Here at the Whistleblower Law Collaborative, we try to keep our work focused on the rights and claims of our clients, and the interests of law enforcement in protecting the American public from waste, fraud, and abuse. We often hold our tongues in political matters, lest our work be misunderstood as connected to partisan interests.
But not all “politics” is partisan, and not all public matters of controversy are the same. We feel compelled today, Juneteenth, Emancipation Day, to state clearly where we stand in connection with the demands of the Black community and our fellow citizens to be free from police violence, and the demands that our country and our culture make more meaningful progress in the nation’s struggle to live up to its founding principles, including “Equal Justice Under Law,” the words inscribed on the face of the U.S. Supreme Court Building.
We support and wholeheartedly endorse the letter of June 4th of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in which the Court stated that:
[W]e must do more than express our feelings of sadness and anger.
[W]e must look afresh at what we are doing, or failing to do, to root out any conscious and unconscious bias…
We must also look at what we are doing, or failing to do, to provide legal assistance to those who cannot afford it; to diminish the economic and environmental inequalities arising from race; and to ensure that our law offices not only hire attorneys of color but also truly welcome them into the legal community…
This must be a time not just of reflection but of action…
We must recognize and address our own biases, conscious and unconscious. We must recognize and condemn racism when we see it in our daily lives…
[I]t is a time for solidarity and fellowship with African-American[s] …, to acknowledge their pain…, and to stand together when others may try to divide us.
The unrest we see today all across the country reflects the legitimate need for redress of 400 years of violence, inequality, and complicit silence of too many Americans. But it also reflects one of the most essential strengths of this country: the right to peacefully protest for “redress of grievances.” When governments fail us in critical ways, we have the Constitutionally protected right to demand that governments listen and change. This is a right not universally recognized and arguably the most cherished of all American rights.
So we stand with the protesters. We acknowledge the pain behind the protests. And we commit ourselves as individuals and as a firm to do better, to ask the hard questions of ourselves and of our peers, and to work for justice and equality in our work and in our communities. And we say, unequivocally, Black Lives Matter.