December 2000

Chasing the Justice and Equality Dream

by David Hall

Provost & Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Northeastern University, Boston

Presented at the Celebration 2000 Closing Ceremony, September 16, 2000. Reprinted by permission of the author.

I am truly honored to be a part of this historic conference. This gathering of lawyers, judges and those committed to access to justice is a powerful symbol of how we should operate across artificial boundaries to achieve a common goal. You should feel proud of yourselves for having done this, and I hope other states will follow your lead. More importantly I hope that the time you have spent together will create a new path for justice in this state.

This is my second trip to this state this year. When I was asked to deliver my "Chasing the Justice Dream" speech, which I gave at the Goldmark Luncheon of the Legal Foundation of Washington, I felt a little awkward. Writing and giving speeches for me is like having children. No matter how much you love them and enjoyed delivering them, you don't want to give birth to that same one again.

Yet there are tremendous parallels between the theme of your conference, "Working Together to Champion Justice," and the theme of my Goldmark Luncheon address. "Chasing the Dream" is a message that this historic gathering of members of the legal profession in this state should hear. But I would like to expand that message, and speak to you today about "Chasing the Justice and Equality Dream."

Those of you gathered here today are the caretakers of this dream called justice for this state. As lawyers and judges you dispense it to those you serve, hail it as the ideal that other nations should embrace. Yet at the same time you realize that so many of this state and this nation are denied not only access to the avenues of the legal system, but even the ability to have a quality life. Without this access, the legitimacy and integrity of the legal system will eventually crumble. Therefore we must constantly chase this elusive dream called justice.

But standing right next to this ideal of justice is the ideal of equality. I submit to you that if we chase one at the expense of the other, then our chasing will be in vain. For justice cannot exist without equality, and equality becomes meaningless without justice. It is your relentless chasing of both of these dreams that gives full meaning to our lives, and helps us to create a society that we would be proud to pass on to our children.

These sacred concepts — justice and equality—were originally offered up at the birth of this nation as two of its most treasured ideals. Yet these precious moral and legal values were stillborn in the womb of this nation, and have remained fleeting ideas for every subsequent generation.

Justice and equality in America were drowned deep in the ocean of cruelty by this nation's endorsement of the slave trade and slavery. They were hidden under rocks in this country, as segregation was allowed to stand for a century as a fundamental part of the social and political landscape. They were placed in the dark closets of this nation when women were denied the right to vote, treated as an object of man's pleasure, but not as his professional equal. For the right price, justice and equality would be forced to take a back seat in the name of economic development and progress. Before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, we hid justice and equality in the attics of our minds, homes and institutions because we couldn't embrace those who were physically and emotionally different from us.

So we live in a society and world where justice and equality have not always been present on the throne. They come like hot flashes and then quickly disappear. They have been all too temporary and always more theoretical than real. We think we have achieved them when we get an innocent person acquitted because he was the victim of racial profiling, or the victim of discriminatory sentencing, yet that person often returns to a community that is so underdeveloped and undereducated that the chances of him being arrested again greatly exceed his chances of staying free. We believe we have found them when we halt the privatization of public hospitals; but when will we find and implement answers to the various environmental, economic and psychological conditions that cause such great disparities in health and death rates which exist along racial and class lines? We think we have justice and equality in our grasp when we order the testing of poor children for lead poisoning, yet we can't stop their minds from being poisoned by inadequate education, negative self images, and degrading music. So our justice and equality dreams escape our grasp as quickly as we touch them.

Some might argue that my understanding of justice and equality is too broad. Some of us sincerely believe that justice and equality can only be understood and applied in the context of individual cases that include a victim and an evil wrongdoer. But in a society such as ours, that has a history of endorsing and enabling so much systematic injustice and inequality, we cannot afford to be trapped by such a limited vision of justice. For woven within the lining of this justice dream is an assumption, an act of faith, that the playing fields are level, and the underlying social settings are fair. Yet for many of the people who come into your courtrooms and law offices, these fundamental prerequisites are missing. Therefore, we go through life placing band-aids over cancerous social wounds. We go merrily on our way invoking and embracing equality in an unequal world.

Very few persons in this country would say they are not for equality. Yet any cursory analysis of the conditions of persons of color, women and other marginalized groups would easily show that we are not there yet. And in this state where the populace has struggled with issues of equality and has created legislation that outlaws affirmative action, I feel compelled to focus for a moment on the equality portion of this dream which we chase.

It is easy to believe in the ideal of equality; it is another thing to make the sacrifices to bring that ideal into existence. We aren't willing to make too many sacrifices in this country for the ideals we say we believe in. We aren't even willing to sacrifice other ideals. We hold on to a notion of a colorblind society when this country has been color conscious for all of its existence, and used that consciousness to subjugate and segregate people of color.

Yes, I have heard the pain that some students have when they believe they were not admitted to law school because of affirmative action. I have had those conversations and I don't trivialize their frustration. But I also know the pain of generations of black people who were shut out not just from law schools but from life. Their pain rises from the grave, from the rivers where their bodies still lie. Their children now live stunted lives with limited opportunities because of that past. As a society we have distanced and trivialized that pain, and that is why our moral cups are dry. For Christians, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross poured love and salvation into the moral and spiritual cups of humanity. For Jews, Moses' relinquishment of his position of honor and power in Egypt in order to serve his people filled up the moral cup with prosperity and promise for all people. Though our legal system draws heavily from these spiritual traditions, as a society we are not willing to sacrifice much for equality. Thus we live in a religiously dominated nation, but we practice non-religious ideals.

So I am here, as a voice crying out in the wilderness, asking this nation once again to look at what it has done to its own citizens. Look at how we have rationalized away centuries of oppression and denial. Look at how shallow the moral cup of our nation is. We dispensed affirmative action for a few decades, after centuries of injustice, and we holler too much. We get so upset when we feel that people are getting something for nothing, but we don't understand that this is what made this country advance so quickly. Slavery and segregation were the greatest examples of someone getting something for nothing.

Yet, the response is that two wrongs don't make a right. But to leave the first wrong, the original sin, uncorrected is to pour salt in an open wound and then tell the patient to be patient. We have been patient too long. This society, and this legal system, will never reach its full potential until it comes to grips with this sin.

But we say that the sin was so long ago that this generation should not be saddled with the responsibility of addressing it. But it wasn't that long ago. I grew up in those conditions in the South, and despite these grey hairs, I am not that old. More importantly, the consequences from the history of neglect, denial and hatred last a long time. When you keep a concept like equality locked away for centuries, you do not restore it by just declaring it.

I realize that this society and many of you in this room may be weary of discussion about equality, especially racial equality. When people like me continue to raise it, it feels like someone is trying to remind us of a bad dream which we want desperately to put behind us. Even I get tired of being the one to bring it up, to keep reminding myself and those around me that racial justice and equality are still distant fleeting goals, and at times we seem to be farther away from them instead of closer. But as lawyers and judges, we should never grow weary of discussions about equality. We should never feel as if we have had enough of those debates and discussion. For lawyers to grow weary of discussion of equality is like doctors wanting nothing more to do with blood.

The ideals of equality and justice are the lifeblood of our profession. To ignore them is to ignore the very foundation upon which this legal system rests. A justice system that has systematic inequality in its midst will never dispense justice. The fundamental prerequisite to an adversary justice system is that both sides are equally able to bring their petition, their version of truth to the altar, and have them fairly decided. But if there are serious biases in the process, in the minds of those who make decisions and represent clients, then we have not dispensed justice. When there are systemic inequities within the society that devalue the lives of people and place them on a path of destruction, then justice can never be obtained.

There is a popular slogan that many protesters have used in recent years that says "no justice, no peace." Though we may not agree with the circumstances under which this slogan is ushered, we can't ignore the fundamental truth associated with this slogan. We will never have real peace in this society when there are serious flaws in the justice system and in society.

But I would like to add to this slogan by saying "no equality, no justice." Equality is a fundamental value upon which we rest our system of laws. But as long as equality is a myth in this society and this state, justice will remain an illusion no matter how hard we chase it.

My plea to those of us who are sworn to uphold the laws of this state and the laws of this country is to be honest with ourselves about that which we are upholding. We are not upholding a system that has done what it has proclaimed. We uphold liberty in a society that enslaved people. We are the caretakers of justice in a society that for centuries purposely and constitutionally denied justice to so many. We are upholding equality in an unequal world.

My plea is not that we should stop upholding the system, but for us to be honest first with ourselves and then with others about the shortcomings and illusive nature of the system we took an oath to uphold. Then we must take a new oath which commits us to chasing more vigorously the justice and equality dream.

I do not cry for this profession because there is some utopia that I want us to find. There is no paradise lost that I want us to regain. I cry because many of us don't care anymore. I cry because we have rationalized away our responsibility to even pretend that systemic inequity is something we should strive to eliminate.

Lawyers and judges are the guardians of justice and equality. You and I, the ones who have been given this sacred vessel to preserve, should be in the forefront of this quest. Our voices should be the loudest and our tears should be the wettest. But too many of us have focused too much on our own well-being. We have chosen to be believers in the equality ideal, as long as it doesn't cost us any time, money or clients. 

Don't plead to this bar and judicial association for me. For I am not a resident of this state, and I have been blessed to escape some of the traps of racial injustice and inequality that this society lays out for people who are different. But I plead to you for those voices you may never hear. I plead to you for those who are locked in inner-city silos where hope is a fleeting moment that few can catch. I plead to you for the poor of this state who are poor not because of their work ethic, but because statistically there are just so many people of color, women, and disabled who will be allowed to move into the mainstream of society. There is no written quota, but there is an unwritten reality that if you place an unnecessarily high wall in front of human beings only a few will scale it, especially when there is no wall for others. This is the problem with America. We keep putting up walls instead of building bridges. We keep trying to keep people out as opposed to embracing them. We keep wanting to create a level playing field in a mountainous terrain.

We must not see justice and equality as a fixed formula that is easily applied, but as sacred principles that are always contextual and excruciatingly difficult to obtain.

As lawyers, judges and activists, we must be courageous enough in this new century to define justice in broad terms. When people, because of their birth, not because of their effort, are doomed to receive fewer chances at the brass ring of life, then justice and equality are a distant dream. When the infant mortality rate for some is so much greater than for others merely because of their color and economic conditions at birth, then justice is a complete illusion. As long as women are abused and killed because men can't control themselves, then equal pay for equal work becomes a hollow gesture.

Justice and equality must encompass the human and social conditions in which people exist. They rest on the moral and spiritual messages we send through our institutions and our individual lives. Justice and equality are not an act; they are not one concrete thing which we achieve and then forget. Justice and equality are dynamic ideals; they are legal and spiritual values which we must continuously release into the universe, and relentlessly pursue.

Therefore, our greatest hope for equality and justice is to correct the inequality and injustice that already exist. For they prevent these ideals from being born in every generation. Our greatest hope for justice and equality is to ensure that future generations aren't imprisoned in the patterns of the past. The dream of justice and equality must be an active process that does not wait for violations to occur. The dream should compel us to empower the people we serve to take control of the destiny of their lives and community — economically, educationally and otherwise. Our greatest chance at catching this dream is to transform our institutions and ourselves. If not, then our chasing will only lead us in circles.

Regardless of circumstances and political winds, this Bar and Judicial Association must believe in and pursue the dream, because it is the believing and the chasing that gives the ideal concrete meaning. It is the stretching and striving that allows us to transform the society from what it is to a place closer to what it should be. Though I realize that we may never eliminate homelessness, racism, hatred and poverty from our midst, we must remain committed to that end. For as soon as we accept their elimination as unobtainable goals, then we reconcile ourselves to the status quo, and we needlessly write off people and lock in unfair institutional practices. But as long as the ideal of justice and equality remains part of our striving, it remains part of who we are as human beings. Chasing the justice and equality dream is spiritual medicine for lawyers and judges. It is our balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. It is our unwavering commitment to the ideal, even when all circumstances point in the opposite direction, that separates the dreamer from the cynic.

So in conclusion, we who stand on the dawn of a new century have the choice to defer again this justice and equality dream by narrowing it. We can wash our hands of the underlying inequality and poverty by individualizing our chase. But our individual victories will be stunted by the overwhelming social conditions that must still be rectified. This is a struggle that may exceed the boundaries and resources of these legal organizations assembled here, but it is a struggle that none of us can afford to ignore.

As you close this convention, don't see it as just a time when you reconnected with old friends and learned new theories and innovative practices. Remember it as a time when the members of the legal profession in this great state came together to drink from the well of justice, equality and love. Remember it as a time when you were reminded that you are not just lawyers, but moral leaders; you are not just judges of cases, but healers of people. This must be the time to revitalize the spirit of this profession. Certainly justice and equality are not the only ideals we need to revitalize and pursue, but they are the ones we too easily forget.

One day all of us must give account, not of the difficulty of our travels, but whether we continued to chase the dream. For if you stop chasing this dream of justice and equality, then this state and this nation will never be the type of places they could and should be. There are people in this state who will suffer greatly if you stop chasing the dream. They need you more desperately than you will ever understand. And you need them more than you presently realize.

So, as I said to some of you in Seattle, continue to chase this justice and equality dream, my friends. Chase it with your head and with your heart. Chase it as if your life depended upon it, because it does. For our lives will be ultimately measured by the good we do in the world and by the love and service that we give, especially to those in need. Chase this dream not only in your courtrooms and law offices, but chase it in every aspect of your life, in every waking hour. Chase it even as you sleep. If we do that, then when we wake, we will have become dreamcatchers.

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