Civil rights lawyer Julia Yoo joins Conversations on Race and Policing on Oct. 4

Julia Yoo, civil rights attorney at Iredale and Yoo, and author of the Los Angeles Times article, “Opinion: California might have thousands of cops who are unfit to wear a badge. This is why,” will be the guest speaker at the Wednesday, Oct. 4, Conversations on Race and Policing.

The program, free and open to the public, will take place on Zoom beginning at 1 p.m. It can be accessed from a PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android at https://tinyurl.com/csusb-race-policing.

Yoo is the president of the National Police Accountability Project (NPAP), the country’s largest civil rights attorneys’ organization, and is the first woman and the first person of color to lead NPAP.  She also serves on the Board of Governors of the Consumer Attorneys of California.

Yoo has devoted her 22-year career to protecting the rights of people whose voices might otherwise go unheard. Upon graduation from law school in 1998, she founded the Law Center for Women Prisoners, a nonprofit organization designed to assist and advocate for incarcerated women. The Law Center, in partnership with externship programs through the University of Colorado law school, provided legal assistance to hundreds of incarcerated women for a wide array of issues, from prisons’ failure to provide adequate medical care to termination of parental rights.

Originally from Seoul, South Korea, Yoo is a cum laude graduate of Wellesley College and received her J.D. at the University of Colorado School of Law.

Conversations on Race and Policing began after the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and its aftermath. It was the death of Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer, that sparked widespread protests, calls for reform and revamping of the nation’s policing system, difficult and hard conversations on race and racism – and gave birth to Cal State San Bernardino’s Conversations on Race and Policing, also known as CoRP.

In subsequent court cases, three other former Minneapolis police officers implicated in Floyd’s death were given prison sentences.

The series has featured scholars, journalists, law enforcement officers, lawyers, activists, artists, educators, administrators and others from throughout the nation who shared their experience and expertise on issues related to race and policing.

More than 90 forums have taken place, and video recordings of the sessions are posted online on the Conversations on Race and Policing Lecture Series Archive. 

The guest presenters in the upcoming programs of Conversations on Race and Policing, each at 1 p.m. on Wednesdays, include:

• Oct. 18: Marisol LeBrón, associate professor, feminist studies, UC Santa Cruz, author of “Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico”
•  Oct. 25: Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World”
•  Nov. 1: U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), whose Congressional committee assignments include the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Human Services. Last spring, he found himself in a dispute with U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Green (R-Ga.), demanding that she apologize to him for making statements employing historically “racist tropes” after the two exchanged words outside the Capitol.
•  Nov. 8: Ronnie Dunn, executive director of diversity and associate professor of urban studies, Cleveland State University, whose research interest includes urban and social policy, racial profiling, racial inequality, the criminal justice system and issues affecting children and families living in urban areas, minority populations and the urban poor.

The series is organized by Matt Patino (CSUSB MA candidate); CSUSB faculty members Mary Texeira (sociology) and Jeremy Murray (history); Robie Madrigal, public affairs/communication specialist for the CSUSB John M. Pfau Library; Michael German, fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice; and community member Stan Futch, president of the Westside Action Group.

For more information, contact Robie Madrigal at rmadriga@csusb.edu or Jeremy Murray at jmurray@csusb.edu.

Also visit the Conversations on Race and Policing webpage.