with the grim reality that nothing but the most aggressive of plans to reduce human impact on the environment can provide a hope of reversing, or even halting, the damage that continues to be done. Embedded in such plans are visions of environmental justice that embrace racial justice and gender justice. We must restore respect for the Indigenous communities who were keepers of the land before their forcible removal by a violent, imperialist government, and we must reckon with that history, if we are to have hope of a better future. 

The past year has not been all grim, however. Advocates for LGBT+ rights saw a great victory in the decision of Bostock v. Clayton County, seeing the Supreme Court of the United States extend anti-discrimination protections to queer folks for the first time. In the same docket, the Supreme Court affirmed Indigenous sovereignty in the lands of Oklahoma and affirmed the right to reproductive choice. A new Presidential administration has seen the tides turn toward progress where the old administration attempted regression. President Biden has a cabinet that is the most diverse in U.S. history, including the first Indigenous woman to head the Department of the Interior; the first Black man to head the EPA, the first openly gay man to serve as a cabinet member for the Secretary of Transporation; a Latino teacher and principal to serve as Secretary of Education; and the first Black, South Asian woman to serve asas Vice President. The President has moved to divest the United States from private prisons, and major cities have begun to divest from their police departments. 

Through it all, the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice has striven to publish timely scholarship that relates to these challenges and victories. We have published articles on the double discrimination Black Muslim women face in employment, the effects of Betsy DeVos’s policies on sexual harassment claims by women of color in universities, obstetric violence and coercion against pregnant persons, and state legislative proposals to combat sexual violence against persons with disabilities. We recently relaunched our online platform, hoping to give a voice to the law students in our journal body who can put their minds to meet the challenges presented. We crafted the first iteration of our Style Guide, an ongoing project to ensure we continue to have conversations about the power that lies in the choices of words we use. 

As we enter the Volume 37 publication cycle, we’re excited that our journal’s editorial board and membership has never been more robust and ready to take on the challenges posed by our institutions. We plan to continue creating a space where the brilliance of our members is applied toward bettering the world we live in, using whatever resources we have and in whatever capacity we can. Whether you write for the journal, edit for the journal, or simply read the journal, we look forward to getting to know you over the next year.

Sincerely, 

Amy Reavis and Karnik Hajjar

Co-Editors in Chief, Volume 37

Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice