Kaaryn Gustafson
Professor of Law, UC Irvine School of Law
Co-Director, Center on Law, Equality and Race
Professor Gustafson’s research and scholarship is interdisciplinary and explores the role of law in remedying inequality—and in reinforcing inequality. Her research over the last decade focused on the expanding administrative overlap between the welfare and criminal justice systems, as well as the experiences of those individuals and families caught in those systems. Her current research explores the history of law in regulating African American families and in regulating labor among poor people of various ethnic backgrounds. She is the Co-Director of the Center on Law, Equality and Race (CLEaR), whose goal is to promote greater racial equality through research, education, and advocacy.
Gayle McLaughlin
Mayor of Richmond, California
Gayle McLaughlin was elected to her first term as Mayor of the City of Richmond in November 2006 and is currently serving her second term. McLaughlin was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a working class union family. As Mayor, she has led the City in a progressive direction that has kept City workers in jobs and City services in place, even in hard economic times. She has focused on issues of economic development, environmental justice, and crime prevention during her tenure as mayor. This year, under McLaughlin’s leadership, the City Council passed a Minimum Wage Increase Ordinance, raising the minimum hourly wage for Richmond workers to $13.00 by 2018.
Mayor McLaughlin facilitated grassroots efforts calling for fair taxation that led to an historic settlement in which Chevron (which has a large facility in the city) agreed to pay an additional $114 million into the City’s general fund over the next 15 years (an average of $7.6 million more per year). Her focus on a healthy environment has moved the city forward greatly with community gardens, bike paths, bay trail construction, and park renovations in neighborhoods throughout the city. Mayor McLaughlin is perhaps best known around the country, however, for the Richmond CARES (Community Action to Restore Equity and Stability) program. This is a foreclosure prevention program that is seeking to acquire severely underwater mortgages in Richmond from the banks (either through voluntarily sales or through eminent domain) so the City can refinance the loans for the homeowners with reduced principals in line with current home values.