Policing project Adviser Sherrilyn Ifill joined civil rights activist DeRay McKesson and Google’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, for a Google Zeitgeist event on policing tactics, systemic racism, changing policy and Campaign Zero. The panel also discussed recent police shootings in Oklahoma and North Carolina, including protests after the incidents and the use of social media as a mobilizing tool.

We need to “mine the issue of the way in which race effects even what we see,” Ifill noted. She raised that even with available video, people’s observations still vary.  So, something that may seem open-and-shut may not actually be.  “What people bring into the jury room, what judges bring with them onto the bench effects how they see what they see.” Videos are helpful; however, she believes that until there is accountability, there will be no real change.

Google’s Zeitgeist events are structured as intimate conversations with top global thinkers and leaders.

Sherrilyn Ifill

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Sherrilyn Ifill is the seventh President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the nation's premier civil rights legal organization. After graduating law school, Ifill served first as a fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union and then for five years as an assistant counsel in LDF’s New York office, where she litigated voting rights cases.  Among her successful litigation was the landmark Voting Rights Act case Houston Lawyers’ Association vs. Attorney General of Texas, in which the Supreme Court held that judicial elections are covered by the provisions of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. She serves as an Adviser on the Policing Principles project.

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