Myka Held:
So, I'd like to get started by introducing our panelists for tonight. And please excuse my pronunciations, I'm not from Boston and some of these words that I'm about to read are a little bit difficult for a Midwesterner such as myself. Our first panelist here tonight is Tackey Chan, who graduated from Brandeis in 1995. He is currently the state representative for the 2nd Norfolk District, including 13 of the 30 precincts in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Myka Held:
Tackey is a lifelong resident of Quincy, having first been elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 2010, and is currently serving his sixth term in office. He was one of three representatives elected in 2010 of Asian descent, making him one of the first Asian Americans elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. And the first Asian American and person of color elected to office in the city of Quincy. He is currently serving as Chairman of the Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure.
Myka Held:
Our next panelist is Karen Loewy, who graduated from Brandeis in 1996. She is Senior Counsel for Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and those with HIV. She handles groundbreaking litigation and supervises attorneys in all areas of Lambda Legal's work, including fighting for recognition of same-sex relationships, battling anti-LGBT discrimination and employment, housing, public accommodations and health care. And securing the rights of LGBT parents. Prior to joining Lambda Legal, Miss Loewy was a senior staff attorney with GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, also known as GLAD. Where she engaged in a wide range of LGBT impacts litigation and policy work throughout New England for nearly 12 years.
Myka Held:
Our final panelist is Matthew Segal, who graduated from Brandeis in 1999. He is the legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, where he leads a team of civil rights lawyers. His cases at the ACLU have temporarily halted, former President Trump's first Muslim ban. Just missed over 60,000 drug charges in the Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan lab scandals. Affirmed the right to record police officers performing their duties in public and resulted in the release of over 6000 people from jails and prisons due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Matthew earned his JD from Yale Law School and his BA in mathematics and sociology from Brandeis University.
Myka Held:
I am very excited that they have given their time tonight to tell us all about how Brandeis helped launch these very inspiring careers. And how recent changes in the world have impacted the work they're doing? So, the first question, I'm sure many of us are wondering, as most of us are Brandeis alumni ourselves. How did Brandeis set you up to pursue a career in social justice? I know a lot of people who go there are already moving in that direction, are very passionate about it. But how did your experiences at Brandeis set you up for that? And let's start with Karen.
Karen Loewy:
Sure. Thanks, Myka. So, I was one of those people who was pretty social justice minded when I got there, but in truth, I had not been thinking of it as a career. The odd answer is that the way Brandeis actually put me on that path was the ability to double count classes towards majors and concentrations. My majors were nudges and music, but my approaches to each were really feminist and legal. So, I was taking women in the Bible with Marc Brettler, and classes on Jewish women and feminism with Joyce Antler, and Talmud with Reuven Kimelman.
Karen Loewy:
So doing that, in my major gave me the building blocks of both legal studies and women's studies concentrations, which really led me to take classes that made clear that my particular route to social justice worked was law school. Most prominently I think, was then the introduction to women's studies concentration at the time taught by Gordon Fellman. Which really introduced me to queer theory, and gave me language and frameworks for my feminism, the fluidity of gender, understandings the patriarchy and misogyny. And the best ways and only really a great liberal arts education immerses you in. I took first amendment classes, I took great sex discrimination, the law class and really all of these really put me on the path towards eventually going to law school and doing the work that I do.
Myka Held:
Thank you, Karen. I'd love to hear from Matthew next.
Matthew Segal:
Thanks. Hi everybody, nice to see you all. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, especially to my dad. Thank you for the support, appreciate it, he's here. And also Brandeis's grad. So, very similar to Karen, I mean, I studied sociology at Brandeis, I took classes from Gordon Fellman, and the rest of the folks in the sociology department. And I think that, that had the effect on me that you expect to have, which is it caused me to care, I think more about people, and see things from their perspective and understand injustice in a way that I might not otherwise have done. But also caused me to think more about impact. When we often think of injustice in terms of impact, what is causing this harm, what is causing things to be bad, what is causing things to be unfair or unequal?
Matthew Segal:
But if you're choosing career, I mean, you're not setting out to do those things, you're setting out if anything, to prepare those things. And you have to think about what kind of a positive impact you can have. And I think that's really difficult for anyone, but particularly for someone who's trying to use the law in a helpful way. And I think that Gordon and the other sociology professors that I had, really helped me to think about how to make a positive change and how to assess things by whether that was happening. The other thing I would say is, I took math and everyone always assumed that's just a thing that I dropped. But in a way I did, because I didn't really think I was going to make a huge impact in the world of mathematics. But I will say, I feel like I use math every day in my work. I mean, the law is really an imperfect attempt, but an attempt to create rules and logic that will govern our society fairly.
Matthew Segal:
And a lot of what I do is figuring out when that's not working and what can be done, if anything, to fix it. And I try to do that through logic, through problem solving and through reasoning. And maybe I'm successful, maybe I'm not, but I feel like when I am successful, I'm using not only the sociological skills that I tried to learn from my professors at Brandeis, but also the mathematical skills. So, I really think both of those things have been tremendously helpful to me, as someone working on social justice.
Myka Held:
Thank you, Matthew. And if we're shouting out parents, I got a shout out my dad who's also here. I don't know if any of the other panelists have parents or family members-
Matthew Segal:
Yap, my parents are on too.
Myka Held:
Great. Thank you, parents for supporting us. I'd also like to echo Matthews comments. One of our jokes in law school was, they told us we wouldn't have to do math, that's why we're here. And I also use math every day and had to present to a judge some interest calculations this morning. So, I can definitely relate and probably would have been better for me if I take in more math classes like you at Brandeis. Tackey, I'd love to turn to you at this point.
Tackey Chan:
My mom is in the kitchen, so I know where she is. She ain't on the call. So, appreciate your having me here tonight to talk. Social justice to me was kind of an afterthought for Brandeis. I never thought about the impact to Brandeis until I got a little bit older. And same thing at BC High, Boston College High School where I got my high school degree. And never thought about it too, because their motto there is, meant for others, is actually the motto for the school. And I actually got my degree in politics and I'm trying to make my degree work for me somehow. So, figure that one out. But it's a business of trying to be helpful is what I got into. And turns out, I'm actually not bad at what I do. So I stuck with it.
Tackey Chan:
And law school, to be honest with you was a career move issue. Because as much fun working to legislature's need, you need a career after being an aid. So, law school was an opportunity to open up opportunities on how to apply law, because I spent a lot of time writing laws, but I don't know how to read case law. And actually, New England School Law, which used to be known as the Portia Law School, if your Shakespeare, was the first law school for women. And the reason I went is because there weren't many nights was available. So, it's a working class law school. And from there, I met a lot of very interesting people in the night schools, very different from daytime. And learn a lot about their different issues in life, and realizing that people are here to make a difference going to law school.
Tackey Chan:
So, I think, for my case getting to the legal field was actually just a continuation of things I never realized I was doing as a result of my upbringing at Brandeis and my upbringing at BC High. And strangely, my upbringing in law school kind of cumulated to me being me, not knowing that I'm doing social justice work, trying to be helped with the folks. Giving way too much free legal advice, which I think everybody here has done at one time. And just trying to forget or look out for people that need an extra voice out there. I don't think I consciously knew I was doing this until really, into my mid-30s, I'm like, "Oh, this is what happened." And I'm still kicking around doing this today.
Myka Held:
Thank you. I'd like to go a little bit deeper on this topic. Because I know for my own experience, I felt very supported in social justice causes at Brandeis. And I felt less supported in those causes once I went to law school. And just having talked to friends and colleagues who also attended different law schools, it felt like law school was not a place that generally supported social justice and helping people. Can you all speak to whether you had similar experiences? And if so, how did you make it through law school still knowing that you wanted to help people at the end? And let's start again, back with Karen, please.
Karen Loewy:
Thanks, Myka. So, I was very lucky in some ways, because I went to Fordham Law School in New York. And particularly, among the reasons that I chose to go there was that I was part of something called the Stein Scholars Program for Public Interest, Law and Ethics. And as a Stein Scholar it's so easy, I think within the law school community to get sort of caught up in the competition and be who's going to go where and make the most money. And the Stein Scholar program really gave me a built-in community of folks who were similarly minded. I was very lucky to actually have a couple of other Stein Scholar. And when I say lucky like, there were like, 20 Stein Scholars per incoming class. So, I was lucky that there were three others in my 1L section, which was really oddly disproportionate and very helpful.
Karen Loewy:
And they just continued to be my community throughout. So that whenever it felt like that kind of ethos was overtaking, where you just we're clearly there for very different reasons than lots of other folks to have that community and that sounding board was super helpful. I'll also say that I did not take the most practical course through law school, I was taking things like feminist critical race theory, and I was taking the civil rights clinic and that was practical. That was definitely practical. But whereas folks were taking domestic relations law, which was much more nuts and bolt, I was taking family law and policy. So, I was seeking out even within the law school community. The classes where I knew I was going to find the other who were going to engage in legal debate and legal learning through similar lenses to what I was trying to do.
Myka Held:
Thank you, Karen. Matthew.
Matthew Segal:
Well, I wish I could say that I had a plan and I executed the plan, but I didn't really. So, what ended up happening is, I spent I think, most of law school thinking that I would never really practice law. I mean, I kind of went through it like it was 17th, 18th and 19th grade. I was there to learn, and take exams, and things like that and I didn't really have a plan. But over time, I think I got a better sense of a couple things. One was that I actually liked practicing law, which I wasn't sure would be the case. And then over time, I think I got a better sense of how I believed I could apply the law to help people. So, I worked for a bit at law firms, but then I went to North Carolina with my family there and worked at a federal defender's office for four years representing poor folks accused to federal crimes.
Matthew Segal:
And I think that experience doing direct representation was very helpful to me in understanding some of the injustice of the criminal legal system. Both in general and particularly in terms of racial justice, but also showed me I think, some of the limits of direct representation, particularly in criminal court. I represented people, they'd already been convicted, I appeal their cases, their sentences, their convictions. And for the most part, I did not win. And when I did not win, not only did their lives not improve, maybe other people's lives didn't improve, because there was a precedent that was created that would not only close the door on my client, but on other people who are similarly situated.
Matthew Segal:
So, I kind of felt like it would be helpful to take a job with more tools in the toolkit, where I could litigate in different ways, be in criminal court, be in civil court to do public education, do media, do public advocacy, do litigation and try different ways to navigate a problem. And that's one reason why I went to the ACLU. I thought that there was a real opportunity to make a difference through that work, not just doing impact litigation. But all the different kinds of ways of doing advocacy and trying to make a difference that the law allows.
Myka Held:
Thank you, Matthew. Tackey, I know you already addressed this a little bit in your last answer. But do you have anything else you wanted to add about the differences between your experience at Brandeis and then at law school?
Tackey Chan:
I think it's a pressure issue. When I was at Brandeis, I was doing a lot of school, but also was working a lot of jobs part-time to get by. Night school was a little different kind of pressure, because you had a day job. In my instance, I was trying to start a not-for-profit agency, I was doing a lot of other community work and sitting on boards. And it became a prioritization issue in law school for me. And I wasn't the only one obviously, in my classes, we had people with family with kids. We had people who were actually pregnant in law school the first year, which I give them more kudos than anybody tried to do that in law school, at night. And it's just a struggle of just getting used to law school was the hard part, to be honest with you. I still couldn't read case law properly, year two and a half. I actually started figuring it out. But you have to kind of stick with it.
Tackey Chan:
And my class was like 120, we lost 20 people in the first month. I think it was a class of like 65ish, by the time we graduated four years later. So, I wasn't actually seeking social justice, I was just trying to survive at one point, to get to the end. And a lot of other people were in the same position I was in. So, of course it's the bar exam, which was equally more scary than law school in my mind, on top of that. I think a lot of the applications of law school in terms of social justice and how I do my job became extremely valuable. I think the analytical skills, the way I approach things, the way I can look at things at different angles. Now, I largely credit going to law school. And what I do today, whether it be a constituent case about not finding housing, or working on complicated issue, like security breaches, and doing security breach ball and privacy issues. So, at the time off, it was just living through. Afterwards is when a lot of practical applications came in.
Myka Held:
Thank you. All three of you now do impact work. Once you had decided to go into law, how did you decide between doing direct representation of clients and impact work that would make broad social change for a lot of people? And Matthew, you already started to address this in your last answer. So, I would love to start with you. And have you elaborate a little on how you made the move from direct representation into impact work.
Matthew Segal:
Yeah. I mean, for those of you who are lawyers, which I suspect maybe a number of you, I don't know. There're fair number of obligations that come with being a lawyer. I mean, if you're representing a client, you really have to do within the bounds of ethics, what will help that client. And if there's some systemic reason why that clients being treated unfairly or something else, that's not your business and you have to do what's best for that individual. And that's really important thing because people need advocates. But it also means that if you're doing direct representation, if your legal services layer, a public defender, that there's a limit on what you can try to accomplish more broadly.
Matthew Segal:
And so, one of the things that's been crucial about shifting from public defense work to the ACLU is that we can see problems out there in the world. And yes, it's important to connect to the people who are actually affected. So, we're not just representing my interest in court, we have clients, we represent them. But in the case of the drug lab scandals here, where you had 10s of 1000s of people who are wrongfully convicted, and no one was really solving the problem. There was no one who was identifying the people who were affected, there was no one creating a case, there was no one who was assigning them attorneys, there was no one who was overturning their convictions. And so, if you were doing direct representation work, the major problems which was that the people were not being identified, and provided with counsel and having their convictions overturned.
Matthew Segal:
You couldn't actually solve that problem, a problem affecting 10s of 1000s of people through regular direct representation taking on one client at a time, that was an example. It was a scandal that broke shortly after I moved to Massachusetts of a situation where impact litigation, trying to figure out a way to tackle a problem. And then working with clients who were affected by that problem was really crucial. And I think had it not been for the work that the ACLU did, and the public defense organizations and law firms with which we partnered. I mean, most of those convictions, I think, would still be on the books today. And for those who don't know, when I say tainted convictions I mean, we had one chemist in one part of the state who was inventing evidence that was used to convict you for drug crimes by inventing lab test results. And another person who was certifying that people had possessed illegal drugs while she herself was high during the testing.
Matthew Segal:
So, for those of you who didn't study science at Brandeis, that's bad, you're not supposed to do that. And so, these were huge seemingly intractable problems that sort of normal provision of legal services was not going to solve. And I think that's where it's really important to do impact work.
Myka Held:
Yeah, I-
Matthew Segal:
Hope that answer the question.
Myka Held:
It does. And I can definitely relate to that. I do direct representation and we often have a client who we think it would be best for the client and the client wants to appeal, but we're worried about setting a bad precedent for other people in similar positions. So, in some ways impact work is a nicer way to help a larger group of people. Tackey, I'd love to have you answered the same question.
Tackey Chan:
Sure. I actually tried the whole hang your own shingle thing for a little bit, while still working in the state senator, and decided that wasn't for me. I did a little bit of contract law, a little bit of real estate law, double here and double there. And after like three years of this, I was like, just not good at this, self-employment issue. So, through a winding road of state house politics, I found myself in a AG's Office working in the Office of Ratepayer Advocacy, which used to be called Energy and Telecom, which used to be called Utilities. So, I found myself in neck high in utility and energy law, to represent ratepayers at the Department of Public Utilities regarding proposals by utility companies on changing rates or customer service and things like that.
Tackey Chan:
So, I found myself working for what's essentially an invisible group. I was representing almost six million people in the Commonwealth, who I'd represented before Department of Public Utilities. And one very important agency that actually nobody knew exists and working very nuanced area regarding everything from accounting to electrical and gas, physics and engineering to case law at DPU, and federal case law and state case law. So, it was kind of a trial and error situation to find out that I was best situation one, being employed by someone else, that turned out to be smart. And secondly working in a government still, invisibly helping a lot of people and frankly being cool about that.
Tackey Chan:
So obviously, I left that job to run for office. You can't be assistant Attorney General and try to fundraise. It's not good idea, they don't like it we have a badge, trying to raise money. They didn't even give us badges, I wish we had a badge. But create change shift and opportunity is rare. And I wish I was in the AG's Office just a few more years, not because the work was great, but also it was so much more to learn. And, again, you can leverage this experience into the private sector as well, if I wanted to get into energy law or work for utility energy company, or startup or, renewable energy or any of them. It was a good chance to do so. But I decided not make any more money and went to politics instead on elected level.
Myka Held:
And we're so grateful that you chose to do that. Thank you. Let's turn to Karen.
Karen Loewy:
Thanks. When I did finally decide to go to law school, it was clear to me that impact work was what I wanted to do. I grew-
Myka Held:
Karen, you froze. She's frozen for everyone else, right? It's not just me. That's what I thought. I'll just give her like 15 seconds to see if she comes back. Okay, I'm going to have... It looks like she disappeared. Hopefully, she'll come back, we're going to move on to the next question. And hopefully, we can swing back to her. Courtney, if you could try to reach out to Karen, that would be great. So, the next topic I wanted to talk about is recent events and social justice movements. Can you all speak to whether and how your work addresses and intersects with some recent social justice movements, such as Black Lives Matter and general anti-racism sentiment? And I'd love to start with Tackey for that one.
Tackey Chan:
Well, my case is a little bit different. Because by nature, the position of I have form of platform to speak from. And the responsibility of being a voice in your community, that know something about the community that you represent. The COVID situation made extremely difficult I think for everybody. In my instance, for example, I live my mom who has stage 4 lung cancer. So, to say I was in the bunker big time, through COVID would be able understand statement. And the challenges of being not just an elected official, but being a good advocate for your own community and people of color proved to be very difficult. You are not going to find me at BLM rally under any circumstances, for example. The risk level at home is far too high, to take that chance. So, as a result, a lot of it's through communication social media, signing on letters, being involved at that level.
Tackey Chan:
And most recently, with the anti-Asian issues, it's been largely driven on educating people about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, which most people actually know very little about our challenges in systemic racism, as well as history in the country that spans well into 200 years of the United States. So, looking at some of the legal skills here involves a lot of being able to sift through a lot of reading and documentation. For example, looking at cases regarding citizenship and race status from 100 years ago. You'd be surprised how many cases there are out there to federal level that tries to define race. And why is it relevant to Asian Americans that this cases. And not to say I've read every single one of them, but I've looked at a few.
Tackey Chan:
And we're working on things like hate crimes laws again, to look at those things I read in those case laws. And obviously, as chair of this committee, I do a lot of work on Commerce Clause stuff, which is constantly coming through my committee. So, beyond the social justice stuff, I'm always more was involved in these other cases. But I know, this is part of discussion as well. But it's difficult to do this work in a COVID circumstance because of other responsibilities at home. And this has been hard for me in the sense of prioritization of what needs to get done for who first. And for better or for worse guys, I mean, mom came first this time in trying to get things done.
Myka Held:
I think we can all relate to that sentiment. Thank you for sharing. I see the Karen's back, that's great. We're going to swing back to you after Matthew answers this question. And then we'll let Karen answer both questions. So, go ahead Matthew.
Matthew Segal:
Yeah. I would say that racial justice work is an enormous part of what the ACLU Massachusetts does. It's by no means simply, me. We have a legal department that does a variety of litigation. We have legislation department that works on legislation, including on things like police accountability. And we have a racial justice program led by Rahsaan Hall, who does enormous firework in the law and communities. I would say that one of the things that motivates us and one of things that we work on is the problem that account punishment and accountability are not evenly doled out by the legal system. When I was doing direct representation the question that people want to ask you is sort of like, "Well, did your clients do it." And the truth is, a lot of people do a lot of things. The decision to prosecute them, and the decision to punish them more severely versus less severely. Those things are very much influenced by race.
Matthew Segal:
Certain offenses are regarded as more serious than others, certain kinds of people are regarded as more threatening than others. And it's hard, it doesn't seem to be a whole lot of logic to it. But what is apparent is that people of color, get the hard part of the bargain. And so that's something we've worked on quite a bit in our office. And it happened a number of ways. We have brought cases about police accountability, we have brought cases about wrongful convictions. We have broad cases, particularly under President Trump, where it was bigotry against Muslims or immigrants. That was the motivation, we alleged for the practices. And of course, the travel ban was the key example, where he brought a case on the Saturday Night, immediately following the announcement of travel ban.
Matthew Segal:
But it was all kinds of cases, including the rescission of a program that helped immigrant families dealing with severe illnesses. So, it's all kinds of things. We have also seen in Massachusetts and for those of you who live here, we have a connection to Massachusetts, that state courts in particular can be huge drivers of racial justice, huge drivers of change in a way that federal courts often can't vote because they have some institutional constraints. And also because at least their present at the federal courts are very conservative. So, there was a very significant decision in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which is the fancy term that Massachusetts uses to describe its highest court, from a few years ago, and it relied on some work that our office did in noting that there is a disparate targeting of black communities in Boston for police activity.
Matthew Segal:
And this is a case called Commonwealth against Warren. And one of the issues in the cases is Mr. Warren had fled from the police when he had seen them, and the police academist's behavior was that was suspicious and therefore a reason to stop him. And so, this is a lot of what courts do. I mean, we think of this thing as just law, but really, a lot of it is sociology. Going back to your question before about what drove me to the work. This is described as a legal question, but it's actually a sociological question. When somebody flees from police officer, is it likely to be because they are guilty of something and afraid of getting caught or is there a different reason?
Matthew Segal:
And the court said unanimously, that there may be a different reason, which is that the person might be afraid, afraid of being subjected to racially disparate policing, which there is evidence actually happens in Boston. So, this is a decision that was quite unusual and profound, which said that when a young black person flees from police in Boston, this is not necessarily suspicious behavior, that gives rise to a basis to stop that person because that person might be justifiably in fear of racial profiling. So, that's an example of kind of case that we worked on, in that case, we worked on it, not as lawyers, but as the people who supplied the report that were cited by the court. And also example where courts and in particular state courts can make a huge difference when it comes to racial justice.
Myka Held:
Thank you for sharing. That was a fascinating case, I had never heard of. Great work. Karen, we're going to turn back to you for two questions. Let's start with the question we're on. Which is, can you speak to whether, and how your work addresses, and intersects with recent social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter and general anti-racism sentiment? And then we'll go back to the question before.
Karen Loewy:
Sure. My apologies, my computer started the day with Zoom deposition, first thing this morning, and I think it just the sheer, no, like it was done. So here we are. So, the bulk of my work is really within the LGBTQ communities, and they say communities plural, I mean, the truth is that there's no way to work for the full civil rights of one community in isolation. There is no community that is monolithic. And people don't experience discrimination in compartmentalized ways. So, an intersectional approach to this work is just critical. And there's just also a reality of the ways in which different forms of bias and stigma and discrimination are all interconnected. So, for example, a piece of work that we were engaged in this past year, picking up on Matthews themes of the ways in which the previous administration was really targeting communities of color in lots of ways.
Karen Loewy:
And without a doubt, was also targeting aspects of the LGBTQ communities, in lots of ways. And one of the manifestations of that was this executive order that basically prohibited federal contractors, federal grantees from really conducting... Of all things. Simply if you receive money from the government in some way, shape or form, what the executive order tried to do was prevent any of those entities from engaging in trainings of their own employees or externally in any way that acknowledged or confronted the existence of structural racism and sexism in our society. And what does that mean? There was literally a list of prohibited term. You couldn't talk about critical race theory intersectionality, implicit bias, white privilege. It referred to all of this as race and sex scapegoating, and forbade agencies from doing anything that promoted these divisive concepts.
Karen Loewy:
So, what did that mean? And why was this something that we jumped on? Our clients in this case, were grantees and contractors for whom training on those concepts is central to their work in serving LGBTQ people and people living with HIV. These are healthcare providers of last resort. These are our organizations that in the midst of the pandemic, we're out there trying to work with communities of color. These are largely AIDS service providers actually, that were out there trying to ensure that folks were, understandably reticent given the history of abuses of communities of color by the healthcare industry, as it were when it comes to experimentation. And you think about why there are folks in communities of color, who would be say, reticent to take the COVID vaccine. These were organizations that were doing trainings within the criminal legal system to ensure that black and brown LGBTQ juveniles and juvenile justice facilities were not being disproportionately targeted for discipline.
Karen Loewy:
And I should say actually, I just alighted over work that is actually closest to me, which was an organization that specifically works on cultural competency training for LGBTQ older adults, pursuant to grants to ensure again, that folks who have lived lifetimes of intersecting discrimination based on their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their race, their religion. That these are folks who need access to care most critically, who are often facing the highest barriers to accessing it. So, we challenge this executive order because of just the incredible ripple effects that this would and could have in tying the hands of the very agencies that are designed to provide the direct service, that are designed to help folks overcome those barriers. Because the Trump administration didn't want anybody feeling bad for the history of systemic racism and sexism that is embedded within the institutions of this country.
Karen Loewy:
So I use that case as an example, both because of the substance, but also because it's an example of partnerships. It's an example of partnerships across the civil rights communities that are engaging in this work, we brought a piece of litigation, challenging it as did folks at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. And it was an another opportunity, for ensuring the different civil rights constituencies who may have closer relationships with folks on the ground in different ways, are ensuring that the voices of the folks who are most vulnerable, and most directly impacted are being represented and being addressed. So, absolutely thinking about the ways in which LGBTQ people of color experience discrimination that is tied to their sexual orientation and transgender status, or HIV status in a way that looks quite different from white folks is part and parcel of the work that we do.
Myka Held:
Thank you so much for that, very thorough answer, and also very inspiring work. So the question when you had been cut off was about how you made the decision to do impact work and direct representation. Go ahead.
Karen Loewy:
Sure. So, I think what I was saying when I froze was, that I graduated from Brandeis not really knowing still that law school was the path that I wanted to go down. I had spent the summer before my senior year working for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in DC doing mostly civil liberties policy work. And it was the first sort of instance of working within the nonprofit, doing advocacy work on the kinds of subjects that I was really passionate about. I graduated and then they went to work as a paralegal in a firm for a year. And it was a really important thing that I did, because it taught me that yes, I liked the law and no, I never wanted to work someplace where I didn't have any control over who my clients were in any way, shape or form. And we don't always control who our clients are. And we take them as they come. But it's a very different context.
Karen Loewy:
And I went to law school anyway, knowing really that impact litigation was where I wanted to go. I wanted to be able to do the system change work, and I had really great opportunities to intern in lots of great places. I worked for the ACLU, New Jersey affiliate for a summer, I worked at the Brennan Center for Justice. I worked at what is now known as Legal Momentum, which at the time was NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. And I graduated from law school, actually, without a job, moved to Massachusetts because of my spouse's career. And I actually, Matthew volunteered for... At the ACLU of Massachusetts for a while, until I found a really just a fantastic opportunity, which was to be the baby lawyer at GLAD. So really, my entire 20 years of being a lawyer has really been focused on system change work and in fact litigation.
Myka Held:
Great. Thank you. We just have one more question for the panelists. And then we're going to move to audience questions. So far, we have two, feel free to keep thinking on it. Or if you have a question for these panelists, feel free to add it to the chat now. So, our last question, which we're going to start with Tackey, because he already started to address this a bit. Is the impact of the COVID-19 on your client population and how the pandemic has changed how you've been addressing issues? So Tackey, go ahead, please.
Tackey Chan:
Yeah. The COVID impact in my world is very wide reaching. So, we discovered a lot of things through COVID. Systemic racism, we talk about a lot, but it's much more complicated people give it credit for but we do have more concrete versions. So, healthcare disparities are very clear coming through from COVID, healthcare insurance disparity, very much so. Working condition disparity, very much so and even accessing government services, with no linguistic assistance is a huge problem that was really revealed, especially regarding unemployment benefits. Not just myself, but the entire legislature was really on the case about this with the governor's office and the Secretariat about our constituents inability to access government properly. And dependence on over automation shows disparities itself. It's not just story about having internet access or computer access, but also having a system that actually service our people.
Tackey Chan:
And as we move away from actually having human beings talk to you on the phone, it shows you the weaknesses in automated systems. So, we were getting a lot of issues all up and down the board regarding to COVID impact. And we're going to see this going down the road as well, regarding issues in housing and mortgages, and landlord, tenant issues, not just on residents, but also in businesses. There's going to be this massive ripple effect on the way. And of course COVID had adverse effect on the Asian community in particular, because our narrative was lost in the conversation. So, on March 20 stay house of last year, we had sound the alarm that this wave of hate was coming inbound on us, especially since we had suffered the greatest economic impact first, beginning in January in local, and overseas, and foreign transaction businesses. I mean, there wasn't an aspect of Asian business that wasn't impacted here locally or trying to conduct business outside the state.
Tackey Chan:
Once COVID hit, the voice vanished overnight and I'm a representative in the community where invisibility is not always our fault. We always get blamed for being invisible. But that's not entirely true, it's part of the conversation systemic racism. So, COVID in my world, as an avalanche of disparities that appeared and I'm only giving you like a small, like five to 10 examples here. But there're just enormous and some things that we've done, we formed the Health Equity Task Force and with my colleague, Donald Wong was appointed to. We talk a lot about how Asian Americans were not even part of the conversation healthcare. If you look at the CHIA data on insurance, we don't even appear at all on the datasets. And if you look at the Mass Taxpayer Foundation's most recent report about disparities in government and funding, Asians don't even appear as a dataset.
Tackey Chan:
So, COVID really brought out a lot of these issues. And even protection in my end of my the community. There was heightened awareness in places like Lowell, which has a large Cambodian community, the police was out and forced to demonstrate they're not going to tolerate attacks on the community. But out in Quincy for example, it's silence and the city saying that we're not going to tolerate here and we will have a presence. So, if you try to vandalize, or break a window or attack someone we will be around. So, this was kind of the challenge here in the Asian community as it relates to COVID. Again, we feel the disparity of representation our front. We could do a longer conversation with Asian racism and all that. But what's interesting is for the first time, in the past three months, especially after the shootings Atlanta, people know more about Asian people than they've ever known in their lives.
Tackey Chan:
And they're finally realizing we're not all the same. And I'm not using that in kind of the joke we all like to use, but I mean, literally were not all the same. And has also resulted in a mobilization among Asian Americans realizing that any of us can be victims, much like the era of Vincent Chin, they bring up the LA riots. I bring up the attack on Sikhs after 9/11 and other Asian Muslims after 9/11 were attacked. So, this is huge avalanche of disparities of COVID as reviewed on all levels, not just in healthcare and unemployment, but also race. And how we value certain demographics more than other demographics and we then push to the side. So, you may have heard in social media, even the Hate Crimes Act, going through Congress, led by Congresswoman Lee and Congresswoman Chu and Tammy Duckworth that Asian shouldn't get anything, why should they?
Tackey Chan:
And it's actually an interesting point. And then in issues of race, for example, why can't Asians lead a racial issue? There's pushback on that idea that Asians are people of color, they can lead an issue regarding race. And this is something I have to keep reminding folks because I'm no more senior person in Democratic leadership, that's a personal color. But I trust you don't think of that right away when I say democratic leadership personal color. Last thing is you think about looking like me. Again, this is an American cultural issue of racism that Karen actually hit on the head. I don't sit here and accuse anybody of being racist, intentionally, well there are intentional racists. But I mean mostly you don't think of things that you would think is racist or sexist sometimes, but it's there and it's in the system. And I live in the system more so than I think people realize, because when you look at politics and government, I'm running this place or I'm just part of the system trying to work in this place.
Tackey Chan:
And this is kind of part of the larger issue about how people listening yourself, perceive the issue in COVID in so many different levels. And I'm still fighting hard to make sure it's consistently a part of the compensation and all my white Asian people, brown Asian people, very dark Asian people and the whole nine yards. So, when people say were brown to me, I think South Asians, I think people from South America and Central America is Latinos, Latinx, Hispanics. I do not think that we're Brown. This is kind of interesting problems about systemic racism. That probably none of you ever thought about that, right? And by the fact that people push those words out there, well, consideration of us is inherently systematically racist. So, that's kind of a simple example, how COVID kind of blew all these issues up on us, on so many levels, and many ways and kind of battling a lot of interesting challenge simultaneously.
Myka Held:
Tackey, thank you so much. I feel like we could have a full panel to discuss this. I have definitely learned so much, just from your answer to that. So, thank you for sharing. Karen, we'd love to have you address the question next.
Karen Loewy:
Sure, thanks. I think Tackey, hit the nail on the head. What COVID really served to do is highlight the vulnerability of the populations that we serve to discrimination and disparities. Again, focusing on, for example, I do a lot of work with LGBT seniors. And as we know, the pandemic was already in many ways most deadly for older people. But was particularly challenging for LGBT older adults who again, have faced a lifetime of healthcare disparities from a medical and mental health system that pathologize them and their identity for far too long, for too much of their lives. The research shows that LGBT older adults are much more likely to more vulnerable for COVID in the first place. And that lifetime of discrimination at the ends of the medical establishment, while also being a cause of the disparities also makes people less likely to seek care. We're talking about a population that is more likely alienated from their family of origin, and for whom social isolation is already a huge issue, which was then compounded by the need to social distance, the closure of support programs.
Karen Loewy:
And disproportionately folks who have less tech-savvy and could not say, for example, spend their day on Zoom, or FaceTime, or other ways of connecting virtually. So, there are just ways in which it really compounded those vulnerabilities for the populations that we serve. But the one other thing that I'll say was that in the midst of all of this again, the previous administration then chose to remove explicit regulatory protections for LGBTQ people and people with limited English proficiency in under the Affordable Care Act. So in the midst of a time when the need to access healthcare and remove barriers was so critical. We were doing it in the midst of an administration that was just posing additional ones, and that absolutely affected that the ways that we were able to serve the communities that we need to serve.
Myka Held:
Thank you, Karen. Let's move to Matthew.
Matthew Segal:
Well, I'll try to answer the question and maybe pick up a couple of questions in the chat. I think we're hitting the time and somebody will have to run. So, I'll try to be just briefly hit some of these points. So, first of all, in terms of the pandemic, I mean, we've had many cases that have really sought to limit the spread of COVID in prisons, jails and immigration detention where you aren't allowed to engage in social distancing. So, it was March 24 of 2020. So, right as the pandemic was really hitting, we found our first case with the Massachusetts Supreme Court asking it to change things like pretrial detention and other rules that kept people locked up at the very moment when it was becoming deadly to be locked up pretrial on something. But it was an interesting time we filed the case, found a number of briefs and then presented the first telephonic oral argument in the history of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, from this attic, where I'm talking to you now.
Matthew Segal:
And that's the case the Myka mentioned, the outset that now we think resulted in the release of some 6000 people. And we've done a number of cases since then. And the hope is that maybe we're heading all in a good direction and people, including vulnerable populations will be more secure them they have been, but it does look like COVID, on some level is going to be with us for a little while. And we have questions about things like, are they going to test people in prisons and jails for COVID? Because that hasn't been happening regularly, particularly in our houses of correction. So, we have an argument at the Supreme Court on that coming up on June first. But I'll mention that this is also an example of a couple other things that are raised in the chat. One is about state courts. And yes, I think that, partly for ideological reasons, state courts are going to be present huge opportunities, as the Massachusetts Supreme Court did in the equal marriage decision.
Matthew Segal:
But in other cases, too, for state courts to really make a difference and to make huge precedents when it comes to civil rights and civil liberties. They can set the example for our federal courts, including our Supreme Court about how to do things right. Now, the other thing is that state courts are less constrained, it's not just an ideological thing. They're less constrained by jurisdiction than federal courts. And so federal courts have certain limits, their legal rules, like standing in the like, that limit the sorts of things that they can deal with. Whereas this case that I mentioned to you now, that has resulted in the release of some 6000 people, this is possible, partly because state courts can sort of be problem solvers. You can bring a case to them, and they can just craft a solution that changes how they run the lower courts in a way that really impacts people's lives. And often they can be more creative and more flexible than federal courts in the kinds of orders that they issue.
Matthew Segal:
I also saw that, and this is related to a question about, if you're not an impact litigator, what can you do? And I think that COVID provides an example there too. I mean, we've all had to dramatically alter our own lives. And there's some piece of it now, where we're hoping that the vaccines and the reduced incidence of COVID, maybe we can get back to other things, the things that we used to do. And maybe there's some things that we want to keep like for people who can't easily drive to places or get to places, for people who if they were to attend a court hearing to support a loved one, they would have to miss work and lose their job. I mean, Zoom, remote access to things has really opened doors for people. And so, I think one thing that if you're looking for something to do, and I am saying this to you, probably because you're here on this Zoom right now. And apparently, you have a facility enough to do that.
Matthew Segal:
I mean, if you want to participate in your local government or participate in some aspect of court procedure, or your town meeting, or whatever it might be. And your local government has made it possible for people to do that over Zoom, during COVID. You can speak up and make sure that doesn't go away just because people can now get back to meeting in-person. And I think there are many populations for whom attending in-person is not easy. And particularly if you find yourselves to be a member of such a population. I mean, this is the time to speak up and make sure that the access that we've all sought to achieve during the last year, it doesn't go away.
Karen Loewy:
Myka, if I could jump in on a couple of things that Matthew just said. So, in complete agreement on both of those particular issues. One is about the state courts. So, Goodridge was the first case that I ever took to the clerk's office to file. That was how I started my legal career. And among the reasons that we filed Goodridge in state court were some of the reasons that Matthew highlighted for sure. But it was also at a time when the federal judiciary was not a place that advancing LGBTQ rights was a particularly hospitable place. We were still living under Bowers versus Hardwick, which was the Supreme Court case that said that criminalizing same sex intimacy was perfectly constitutional. So, state courts, I think, yes, absolutely have the flexibility to do good things. And sometimes they shoot things like advisory, opinions or have access to more flexible tools. But they also are able to interpret their own constitutional provisions more flexibly and more expansively than sometimes federal courts can with the Federal Constitution.
Karen Loewy:
The Federal Constitution is the floor, not the ceiling. And there are ways in which the Massachusetts Constitution, for example, its Declaration of Rights has been interpreted more expansively and more flexibly. And I think that's true in many instances throughout New England, but other places across the country as well. And as we have seen shifts in the federal– incredible packing of the federal courts by Trump. I think lots of us who do impact litigation for progressive causes are absolutely... I've been doing this work long enough that I've done this before, we worked in state courts before. And some of my younger colleagues are like, "What are we going to do now?" And federal courts are absolutely not the only forum where there is incredible opportunity to do good things from the populations that we serve.
Karen Loewy:
The second point that Matthew made that I wanted to echo and I'd be really curious to hear Tackey, thoughts on this, as well as. I will also say that the ability to engage in the system virtually and electronically, has also been tremendous when it comes to advocacy before state legislatures. We've seen a rash of really horrific legislation being introduced across the country, particularly targeting transgender youth. And the ways in which folks previously faced incredible barriers to participating in the legislative process, because you'd have to take off work. And if you couldn't do that, then you couldn't testify, or you'd have to travel. You couldn't have childcare. Like, there were all of these barriers to participating in the process that we have seen people's voices being elevated in ways they never have before, because they can testify virtually. And I think it has been a really critical tool for bringing voices into these incredibly important public conversations that really could never participate before.
Tackey Chan:
So, you brought us some good Karen about the public process. As a committee chairman, one of the big challenges in COVID was pivoting our entire life to cope to COVID Zoom, COVID Microsoft Teams, COVID WebEx, COVID Meetup. I have more apps in my phones and I never thought I would use them my life. And one of the challenges of course, is having consistently same app to use for all my meetings. And obviously, we use Zoom here, but this is like the real battle. What is the so, called secure platform we're going to talk about using? But you also have to be correct, this has been a boom in terms of public testimony, is actually a boon for more geographic diversity for members on other boards or quasi-commissions and so forth. It's been easier for people who have disabilities, or they are seniors, or the health conditions to participate as a member of the board of registration, as a member of quasi-commissions. Works both ways, the public can engage, but also it encourages people to participate in these governing bodies at a large geography.
Tackey Chan:
So, it not stuck with like everybody on the board of nutrition comes from Boston, for example. We have them diverse around the state to do that. And it's something actually is an active conversation. We're having the legislature with the governor's people as well about how we should continue at some level, the Zoom format. On the flip side, I miss being in-person running hearings, because the optics of meeting someone on a video call is terrible. Because if they go bonkers, and start swearing and get nuts on you, I don't have a gavel to gavel you down anymore. It's actually kind of an interesting quandary. We're trying to resolve at my level because I don't have by invitation of a testimony. It's open game, literally. So, it's really hard balancing act right now about pre-sign up versus walking off the street. And I've chaired many hearings where people walk-in off the street, no joke, just walked in after our coffee and just want to testify.
Tackey Chan:
In this format, we don't have a structure going into that, can cause some real challenges. And I don't have answers for those challenges yet. We're doing a whole lot of trial and error to see what happens. Regarding the court issue, I agree with Matt and Karen about state courts, they're essential because of the separation of powers. And being very selfish as a state legislator, I want a conservative court to give me as much state rights as possible. Which is kind of ironic, because I don't like the Supreme Court. But state rights gives me as a legislator, considerably more power than having a federal preemption. And those who go to law school know there're all kinds of things like a top of commerce clause, a dormant commerce clause, which is a big part of my life as committee chair.
Tackey Chan:
But the ability to run elections, have you seen in many states cuts both ways, where you have Georgia and other states trying to restrain election rights, while we here are looking at our constitutional about expanding mail-in ballots, and try to figure out how we can within the constitutional constraints of the state or we got to amend the constitution about mail-in ballots. This is a conversation we don't actually have a clean answer legally, for anybody. Same thing on the governor's executive powers, the governor is using executive powers of the War's Act to suspend general laws, which allows certain things to happen. So, for example, in my world, outdoor seating, patio seating, which many of you enjoying in restaurants, terminates 60 days after the end of the governor's state emergency on June 13.
Tackey Chan:
And this is actually pretty important for people to discovered. But question, if the governor's powers to suspend laws exist within the War Act, then you have something you want to suspend a law for 60 days after the state emergency when War Act is not being used, can you do that? I don't have a clean answer, you can cut in both directions. But welcome to being a lawyer. And some of the things you instinctively think is yes, instinct you think is no, maybe a cloudy maybe situation which as the chair of this committee and an attorney I talk to my own counsel, and talk to Governor's people, and talking to my co-chair, which is also the attorney. And I'm rolling through like seven different attorneys all which gave me seven different answers. So, I'm going to be selfish state legislator, likes state powers, pretty straightforward. Until you hate us, and you want federal preemption.
Myka Held:
I love thinking about the mute button in different contexts. I represent mostly domestic violence survivors. So for us, it's been a real treat to have judges mute the abuser who's screaming obscenities either at me or at my client during court. But I hadn't thought about it the other way that it could look bad to mute people. So, I'm going to go through some questions we haven't answered from audience members. If you still have one, feel free to unmute yourself, or to type it in the chat. Also, for these questions for the panelists, these are optional. So, just jump in if you feel like answering it, and you don't have to if you don't want to. So, first question, how do your identities however you define your identities, impacts how you navigate the legal fields and the work that you chose to take on.
Tackey Chan:
Okay, I'll take that one first. My joke is don't wear a blue shirt at Best Buy, trust me. First thing happens when they wear a blue shirt and Best Buy does not work in my favor. So, I kind of alluded this earlier before with systemic racism and the preconceived notions of what you do. And I think you're heard what year I graduate at Brandeis, and the continuum misconception exactly how old I am and how long I've been doing politics comes up every so often, if you don't know me well in government. And my identity is pretty straightforward, my name is Tackey for Pete's sakes, it's not like I have a lot of hiding spaces here. So, it's working through the fact of "you have to work for not your people." You've heard this before obviously, you have to be not "un-American" you have to be "these type of person" to be an elected official. And despite all those kinds of concepts out there, I'm still me.
Tackey Chan:
I mean, I tried to do my best to try to be polite, I've been mean sometimes because requires be mean. But overcoming stereotypical profession, where it's not just about all white guys. I mean, it's called the fox. And now we have female colleagues that are also Asian American. There's always that challenge of that stereotype too, misogynist concept against Asian women. And the thing is, it's actually not in the legislature, our colleagues, they're elected aren't bad. And the reasons because we all had to get there the same way, everybody had to win election. It's dealing with the public, more than the government, more than lobbyists, more than people in government with us in the legislature. It's the general public, outside point of view and us on the inside. And the misconceptions are held individually all of us.
Tackey Chan:
And even as simple as the fact that they assume I'm good at math. We went to law school, we're not good at math. But these things that they can assume that a good at, but conversely, when they move into areas where they are surprised I know this much about this topic that you would think an "Asian" would know, despite that I grew up of over "Irish and Italian" kids my whole life. They all look at me, like how could this be possible? And same thing in my own Asian communities. They always look at you like, you're not white, I'm like, "No, I'm not. But neither are you. So, get over yourself." And it's kind of interesting dynamic idea with so many different facets of different communities. That I'm always like, trying to figure what the problem is.
Tackey Chan:
And one of the things that's most interesting about my life life in the state house is the fact that other Asian ethnic groups that are needing voices gravitate toward me, whether I want to or not. And it's because they think I will understand their plight, and oddly enough, I actually do understand that plight. So, I do a lot more listening than talking most days when I see folks. And these are Asian ethnic groups that don't always like each other either, don't get me wrong, it's not like we're all big Kumbaya here. But they do feel it's important to have someone listen to them, understand what it is. And I do carry those thoughts and feelings through my entire policymaking process that sometimes other people neither have that opportunity to have that very unique input.
Karen Loewy:
So, I think that's a great question about navigating identity issues. So, I say that as a straight white cisgender woman who has been working in LGBTQ rights for 20 years. And navigating privilege, and navigating the importance of safe space. There're clients, and judges, and colleagues, and opposing counsel and co-counsel who all make various assumptions about who I am and what my identity is because of the work that I do. And at the end of the day, it actually loops back to where Matthew started, which is that as an attorney who represents clients, that's my client story and my clients identity, that is what I'm there to tell, and represent time and time again. And ensuring that I'm doing that in the most zealous and ethical way. It means, as Tackey just said, I do a lot of listening, and I do a lot of learning, and I do a lot of absorbing. And I continually am conscious of and aware of places where I have privilege and where that can be, frankly, to my clients benefit and where sometimes it is not.
Karen Loewy:
And it is about ensuring that my clients there... I can remember vividly, I had been representing this woman in a custody battle. She was the non-birth parent of two children. Well, she was non-birth parent of one child and was in a custody battle with the birth parent. And I had been representing her for at this point, a good 9, 10 months. And we were sitting there in a conference room during a mediation and we were waiting for the mediator to sort of come back into the room and we were just sort of casually chit chatting. And she started asking me questions about just my personal like, just really casual conversation. And then and I had that moment of like, I'm going to need to come out to her as straight because when the questions that she's asking me, and how is that going to affect our lawyer client relationship and how is that going to affect her sense of trust me as an advocate for her? And is that going to sort of bust-up her sense of safe space with me and her.
Karen Loewy:
The ways in which Tackey was just addressing the realities of sort of shared identity, people will seek you out because they need to be listened to and think you're going to be a more sympathetic ear. And I don't want to destroy that for people, but I also need to be honest, and approach that with integrity and sensitivity to ensure that my clients continue to work with me in the way that is going to serve their interests best, because at the end of the day yes, I do impact litigation. The goals of my cases are not just about the individual clients that I represent, but the broader folks who they are standing in for to address whatever the systemic issue is. But they're the real life human beings who are putting their stories on the line and their lives on the line to do that work. And it's the duty that I owe to them that I'm always thinking about as I navigate exactly those identity issues.
Myka Held:
Thank you. I think the only other question that hasn't been answered yet, which is directed at Matthew is, do you think that in the jurisdiction which upon that running from the police is not by itself suspicious because of person could fear prejudicial policing, would the court be more likely to uphold a stop or arrest of a white male or to flee from the police?
Matthew Segal:
Well, I don't know exactly what a court would do. First of all, that's really interesting question. One thing that I would say-
Myka Held:
It's from my dad, so I'll just take credit, same mind you know.
Matthew Segal:
One thing I would say is that, going back to my point that this is a sociological assessment. This is the court's assessment of the reasons why someone was running. So, it didn't require the court to conclude that the person had in fact, been the victim of racial profiling. It was made of many considerations, including the evidence of racially disparate policing in Boston, concerns about racial profiling could have been a motivation for someone to run from the police. And so, that's just making an assessment of the person and it has to be based on the individual yes, this person was a black person, and that was relevant in the courts view to the decision making process. But it's not necessarily the case that this would be a consideration that would affect only black people. So, for example, I saw another comment in the chat about disability.
Matthew Segal:
I mean, a lot of the instances that we see of mistreatment or police violence have to do with people who are suffering from mental illness or who having other issues. And what they were hoping to get from the police was aid or assistance, and what they end up getting is violent takedown. And I represented a white woman who had that happened to her, when she was suffering the effects of her bipolar disorder. So, one of the issues in that case is whether the police was sort of justified in regarding her behavior as being resistance, when in fact, it was the consequence of a medical condition. So, I would say, I mean, this isn't a direct answer to your question, and partly, because that's because I'm not a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. But probably, what I would say is that courts have to be sensitive to all the reasons why people do what they do. And this is not a duty that applies to courts only when they're dealing with people of color. It applies to everybody.
Myka Held:
One of the things I instantly thought of when that question came up, actually, one of my colleagues who's here observing this panel had shared a statistic with me this morning, that police are much more likely than people in the general population to rape people while on duty. And so, one of the instantaneous thoughts I had was, as a woman, do we want to be near police officers? Are we right to be suspicious of police officers as well? So, I agree it could really apply to a lot of populations and just different people's ways of thinking. I think that we've reached the end of the questions, if anybody feels like their question in the chat wasn't fully answered, feel free to let us know. If people want to come off of mute and talk to the panelists or ask any more questions. We'd be happy to hear from you all.
Matthew Segal:
Thank you all very much. Take care.