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CIVIL RIGHTS

Legal Lens documentaries

Law and documentary film may seem far apart, but they actually share many connections. With the guidance of filmmaker and producer Joseph Tovares and support from the Hewlett Foundation, 12 Harvard Law School students from eight countries have worked since January on the Legal Lens project. You can view the films here on BostonGlobe.com.

Dean A. Strang and Nancy Gertner
Law enforcement officers cleared an area of demonstrators outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department during a protest on April 14 over the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright during a traffic stop.
Supreme Court rulings on traffic stops reinforce structural racism in policing
The court was well aware of what it was doing.

SCOT LEHIGH
In this image made from a Windsor Police video, a police officer uses a spray agent on US Army Lieutenant Caron Nazario on Dec. 20, 2020, in Windsor, Va. Nazario is suing two Virginia police officers over a traffic stop during which he says the officers drew their guns and pointed them at him while he was dressed in uniform.
Police must be guardians, not warriors
Put yourself in the place of Lieutenant Caron Nazario for a moment.

Joan Vennochi
A police officer from Prince George's County, Maryland, awaits a procession for Capitol Police Officer William Evans on April 13 in Washington, D.C. A ceremony honoring Evans was held in the rotunda of the US Capitol after he was killed in the line of duty when a car drove into security barriers on April 2.
‘Your dad was a hero’ — the clashing views about American police
More than relying on one jury to change the world of policing, it might be better to change how we think about police.

LETTERS
Chyna Whitaker (center) holds her son, Daunte Jr., as she walks up to microphones to speak during a news conference, Tuesday, in Minneapolis. The father, Daunte Wright, 20, was shot and killed by a police officer on Sunday after a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minn.
An ‘accident’ in Minnesota
Readers respond to the shooting death by a police officer Daunte Wright, in Minnesota.

LETTERS
A pedestrian crosses a street in Tokyo, Feb. 8, 2019.
Emphatic ‘no’ to heels
No one — female or male — should ever be required to wear high heels for any reason.

Leverett Wing
A March 23 Stop The Hate rally at Short Pump Park in Henrico County, Virginia. The group gathered in response to the March killings of eight people at spas in the Atlanta area. Six of the victims were women of Asian descent.
A seminal moment for the Asian American community
Rendered invisible for too long, Asian Americans must loudly share our stories so that others can no longer ignore them or define our narrative.

Stephen Chan
One of the signs at the March 27 Rally & Run to Stop Asian Hate in Hopkinton. The event was held to condemn acts of violence and discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and to display the unity, resilience, and strength of the Asian American community.
The best counter to anti-Asian hate is to build AAPI power
With nearly 1 in 10 residents and 1 in 3 people of color in Greater Boston identifying as AAPI, now is the time to build our power and unite with others for our shared future.

Colette Phillips and Robert Leikind
People demonstrate against anti-Asian violence and racism on March 27 in Los Angeles, California.
What antiracist allies can do to meet this moment
Even as hate-fueled anti-Asian rhetoric became commonplace and fear spread through Asian American communities, the danger was invisible to most Americans. Why?

Maura Healey, Adam Hinds, and Tram Nguyen
A vigil was held in Cushing Square in Belmont for alleged hate crime victim Henry Tapia. Dean S. Kapsalis, 54, allegedly used a racial slur before driving his pickup truck into Tapia on a Belmont street in January, according to prosecutors.
Massachusetts needs a hate crime law
Our current hate crime statutes are critically ineffective.

Antonio F. D. Cabral
Plymouth County Sheriff Joe McDonald has entered into a 287(g) contract, which empowers Immigration and Customs Enforcement to co-opt state and local correctional personnel as immigration agents.
Mass. should put an end to a shameful immigration program
The Legislature should end the 287(g) program, which empowers ICE to co-opt state and local correctional personnel as immigration agents.