12.14.2023 Guest Speaker: Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell

um just a couple things so if you do have a question we want you to ask it yourself right um so when you do that uh we want you to stand up kind of introduce yourself your grade and then you can pose the question and that will also help with uh Fred TV as well okay um when we do begin uh we need everyone's undivided attention right cell phone should be away and uh we're

going to give the proper respect to this pretty cool opportunity uh but before we get to the attorney general even though he's mident since I'm going to introduce the mayor of forer Mr Paul Coogan okay out of respect for you guys and because we're tight for time I'm not going to go through our attorney general's background I cter as a friend but I do want you to take a chance when

you get it look at Wikipedia put her name in and look at her background she doesn't come from anywhere any different than anyone in this school she wasn't like what we call the suburb kid that comes from somewhere it's already gifted she kicked her way to the top please read her background that way I'm not taking time off you that's part of your project and uh and you're going to be

fine without any more Gavin I want to introduce a friend of mine the Attorney General of massachus Andre Camp thank you my way to the top um and I want to spend most of my time frankly taking your questions because I know when that Bell Rings you don't care who's talking to you you're going to get up out of here and I totally understand but just a quick question is everyone who's here a

senior so okay so what's the makeup here sophomores through seniors okay good never assumed um well I don't know what Wikipedia says I don't think it's always accurate um oh it's accurate is for you oh good why are you looking at wi um so I I'll just say just a couple things about me and then a little bit about the office and just open it up to you guys guys no I don't come from the

suburbs um and for anyone in the room who does come from possibly has anyone relationships in the suburbs no offense to the people in the suburbs um but I do come from Boston I was actually born and raised in Boston I still live in Boston now I live in matapan in Boston and if you know anything about Boston you know matapan is probably one of the neighborhoods that has pockets of Po not

the best school higher inance of violence um larger number of immigrants but one thing I love about where I live is it's it's diverse just like this room it's people who work hard who roll up their sleeves probably work two or three jobs to make sure their kids have an opportunity um and so I feel blessed to live in matapan I'm a mother I have two young boys a four-year-old and a

six-year-old I'm also a wife and I love my husband I have him too um but I grew up in Rock Spring in the South End which are other neighborhoods in Boston I went to public schools so I went to Five Boston Public Schools um I left there to go to Princeton University I was the first in my family to go to college and then I went to UCLA for law school and then I brought my

happy self back from sunny California to Boston where I representing young people in Education cases School discipline special needs cases just making sure our young people had access to the education they were entitled to I worked in state government as an attorney and then ultimately um ran for City Council in Boston and then later took on this role of Attorney General but my path to get

year wasn't straight and I think what the mayor was sort of getting at is it's the piece of the bio that you often don't see so when I was 8 months old my mom actually died in a car accident going to visit my father who was incarcerated at the time and my father was incarcerated for the first8 years of my life so my brothers and I we lived with relatives sometimes in the foster

care system my father would get out of prison when I was eight but when I was a sophomore at Princeton I talked to one morning he died the same evening when I was 19 years old old so all of my biological parents are deceased all of my biological grandparents are deceased but fast forward my twin brother Andre would cycle in and out of the prison system and would die 11 years ago while

in the custody of the Department of Correction which oversees our prison here in Massachusetts as a result of receiving inadequate health care and I still as I stand here as the chief law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth still have loved ones who are incarcerated so as I do this work I never forget where I come from I recognize that there are folks including probably many of you who have

similar stories and circumstances our office is not going to eradicate poverty overnight we're not going to eradicate the prison system overnight or the bias in that system we're not going to solve any issue overnight what we want to do though is be in relationship with folks that we serve and particularly young people so my visit here is to answer your questions about the office or

anything else you want to ask and to really think about how we in this office as we do this work ensure that we're engaging more young people so we're trying to explore not trying we're exploring how we create a youth advisory Council so more to come on that to make sure as we do the work of supporting you working with you that is actually informed by you so it's an honor and

privilege to be here with each and every one of you your school is absolutely incredible it is amazing my schools the all five I went to none of them look like this so it's a blessing to be here with each and every one of you and I know how busy you are you're seniors you're young and fabulous you want to go out and hang out you know want to be here so I'm really delighted that you

would take time to be in conversation with me today and my incredible team so I'm done talking at you I know this Bell is going to ring at some point but I'm happy to answer any question or if you just have a comment you want to share something that's on your heart feel free but again thank you for having me today have I don't think I have a mic do

you guys have a mic okay and if you ask a question I hope you do or say something please say your name and also what grade you're in up top up top okay God bless you uh my name is alot and I'm a junior and I wanted to ask a question um what are your thoughts on uh people who would say that the prison system currently is doing its job and do

you believe that reform is needed because I thought that what you said about your brother uh passing away in the system because of inadequate Healthcare was really um I I don't want to say heartbreaking but it I just wanted to know your thoughts on how that influenced you wanting to help prisoners we might just have to talk loud yeah we might just have to talk loud could take a lot so Emily God bless

you yes I I care deeply about criminal legal reform or even what they say the crat a the prison pipeline CU many folks who end up being incarcerated some of it starts with school-based offenses right um kids going into a juvenile justice system and then ultimately ending up in our prison system or our house of correction so the office is doing a lot um elizza who is here she runs our children's Justice

unit she comes with a background of looking to dismantle this Cradle to prison pipeline and so that's a priority for the office and thinking about how to do that uh working with school districts on bullying practices or disciplined practices that tend to Target particular populations um restorative justice practices we know work but not every school has access to that type of programming so we want to do a lot of

work at the front end when it comes to prisons right now we are we have sort of internal working group of thinking about what are the places where we want to Advocate the most conditions of confinement is definitely one of those places whether it's solitary confinement folks who are in sort of in lockdown for 23 hours a day and whether or not that truly leads to True Rehabilitation access to Medical Care

many folks who end up incarcerated are not treated as though they're human beings and that culture and mindset needs to be shifted and there definitely a role that we can play in that um we work with the Department of Correction frequently sometimes representing them in legal proceedings and I think because we get to do that we have a leverage to pull to hold them accountable those things things and then other things

making sure folks who are behind the wall including women can access their families and communicate with their families so one recent Victory um on the legislative side of things was making sure that phone calls for example were free for people who are incarcerated to make it easier for them to do that because if you are going to be successful in re-entry you're going to need connection with community and

family and one thing I will just add some will frame these issues as just sort of being issues that black and brown people care about but as we incarcerate folks who are poor who are dealing with substance use disorder or other things it's an issue I think everybody should care about so thank you for that question maybe the next person just try to talk really loud all right um I'm

faith I'm a senior and my question was mostly about like mental health and like in schools and how like your office could make it a priority not only for students to have resources but for like teachers and staff because it is trining like to be in a school where there is problems their students that are misbehaving and like how those teachers have to be able to like by themselves in

a b class thank you thank for the question a few things I'm I could go on and on I mean we could spend one time on each of those questions we could literally be here all day but I I'll try to sum up some things um why we recognize the problem particularly with mental health concerns with our youth and we're soon going to roll out our strategic plan which will speak to what

is your office going to focus on because we could focus on so many different things but one thing I'm really proud of we have five themes and one of those themes is the well-being of our youth and our kids and I care about that not just as the Attorney General but also as a mother of two young boys who are relatively young four and six so they're not necessarily experiencing the struggles of say our teenagers we

recognize this is a hard time social media bullying harassment the world seems to be going mad you look at politics everything is so ugly it's just sort of dark and gloomy um and we know our young people are uffing there's an uptick in depression anxiety self harm um as evidenced by numbers in stories that we hear so our office is one looking at ways in which to hold people accountable that perpetuate that so our

social media companies for example we recognize social media platforms offer some benefit but we also think they are causing some of this harm when it comes to mental health and so we have a complaint and multi-state um investigation going on with other states to hold meta and Instagram accountable to push them to redesign their app so they're more user friendly but also supportive versus harmful to our youth

we also have a healthc Care Division in our office that every day is working with a whole bunch of stakeholders to make sure that folks have access to Behavioral Health Services I'm in doing that through legislative Solutions working with our mayor and other local folks to make sure it's not just you our school districts as well so the Children's Justice unit the healthcare division Community engagement division

so many divisions are working hard um when it comes to this and then lastly we have this ability to also give out millions of dollars in Grants in the office in the past and we're going to continue to school what that looks like has granted community- based organizations that provide Mental Health Services to communities that often don't have access to it um grants and opportunity funding and opportunities to

be able to expand some of those resources so all of these things um we want to be intentional about and do it in partnership with a whole bunch of stakeholders so that's some of what we're doing in this space but I'll just say you know I know a lot of folks say oh we're going to prioritize the well-being of Youth and thank you goodby and walk away when our plan comes out

it's it's it's specific action steps that we want to take we do a lot of training right now across the entire Commonwealth of school districts on how to identify bullying and ways in which to support folks in these community so it's more inclusive right we're doing a lot when it comes like I said to social media we're actually taking action steps but will be more helpful is when we get

this youth advisory Council off the ground to hear from all of you what you think we should be doing in this space too so more to come um I just had a question oh sorry my name's adun and I'm a senior yeah um so I had a question about like just for you personally because um I know you were talking about like your history and like how your brothers and your father

were like in and out of um jail and so I was wondering like what made you want to go into law specifically especially if you had that history with the justice system and then also like in that like what was your goal when you wanted to go into law because of that background yeah that's a really great question thank you for it um I never thought I would run

for office or even go to law school it was never people oh you want to be when you grow up none of this I loved math I when I started at Princeton I started off as a as a math major I thought I was going to to be an accountant and then they started throwing Theory at me and I saw the Beautiful Mind and it was like I

don't want to do any of that um so ended up going in a different direction um studying sociology and judaic studies I'm of Christian faith but was always interested in Black Jewish relations and civil rights movement and social justice so when I left law school I actually worked at a firm as a pargal in New York to think about whether or not I wanted to go I should say undergrad to think

about whether I wanted to go to law school and why I even thought I might want to go is because at the time both of my older my twin and my older brother were sort of in and out of the system and as the NEX of kin because our parents were deceased I would often get those calls from their lawyers when they got in trouble and always felt inadequate I didn't know what they were

asking me about I couldn't navigate the legal system I tried hard to be an advocate so went to law school with this sort of wanting to have a deeper understanding but actually didn't want to go anywhere near the criminal space because I had seen enough of it and thought someone else can do that I want to do something maybe in labor and employment and help workers um but so that's why I started but fast forward

when my twin brother passed it had me thinking more about not just how I could use my law degree which I had at the time but even with a Princeton degree and a law degree I still couldn't get my twin brother the healthc care he deserved and that's when policy and politics really for me said okay that makes a difference who's in these spaces who's determining who gets the resources who gets um the attention on a

particular issue it matters who's in these seats matters and who's going to concentrate and focus on those folks who feel left out or left behind or discounted or invisible it matters who you put in these seats and so when I decided to run for local office those were the stories I was bringing with me those who just felt left out left behind and now I I work with an incredible team to be able

to advocate for folks never forgetting where I come from and why I do this work so I feel really blessed as much as painful as my personal story may sound I'm the happiest I've ever been in my entire life joyful at peace and I don't need substances I will say to get to that place I really am blessed because I feel every day I'm turning that pain into purpose and using it to help other people

and then I'll go here and then back here all right so I'm Forest um I was just wondering what year are you I'm a junior okay uh I was just wondering since you were talking about how many obstacles you had in your life um I was just wondering how you push past those became so successful and if you believe that everyone has the opportunity to succeed despite the circumstances that they're

in I do think everyone has the opportunity to succeed and and like I said at the beginning you know we're not going to eradicate the barriers that stand in the way of people being able to succeed even if you come from a two parent household and everything seems great on the surface people young people struggle we all struggle we've gone we go through teenage years I was one of those teenagers too but what I realized

is what we can do is offer opportunity and support and mentorship so I had a great education so I believe in making sure every young person has access to a really good education I had great teachers who just didn't just teach me academics bought me clothes they were like I think you need something right like who really invested in me I had great employers so when I was in high school I got jobs where employers

invested in me and became dear friends later on so like this ecosystem right around me um I had Sports I did Double Dutch in in middle school that brought me to college campuses through various competitions so at all these different things so I think if you provide young people in particular at the front end versus the back end these opportunities and ens sure they have access and it's easy for them to access

these things things it can make a difference I also had later in life Mental Health Services I believe in therapy if you've been through anything that is traumatic there is no Stigma in talking to someone and I would say who is not your family member someone who really has the skills and the training to say what happened to you was either not okay it was traumatic and then to

give you the tools to be able to respond right to grow in your resiliency because life is hard it's difficult it's challenging to this today it still is but I was blessed to be given tools particularly after my brother passed how do you deal with that level of grief in a healthy way so I believe in therapy and then lastly I have a deep sense of faith my aunt and uncle who are my

parent figures in my life and live directly across the street from me in matap pan my aunt planted seeds of faith in me very early um so I'm a Praying Woman and for me that is a foundation of my life and there is something about this idea that there's something bigger than in you about serving purpose and when it gets really hard reminding myself that makes a big difference and then I would just say surround yourself

with good people there are many folks in my family that did not think I should ever run for political office actually many were like why would you do that and are you immune to making money go do that why are you doing this but I believed in certain gifts I had and turning it into something about helping people and there are people who came out of the wood were complete strangers to

invest their time and energy into me including some of my team members who've been dear friends for a really long time surround yourself with people who believe in you anyone who is negative passive aggressive mean whatever else move on next you don't have time surround yourself and sometimes it may be just one person who believes in you at that moment in time pull those people close attach to them lean on them and

vice versa support each other because you need that network of people who also believe in you and invest in you I'll go here and here and then over there I don't know when the bell's going they tell my name freshman what's your name okay the issue you were talking about the met and how certain children are being exposed to inappropriate content on so how would you enforce like these

age restrictions how would you present this issue to parents that's that's a great question so right now we have a public complaint out there against Instagram and meta there are conversations with with Tik Tok which I can just leave it at that um as well and other social media platforms are on the list too to to look at and what we found is there are yes the enforcement of some

of their regulations and rules we can do that but we don't think their existing rules and regulations and and how they monitor monitor um their platforms and design their platforms is adequate so in the context of Instagram for example we've been saying to them you have heard complaints from parents young people School administrators so many about how young people can become addicted to these platforms and I'll

give you an example when they were designing these apps they didn't design it for my age group or the mayor's age group he's so young and fabulous but his age group they designed it for your age group intentionally so they studied Neuroscience they studied how your brains work work and they needed obviously an audience and a market for their product and they said hm this could be a good audience why because you

can incorporate certain design features that would make it more difficult for you to get off the app than me because of how our brains have developed and how far your brains haven't caught up to mine and so they designed it in such a way put certain features on there so the incessant notifications that you get for example that are difficult to turn off or the slot machine um model that they

use that they incorporate into the app so keeps you coming back the incentives that they incorporate in these platforms where you feel left out if you don't participate or the rewards that they give you these are all design features and so as people were studying how young people are using them including some folks in our office we have a whole data privacy division team that looks at

technology every day they look at this and say you know what yes there's some benefit to having these platforms and people feeling connected including folks in the lgbtq plus Community there is benefit there but there are also harms and so we're going to push you to redesign some of these features so it's not causing our people harm so you're not so addicted in doing this all day

right and what they did was say oh we're going to do that but they never did so that's what we're going after not the content because that rid goes against s of the First Amendment but it's the design choices in the ways in which they design these platforms and I will tell you in the con conversation of Tik Tok in particular if you're in China they restrict how long

you can be on Tik Tok there are age requirements that are very different from here they also if you were to search as a young girl for example on healthy um healthy weight or beauty what comes back to you in China is more supportive and encouraging what what comes back to you here in the United States can be things around anorexia bulimia things that we know are not in any way encouraging us to love ourselves

and to stand in who we are curve shape and all right and so we're looking at how these are different and pushing these companies to do what they're doing in other countries here and on the parent piece it's such a great question is there an expectation that parents know what's going on and the company's putting it on them to figure it out and we're saying no we're putting it on you

to figure it out because only you have the power to change this to help our young people to help our parents deal with it um and as you probably all know and you may know peers who've had interactions with these platforms and it hasn't gone well and so just be mindful of that but it's something that we prioritizing and we're going to have at the Forefront of the work going forward

thank you I'll go here and then I think over here you got to talk loud I don't know who you my name is I love you're here hey by the way go ahead my name I heard

youal first of all thank thank you for sharing the courage and the vulnerability it takes for you to share in such a large group I am so grateful I often tell folks and it's taking me therapy and other things to realize that when you share things like that and you exercise vulnerability and courage it is powerful being vulnerable is power sharing your story is power so I'm going

to start there so thank you I recognize that there are some therapists that do it really well and there are others not so much and I think in our office we're always thinking about how we hold folks who don't do it well accountable even folks that receive money from the state and are said to provide certain Services they're not providing so whether it's our healthc Care Division we have a

Medicaid fraud division they're going after these folks I think in working with Health and Human Services which is a state agency that we work with frequently overseen by the governor we're always talking about ways in which to improve delivery of services how to do more effective services for different populations of folks including young people what it means to have providers that come with

different backgrounds um po of different demographics too so more to come we're doing what we can in that space and even when I was going through therapy and you have to find the right one and the right fit it could be a pain in the ass it could be a pain to find the right thing you go you talk to one person you tell them a piece of your story and

you're like this person isn't it then you go to the next one and then you go to the next one but don't give up on the process find that right fit because I can probably guarantee that everyone in here including every team member over here everyone in here probably at some point in time needs a therapist because we live in this world we're human beings it's traumatic what you're seeing in the

news the media in your house in your community the violence the gun violence the incessant shootings we're seeing all of that has an effect on US unless you're a robot and none of us are I hope we're not robots we're human being and so all of us need that so just I encourage you to keep going and find the right fit and when you do it's a game changer you can't go and realize your

purpose go after the work you want to do the career you want to have if you don't address those things so thank you for sharing you're a freshman you're starting out it's only the beginning this is going to fly by and you'll be out the world but stay in touch with us and we're going to stay in touch with your school leaders so if anyone any one of you want to follow up afterwards on

any particular thing stay in t with us thank you oh I said over here I'm going to go over here and then come back um so my name is Kaye also known as Sully I'm a junior um yeah I was going to ask uh earlier you talked about um how you get to where you are without relying on any substances um obviously there is a rise in teenagers using substances specifically Vapes and in school kids um

we're trying to prevent it obviously the administrative is um do you think that there could be a different take on stopping this substance abuse rather than punishing the kids for what they're doing um that's a great question but I want to first start by I don't want to stand up here and suggest to anyone that I don't have a cocktail here and there that I haven't had a joint at some

point um or tried a cigarette just thought oh um I I've done it all you know maybe not all for a certainly I have not done um but I don't want to sit stand up here and and act like you know I don't I've never engaged with any of those things it's just not true um on a tough day it's like I I will have a Margarita Wine whatever it

is but if you have to go to that to start your day to end your day every day to get to a place of calm less anxiety less stress and you don't have other healthier tools I would encourage some self-reflection on why is that so I just wanted to to say that um and I also went to college you go to college it's a whole different environment in terms of culture of drinking and substances that

I think colleges and universities also need to be more mindful of um but so on the on the vaping sub so we're doing a lot um I actually inherited one particular case the jewel case um which was obviously vaping products and the team did a remarkable job and settle a case millions of dollars coming to Massachusetts and really holding this company accountable because similar to the social media platforms they targeted

young people and used certain types of marketing tactics to go after you for certain products and we know there's we know that has led to an addiction that you just spoke about so we're continuing to hold companies accountable in that space well also of course working with school districts and others on anything else we can do around public awareness our community engagement team and

Community engagement division is here all my team members who I don't they didn't introduce themselves but maybe I'll have do that before we the Bell Rings um but education training so in addition to know your rights we're also wanting to be in conversation with more school districts on how we can support efforts on the ground on ways in which to get young people to not engage with

substances that may be causing them harm um and that you have to do obviously with public health officials and others not just our office Alone um and so we're we're looking at how we do that really well and on the criminal side we have a Crim Bureau we prosecute crimes every day on the way here we're viewing some of those matters we're not Prosecuting young people for those things if anything were Prosecuting

companies who were forcing these products on you or folks who are trafficking fitel or other um opioids or other types of drugs or guns or something else that's where our focus is when it comes to young people it's you know public health model it's looking at okay maybe you made a mistake how do we yes hold accountable but also allow you to still have a chance at a future so thank you for that over here

I'm Madison Jun talking

about it's a great question I I absolutely believe that every young person should have access to a great education and I'll say a free public education that's what I had I don't think any family should have to pay for their child to have access to a great program and that for me starts like birth birth to 12th grade and maybe even Beyond depending on the type of programming um so before I got to the

office the when I started my legal career was a organization called the edlaw project that did direct representation of students to ensure they had access to good schooling which is important that work continues but it also policy initiatives and so now in the office we're thinking about what's our role in holding the state accountable and delivering a high quality education for

every student across the commonweal and we think we have some levers to pull with the Department of of Elementary and secondary Ed some of these educational agencies to push that we exploring how to do that we don't think you need to bring people to court but in the context of low-income communities we're being more forceful there because we recognize those of the communities usually with

the core school districts and lesser resources compared to other school districts and the inequities and the funding some of that is through our agencies some of that is legislative Solutions the second is looking at students with special needs or students who on IEPs or 504 plans and making sure they have access to the services they're entitled to sometimes that could be on an individual basis where student says

or parent or family says my kid has an IEP but they're not getting all the services they're entitled to sometimes that comes to the office and some direct constituency work but we're looking at it sort of from a systemic level well how bad is this across the state and there is significant concern about how students with IEPs are or with special needs are not served well and then on

the Staffing side not enough teachers not enough power professionals um so there's a lot we can do there in pushing not just for funding but also policy changes that lead to better outcomes and then the last point I will make because I got to explore this incredible space that you all are in in the CTS and the programs that you have that will lead to careers which is amazing not every part

of the Comm has these types of opportunities right to leave high school and go into a career and into a job to not incur any student debt but to go straight into a career earn some money and start building yourself a career right for yourself and maybe your future family that's really important and so I think there's a role of us looking at just inequities in our V check systems CTE programs and that's come up in

certain contexts too so more to come so keep I I say all more to come because I started an office in January I I'm not even a full year in right um it's a four-year term and so as we do the work we're going to operate with a sense of urgency but we can't do it right without staying engaged with you and the average person doesn't know the AG's office who

I am what this team does but being here hopefully we open your eyes to some of what this office does and what is capable of doing to help you thank you I'll go here um hi my name isara I'm a junior and I was wondering as your role as a prosecutor do you feel M laws control laws are adequate great question um yes and no so we have some of the most

Progressive gun laws in the Commonwealth in the country I should say and what we are working hard at doing is making sure they're implemented every day so we established a gun violence prevention unit recently in the office and I hired a new director and a deputy director to take that over because I think we need to do more technical assistance and training with law enforcement and other

a agencies across the Comm to ensure they have not only knowledge but how to enforce these gun laws to keep us all safe but in addition to that we need to expand those laws so earlier when I was talking about some legislative Solutions if we don't have the authority given to us by a law right we can't do it and so one big thing right now is Ghost guns these are guns that are untraceable they

don't have serial numbers on them people can have pieces mailed to their home and that happens right here in Mass assetts put it together get all the pieces put it together we can't tra trace it or track it and these ghost guns are obviously used in crimes across the Commonwealth in different communities and so we're working to change the laws be able to enforce like any other type of gun our

our criminal um to be able to prosecute folks who are doing things with ghost guns we can't do that until we have some legislative changes we're in the State House quite a bit pushing for some new laws in that area with the Senate and the house um the other thing I think is really important is the gun violence prevention unit is not just tasked with enforcing our gun laws it's also tasked

with investing in community- based organizations that actually have a track record of breaking cycles of violence in community I think we sometimes forget that of course our gun law is great but in certain communities violence is still happening you have presence of gains but there are organizations on the ground some run by incredible women for example that if they had adequate resources are

on the ground and able to sort of engage in a way that maybe we can to help break us break cycles of violence so we're thinking about what does that look like with this particular unit um and then the last thing I will say is as you look at the gun violence in this country there is a campaign to take away these gun laws and to make them more relaxed

or to get rid of them so every day I feel like people are coming to Massachusetts to challenge our existing gun laws including our assault weapons ban and other things we probably take for granted um and that you don't have people just walking around openly carrying guns here in Massachusetts people are coming to attack our laws to change that so we're defending them every day actively and aggressively so

hopefully we never have what we've seen in other parts of this uh country happen here I don't know what time five minutes five minutes before I go to this before I go to the question can I have all my team members just come over here and quickly introduce your sometime today come come I want you to know who you are yes and I'm going to quickly because and some folks actually are from for all

river by the way and went to your high school not this new building but the old one so I'm going to I'll start I'll start down here pass down the M you have a connection to this Fall River say hi I'm Steve Marshall I'm from D I work out in New Bedford regional office and we have a New Bedford regional office not just the Boston office which is in community obviously

not Fall River but Steve runs it I'm Elizabeth Marshall I'm the deputy of the South Easter M Regional she's an amazing Deputy she works in the New Bedford office from Community I'm Carlos Garcia I'm the advanced coordinator I'm not local Central Mass we'll forgive him hi everyone I'm Abby Taylor and I'm Deputy attorney general and I work in the Boston office but I love an opportunity

to come down here so thank you so much for providing that opportunity today hi everybody my name is Jamie hog I'm honored to serve as the Attorney General's Chief of Staff but I am also a native of Fall River I was born and raised next next to I'm Broadway next to Kennedy Park and I graduated from dery in 1994 the old building so this is amazing to see I took a tour of this when we first

open you're really fortunate to be a part of this institution but you're also should be very proud of being a native of Paul River it's a great place and your future is bright I guarantee you that hi am Ash kantrell no organization development and inclusion coordinator at the AG's office I'm from Paul River um I grew up in Section 8 housing um on 130 Canal Street in Fall River and I went to

dery for a little bit went to call then I got my g hi everyone it's great to be here I'm Liza H I'm the director of The Children's Justice unit which incorporates youth Justice and it's a Statewide uh program um which includes Fall River and I would be happy to hear from any of you personally um if you have any input to share so feel free to stop by I'm happy to share my uh email

address with you uh good afternoon I'm an Landry chief of the policy and government Affairs division my grandparents friend graduated from dery high school in the 1930s and I used to visit them on delar street when I was growing up good to be with you hi I'm Danielle Allard I'm also from the policy and government division I'm a policy adviser um I live in adoro so not too far um but I did live over on

Pleasant Street for like s years and went to UMass lad um like 20 minutes from here so kind of hi everybody I'm Judy Capas Community engagement coordinator I'm from New Bedford but I did work in Fall River um for 10 years at Catholic Social Services over on Bay Street good afternoon everyone thank you for having us thank you for your questions and your attention um my name is Emily Torres kinain I'm the chief of

community engagement and we're just so happy to be here and I just want you to know that AG really wanted us to be here today so that you know what your attorney general's office looks like and that you have access to the office and um we were so happy that there were so many people from Southeastern Mass so anyway thank you so much for having us I'm going to turn it back to the

EG thank you and thank you for giving them a round of applause because not only do we want to be intentional what our team looks like and I can't say that every person in government has a team that looks like this to be candid with you um the geographical diversity also matters and like I said I'm born and raised in Boston but I get it's always about Boston we're so Boston Centric

Boston Boston Boston and I've always been really intentional the mar NOS is to be true to get out of Boston to see what amazing things are happening and so we love the South Coast um and this team is available to you we're going to make sure of course um that your leadership has the information for our team members so as things come up on an individual basis your families whatever it is that

we're accessible to you um so thank you all very much I could take a couple more questions before your bell rings I was going to ask your opinion of adiss and also you have opion the Supreme cour thank you um affirmative action case so we as soon as it came out um quickly and and swiftly um spoke to the disappointment with that decision and just the politicization of the Court you

know as as lawyers and some non lawyers here we all recognize that the foundation of what we do is enforcing laws as they exist and precedent in case law that matters and if we don't like the laws well then we mosy ourselves into the state house or other ways to change it um and that particular case as we can expressed our outrage um we did subsequently put out guidance to hired

institutions on ways in which they can revamp their admissions policies to still ensure diversity um in addition to that we had to also issue some guidance for our K through2 systems to say that decision had nothing to do with what you're doing from the K through2 system or in the K through2 system so keep doing what you're doing we're also seeing as folks try to take that decision and bring it into uh the

business and corporate sector to try to get rid of uh diversity and diversity and Equity inclusion efforts in those spaces which we're also saying it's not applicable there either and that institutions that want to make sure that their workforces are diverse and have different backgrounds and lived experiences they should continue to do that work so we're doing a lot in this space and so we're following it closely

we're working with our universities but lastly what I will stress is even before that decision came what I recognized is that sadly there were still a lot of low-income students and students of color that were not graduating from high school or if they were they weren't getting the skill set and skill set development that they needed they were going maybe to community college incurring debt and then dropping out

that was before that decision so we can do more to help folks get the skills they need and obviously be successful if they decide to choose to go to college we can do more to make sure that folks have access to a k through2 system that's of high quality which clearly we still have work to do in this state on that too and that was before that Supreme Court decision so just for me

now we just have more work to do um but we welcome The Challenge and in terms of some of the other Supreme Court decisions we obviously did not like the decision on guns the Bruin case but hence our work with the gun violence prevention unit and some of our efforts there um everything having to do with Reproductive Rights I have a reproductive Justice unit between team we established that in the office it's

brand new but we are at the Forefront of all things reproductive Justice and if you're following anything in this space it's not just about access to an abortion this is about power and people wanting to take take power away from women or or birthing people in the way in which we choose and how we choose to have a child and when to do it and how to do it um and in some states people

are risking their lives there was one case in Texas recently where a woman went to a court to say if I do not get an abortion there's a I will probably I could possibly die um and the child had already been determined by her doctor would probably be born still birth or die because of a diagnosis that she received and she ended up having to go to another state to get that abortion to

essentially probably save her life and I can't imagine that as you go through a pregnancy wanting to have a child and realize that you can't that you then have to navigate some bureaucracy and some tone deaf elected officials to go somewhere else and add additional trauma in that process so we're in the front lines of all of these issues and I go to a lot of conferences with a lot of 's and other

states we all do frankly we're busy um and every time I get back on the plane and come back to Massachusetts I say this frequently I want to cry because I don't think we realize how blessed we are to live in Massachusetts yes we have our challenges but the fact that you have and should have access to health care and a community that is safe where people not walking around and G with

guns freely you have access to a great High School great facility ities that's just not the case in so many other places and you have elected officials sometimes working against you having those things not here in Massachusetts and that's a blessing as far as I'm concerned I want say thank you for speaking so openly on that topic as a Christian as a woman as a black woman thank you thank you and one point I will

add because you added the black woman please because I stand in that too um is when we established a reproductive Justice unit we said it wasn't just about abortion reproductive Healthcare was also about maternal Health then the gaps we see still in maternal health and if you're a black woman still in Massachusetts with a healthcare system that is the best in the world but you're

still two times more likely to die giv birth which is unacceptable I feel blessed that I didn't have those complications giving birth to my two boys but that's not the case with so many and so this office this team put out $1.5 million to organizations across the Commonwealth in almost every County as far as Burkshire County to Unity based organizations that have a proven track record of trying to close that Gap

when it comes to maternal Health disparities so this unit is also taking on those issues and saying it go hand in hand so we're doing a lot I know um but it's something we care deeply about oh the mayor has to shut you were in that youth panel at night right that we had any the auditorium no no okay I want to say you know this has been so great this has

been so great um you guys have been all respectful the questions have been five stars I thought people did a great job um I know that the Attorney General's leaving dery high school today totally impressed totally impressed with the facility the kids the staff and we wanted to come back again sometime soon hopefully and uh this is what we should be doing connecting with our elected

officials that can make the policies that will help us all and I can tell you as I'm small partner with the uh attorney general she has she's not too small she has the concerns of the kids on her mind to give you guys an afternoon like this I would love to give her a great hand we're going to walk around the building a little more but I really appreciate all of you paying

attention today and doing this for her enj the rest of the day I know the Bell is going to ring and I will just say you know we're we're doing this to also come back to establish like I said advisory Council and other ways to plug folks in who are interested so more to come on that we'll stay in touch with your Administration your principal and others but thank you all enjoy the

holiday season and I'll see some of you obviously soon enough thank you