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Answering Fr. Nicolas: In Los Angeles, the Re-Imagined Jesuits Would Promote a Legal Education and Law Practices that Work for a Justice that Heals the Wounds from Past Racial Injustices and Restores Our Communities.

Adolfo Nicolas, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus asks:

“What kind of universities, with what emphases and what directions, would we run, if we were re-founding [re-imagining] the Society of Jesus in today’s world?”

Answering the Question at Loyola Law School

Loyola Law School’s Center for Restorative Justice offers an answer on behalf of the legal profession. If re-imagined today, the Society of Jesus would promote justice through law schools that respond to the demands of the 21st century. Here in Los Angeles, the demands arise from economic and racial inequities that are deeply rooted in the City’s history. This is the city of the Zoot Suit Riots, Watts Riot and the Rodney King Riot. This is the city of the Lynwood Sheriffs’ “Vikings Gang” and the LAPD’s Rampart Scandal. The demands for social justice in Los Angeles come from many voices, some echoing out of a dishonorable past, some immediate and loudly insistent. The faces that voice these demands are overwhelmingly brown and black. Almost all are poorly educated and poorly employed.

After a late 20th century marked by dramatic riots and law enforcement scandals arising out of racial inequity and discrimination, the new century seems to have taken some positive turns. Los Angeles has witnessed a steady decline in violent crime, including diminishing youth gang violence. As the population became predominantly Hispanic, Los Angeles elected a Latino mayor who grew up in East L.A. More recently, the new Catholic archbishop is Mexican-American. These dramatic changes in leadership may signal a growing acceptance of racial and cultural differences among the diverse Los Angeles communities.

Consistent with positive turns toward racial and cultural tolerance, the Restorative Justice movement has taken hold in Los Angeles. Literally dozens of groups and programs have proliferated throughout the region. At LMU, this movement is represented in Loyola Law School’s Center for Restorative Justice (CRJ). The organizers of the CRJ are committed to the belief that a new kind of lawyer is possible: a lawyer committed to working for a justice that restores. Thus, answering Fr. Nicolas’s question: The re-imagined Jesuits and their lay partners, not only the Jesuit-trained, but also persons of other faith traditions and humanists, would re-commit themselves to educating lawyers who understand and acknowledge the continuing harm caused by historic racial injustices in Los Angeles. They would educate lawyers who will work for a justice that heals those wounds and restores the individual and the community.

This event is free and open to the public.

PLEASE REGISTER AT: www.lls.edu/crj