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Shah Outlines Consequences of Prohibiting Sex Work

Public Policy Professor Manisha Shah joined the Then & Now podcast to discuss the long history of policy approaches to sex work, including prohibition and regulation. “For many years, prostitution was a part of normal life, which is why we call it the oldest profession,” she said on the podcast, which is hosted by the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. With the appearance of syphilis in the 1500s in Europe, prostitution became associated with sexually transmitted diseases. “Today, prohibition is the norm,” said Shah, who directs the Global Lab for Research in Action. Sex work is prohibited in all U.S. states, with the exception of a few counties in Nevada that allow regulated sex work. Shah explained that a growing body of research highlights the negative impacts of prohibition, including increased spread of sexually transmitted infections, increased violence against women, less trust of police and less empowerment of female sex workers.


Endowed Chair Awarded in Honor of Former Dean Gilliam New chair in social justice will benefit the research of Manisha Shah, a professor whose global policy focus includes child health and intimate partner violence

By Les Dunseith

The Luskin School of Public Affairs presented its newest endowed chair to Professor Manisha Shah on Nov. 9 with the chair’s namesake, former Dean Frank Gilliam, and its benefactors, Meyer and Renee Luskin, in attendance.

The Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. Chair in Social Justice, which was created by the Luskins as part of their naming gift to the Luskin School in 2011, will provide financial support for Shah’s research throughout a five-year term as holder of the chair. She is a professor of public policy who joined the UCLA Luskin faculty in 2013.

Gilliam’s long tenure at UCLA as a professor and then dean ended in 2015 when he became the chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He said it is an honor to have his name attached to an award focusing on social justice.

“I am extremely humbled and honored that the Luskins have created an endowed professorship in my name,” Gilliam told an audience of about 75 invited guests who assembled on the festively redecorated third-floor rooftop of the Public Affairs Building.

The social justice focus of the endowment was particularly meaningful for Gilliam. “These are issues I’ve spent my entire professional and personal life working on and I continue to do so today,” he said.

As the holder of the endowed chair, Shah said she plans to further her attempts to understand the barriers that prevent women and girls around the world from living their best lives, an issue that led her to found the Global Lab for Research in Action at UCLA in 2019.

“What do we do at the lab? Through a gender lens, we focus on hard-to-reach populations, understudied populations, and we look at groups like adolescents and sex workers and low-income women. We study critical issues related to child health and intimate partner violence and sexual health,” Shah said during her remarks. “Ultimately, the idea is that we’d like to shift public conversation and eventually shift some of the social norms.”

Gilliam, who first hired Shah to join the faculty at UCLA, expressed pride and excitement that she had been chosen as the inaugural holder of the chair in his name.

“She is a remarkable person, a remarkable intellect,” Gilliam said. “Her work is so important. It spans disciplines like economics and public policy and really social welfare, quite frankly. She focuses on the most understudied topics and the most overlooked populations. … This is big stuff.”

Current Dean Gary Segura noted the pivotal role that Gilliam played in bringing social justice to the forefront during his time as dean, shaping the sometimes-disparate disciplines within the Luskin School into a unifying vision.

“Frank Gilliam, perhaps more than any single other leader in the School’s history, shaped the social justice mission and identity of the Luskin School of Public Affairs,” Segura said.

In his remarks, Meyer Luskin said his observations of Gilliam’s leadership and priorities helped lead him toward making the $50 million naming gift to the Luskin School a decade earlier.

“I saw dedication, courage, morality and ethics, empathy, much resourcefulness, strength and kindness, intelligence, hard-working, visionary, loyalty, a great sense of humor, and a man most devotedly committed to justice and equality,” he said.

Segura thanked the Luskins for their foresight and generosity in endowing the new chair, plus three other previously awarded chairs benefitting professors at UCLA Luskin.

Gilliam said their selflessness is well-represented among people associated with the professions of social work, public affairs and urban planning that are taught at the Luskin School.

“The people who work in your area often go unnoticed. They don’t do it for the fame, they don’t do it for the fortune,” he said. “This is hard work, it’s complicated work. It’s real work … on the ground, dealing with real-world policy problems that affect the society.”

Gilliam surveyed the crowd of family, friends and former colleagues who had gathered to celebrate Shah and recognize an endowment that will forever carry his name. Ultimately, said the former professor, dean and current chancellor, it’s about passion for the cause, the mission, embodied for Gilliam in the words spoken by Meyer Luskin when they first met:

“My goal in life is to make the world a better place.”

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Gilliam Endowed Chair

Campus Police Presence Not Healthy for Development, Astor Says

Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor was mentioned in a Southern California News Group article about the controversial presence of armed officers on school campuses. Many school districts in Southern California have armed officers on their campuses despite opposition from parents and students. In September, 18-year-old Mona Rodriguez was fatally shot by a school safety officer in an off-campus parking lot in Long Beach. In that school district, non-sworn officers are able to carry guns, batons and pepper spray but do not have arrest powers. Other school districts have their own police departments or have contracts with police and sheriff departments. According to Astor, a heavy police presence can adversely impact the school climate. “Very heavily armed schools prime the kids in those schools to think of the place more like a prison,” Astor explained. “Militarizing and turning schools into things that look like prisons is not healthy for development. It’s not healthy for identity.”


Umemoto on Acknowledging Painful History

Urban Planning Professor Karen Umemoto spoke to NBC News about the importance of facilitating discussions about racial tensions to incorporate the histories of communities that have long been made invisible. In 1871, about 20 Chinese Americans were murdered in a race riot in Los Angeles, now regarded by many as a forgotten history. Umemoto said that we can be critical of the things that have taken place in history without necessarily blaming the ancestors of those who may have perpetrated injustices. “Remembering both the accomplishments and achievements of different groups in society is as important as remembering the tragedies,” said Umemoto, director of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center. In ethnic studies, Umemoto aims to “teach about the full lives of people of color in this country and Indigenous peoples in this country so that we could develop that historical empathy for one another.”


Leap Highlights Paths to Upward Mobility for Youth

Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap joined the 30 for 30 podcast “The King of Crenshaw” to discuss the role that gangs play in Los Angeles. “If our culture in L.A. is a tapestry, [gangs] are several threads that run through that tapestry — the good, the bad, the ugly and the understandable,” she said.  The podcast focused on how the life and death of rapper and community activist Nipsey Hussle deeply impacted the sports world, particularly NBA players. Leap noted that many Black youth in South Los Angeles pursue basketball and rap as paths to opportunity and hope. While not the only options for upward mobility, they don’t require any special equipment but do depend on raw ability and talent. “The minute you’re busy playing sports, you’re less busy with the hood, pure and simple,” Leap said. “You can’t take the hood away without putting something in its place.”


Leap on Complicated Origins of Gang Activity

Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in an ABC 7 News segment about the complicated history of gang activity in Los Angeles. “People think that gangs are about criminal activity, but they’re really about economics,” Leap said. She explained that when factories in South L.A. began to close down in the 1970s, job opportunities and income narrowed and created a vacuum for gang activity. “Thousands of people lost their jobs, and the area never recovered,” she said. “You don’t see the pain that goes into gang membership and the reasons why people join gangs.” Leap said the Crips, one of the oldest gangs in the South Los Angeles area, have been involved in significant social services in addition to gang activity and criminal behavior. “To understand the Crips is to understand a very lengthy, very complex picture of a street organization that began in the Southern California area,” she said.


Leap Sees Violence Exacerbated by Pandemic

Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in a Los Angeles Times article about the disproportionate rise in homicides targeting Latino and Black victims. “It speaks to the two Los Angeleses,” said Leap, pointing to the significant disparities in public safety across the city. Communities of color have been disproportionately burdened by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to an increase in drug disputes and violence, she said. “Drug dealing is not a peaceful endeavor,” Leap said, and the violence it spawns has been “exacerbated literally by hunger, by worse poverty, by people not having enough money, by people being desperate.” Furthermore, many programs aimed at reducing gang activity and violence were put on hold during the pandemic. Leap explained that people who had relied on such programs were driven into a spiral of despair by their collapse, and she predicted that the increased violence will only stop once those programs are back in place.


Leap on Public Safety After L.A.’s Leadership Transition

Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap spoke to the Los Angeles Times about how to address rising rates of gun violence, one of several issues that the next L.A. mayor will face. While some city leaders have expressed a desire to reform the duties of the Los Angeles Police Department, including moving away from armed responses to certain calls, the city is facing a surge in homicides and gun violence. As of July 3, homicides had increased by nearly 41% compared to the same period in 2019 and the number of shooting victims increased by nearly 40% in the same period. Leap expressed concern that the gun violence could spark a public backlash against community policing programs and partnerships with gang intervention workers. “What terrifies me is that people will say, ‘Crime is increasing, we’ve got to stop this,’” Leap said. “And they’ll go back to the bad old days of command-and-control policing.”


Astor Promotes Culture of Care, Safety in Schools

Professor of Social Welfare Ron Avi Astor’s new report on increasing school safety and reducing weapons on campuses was covered by KNX1070 and CBS LA. The study found that fostering supportive environments in schools plays a key role in reducing the presence of weapons and creating safe campuses. Astor and his team analyzed surveys from 890,000 California students to better understand how factors such as the level of crime in a school’s surrounding neighborhood, students’ feelings of belongingness at their school, and student relationships with teachers and staff can affect the potential for weapons-carrying and violence. They found that measures such as metal detectors, security cameras and active shooter drills increase fear of violence, diminish students’ well-being and disproportionately affect students of color. Instead, Astor proposed prioritizing a culture of care and elevating the voices of students and teachers. “We must create opportunities to hear their voices and explore local solutions that make their schools safer,” he said.


Trust Is Easily Shattered, Leap Says

Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap appeared on a Fox11 News panel discussion about the growing fight for social justice in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and other Black victims of police brutality. Watching the cell phone video of Floyd’s final moments was like “watching a home movie that I was sorry to see,” Leap said. “Why are we watching this again and again?” Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of Floyd’s murder, but the fight against systemic racism continues. “What was so upsetting about recent events and what happened in Minneapolis that had affected people here is that trust is so easily shattered,” Leap said. “We need real change … so that people can feel safe.” The panel discussion took place after an episode of the documentary series “Rising Up” that focused on parallels between the Floyd case and the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police.