Advancing Racial Justice at FIU Law

Each law school [designates] at least one student fellow to work with FLSCRJ every year. The fellows will collaborate with groups in Florida that have long pursued anti-racism initiatives.

Balanced Justice is an initiative developed out of the Florida Center for Capital Representation and the Juvenile Resentencing and Review Project at FIU College of Law. It is a non-profit operating via FIU Foundation and a legal aid instrument within FIU’s Law Clinic. Race is a predominant factor in the four program initiatives of the Project summarized below via the more... link:

In Spring 2019 Florida International University College of Law was awarded a grant by the AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence to launch a new pre-law initiative, the Path to the Legal Profession. The two-year grant supports the FIU Law Path program, whose primary objective is to facilitate the increased enrollment of South Floridian low income, first generation, minority, and other traditionally underrepresented groups into law school as well as to further the development of skills necessary for a successful law school experience once matriculated.

FIU law students, working with the Florida Justice Center, assisted people involved in the racial justice protests in sealing and expunging their criminal records.

The ACLU of Florida and its Greater Miami Chapter are working with law students to conduct research into ways to address--and redress--disparities in the criminal justice system as documented in their research report, Unequal Treatment: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Miami-Dade Criminal Justice.

Technologies for Justice, Inc. trains law students to run Equity in Sentencing Analysis System (ESAS) searches to provide Sentencing Scoresheet Data to indigent Florida State prison inmates who are trying to get disparate and excessive sentences reduced.

The FFRM collaborates with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FFRC) to review and seek modification of fines and fees for convicted felons who have completed their sentences.

In this Project and Fellows program law students with data analysis and IT expertise examine and track inequities in law student borrowing at U.S. law schools. The project seeks to determine how much of a debt burden women, and especially Black and Hispanic law students, carry under the current legal education financing model.

FIU Law is a member of the ABA consortium that aims to contribute to the national effort to examine and address legal issues in policing and public safety... It will will leverage the ABA’s expertise in developing model police practices and that of interested ABA-accredited law schools to collaborate on projects to develop and implement better police practices throughout the United States.

This effort, led by Prof. Ediberto Roman, provides a resource for law students from non-traditional backgrounds interested in entering the academy. Its aim is to attract students and lawyers of different racial and ethnic backgrounds interested in becoming law professors.

This enrollment initiative is a program overseen by Senior Associate Dean Michelle Mason to develop, design, and implement recruitment, equity, and inclusion initiatives at FIU Law.