In an editorial, Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez (D-32) gives an attorney’s perspective on race, gender, and civil justice in America, highlighting how people of color can be ignored.
They Didn’t See Me at First—And They Still Don’t See Many of Us
I came to the U.S. from Puerto Rico when I was eight. I didn’t speak English. I was labeled, overlooked, and underestimated from the moment I stepped into a classroom.
It didn’t take long to learn that visibility is a privilege, and in the legal system, that privilege can shape the outcome of your case before it even begins.
Now, as an attorney and legislator, I see the same patterns I lived through show up in the courtroom every day. But this time, they cost people their livelihoods, their safety, and their chance at justice.
In my personal injury and sexual assault civil practice, the cases that hit hardest are the ones that should’ve never been ignored in the first place. A Black woman hit by a drunk driver who gets blamed for walking outside her apartment.
An undocumented worker who suffers a life-changing back injury on the job and is told he has no rights. A young Latina survivor whose case is dismissed because her trauma “wasn’t documented enough.”
It’s not just painful. It’s systemic. Bias isn’t always loud, it’s quiet and deadly.
It shows up in lowball insurance settlements for people of color; disproportionate denial rates of workers’ comp for immigrant laborers, and higher hurdles for sexual assault survivors with “imperfect” stories.
And when you don’t have the right lawyer, or any lawyer at all, justice becomes a luxury item.
The Civil Legal System Is Not Race- or Gender-Blind
It’s easy to believe the courtroom is a place of fairness, but the reality is that race, gender, and class deeply influence outcomes, especially in personal injury, workers’ compensation, and sexual assault cases.
Let’s be honest, white women survivors of sexual assault often receive more public sympathy, higher settlements, and better media coverage.
Black and Latina women, especially those with complex trauma histories or who come from lower-income backgrounds, are questioned more, believed less, and often offered pennies in comparison.
In personal injury cases, studies show that Black and brown plaintiffs receive smaller verdicts and settlements, even when their injuries are more severe.
Undocumented or non-English-speaking workers injured on the job often face retaliation, delay, or denial when seeking compensation, while white, unionized workers in similar circumstances get timely benefits and respect.
These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re systemic trends.
Justice Has a Color and a Class Bias
Consider the headlines. When a white actress sues for sexual assault, it makes national news. When a Latina single mom reports the same, she’s often told she lacks credibility. One gets a million-dollar verdict. The other gets silence.
Or look at workers’ compensation law. Warehouse workers, disproportionately black and brown, are often sent back to work injured, denied full pay, or left with permanent damage and no real recovery. Meanwhile, white-collar injuries are treated with urgency and care.
This is not just about individual bias. It’s about how damages are calculated (often lower for people with lower incomes or life expectancies).
It is about how jurors evaluate credibility, often shaped by unconscious racial and gender bias. It is about how insurance companies and defense attorneys weigh risk—and who they think will be believed.
We Can’t Fix What We Don’t Confront
If we want justice to be real, not just rhetorical, we need to stop pretending that the legal system is immune from the very inequities that define our society.
We need mandatory anti-bias training for judges, mediators, and jurors. Data transparency on verdicts and settlements by race and gender. More diverse trial lawyers, advocates, and experts in courtrooms to reflect the people they serve.
And confronting our system to keep us honest. I’ve sat beside too many clients who felt invisible. Who asked me, “why don’t they believe me?” And far too often, they were right.
Justice should not depend on your zip code, your accent, your immigration status, or how well you fit into someone’s idea of the “perfect victim.”
It’s time we say it plainly: In America’s civil courts, not all pain is treated equally. And that needs to change.
 gives an attorney's perspective on race, gender, and civil justice in America.){kind=link}
Dear Assemblywoman Ramirez,
Thank you for speaking truth to the unholy power that the racist President that was elected-again- into office wields. He WOULD go into full authorization fascist mode, were it not for heroes like you and a few Republicans, too, who are not afraid to stand up to his Legion of Lies.
Plenty of victims don’t see a case prosecuted due to the lack of documented evidence.
That’s the reality of the law, not a racist action. President Trump earned much minority votes because they know he’s looking out for them not lunatic weirdos. Your delusion is immaterial.
If Trump supporters are successful in amending the Constitution on term limits, then it will be President Obama that will win a third term in 2028.
Wrong again you stain on the inside of the toilet bowl that never comes out no matter how many times you flush and no matter how much elbow grease you use. Your idol homobama will be in prison very soon for treason, sedition, and crimes against humanity.
According to you, President Obama’s only crime is that he is Black. So sad to be you, it must be.
Undocumented workers are illegal aliens. They’ve broken the law by invading our country therefore they Had/Have no rights because they entered illegally. You’d think an attorney would know the difference between an illegal act and a legal act but then again jessica the payasa makes her living as a race baiting, anti white racist, anti american race huckster. She’s a bottom feeding leech who takes advantage of people by working the system. No matter how many times you flush people like jessica the payasa ramirez down the toilet they keep popping back up to the top of the toilet water.
I know it’s hard for you illiterate racist MAGA losers to string together a coherent thought, but you’re just wrong. Get off Fox News nitwit.
The 14th Amendment does not apply to children of illegal aliens, who are born on US soil. Fact. I get it, facts are difficult for you people to understand.
The fourteenth amendment does not apply to children born in the USA to parents who are illegal aliens.
The 14th amendment does not apply to children born in the USA to parents who are illegal aliens.
jessi ka ka is a mouthpiece for the racist organization known as La Raza.
Race is social construct you Nazi fool, and you use it to justify your hate of people who look differently than you.
Projection and gaslighting is all you have. You radical, extremist, left wing, Bolshevik, Marxist, socialist, fascist commode cloggers wrote the book on racism. blacks and hispanics are inherently racist toward white people. Unfortunately, we have self loathing white people who enable these same anti white racist, anti American, low IQ inbred useful idiots like yourself. Always a pleasure putting you useful idiots in place. What time does your Communist Party USA meeting begin at Washington Square Park?
You hateful anti white racist hispanics always project and gaslight. Projection is when you falsely accuse others of that which you’re most guilty of doing and being. And it’s a form of mental illness. la raza is a nazi inspired hate group.
You’re a proud racist who wreaks of racism.
Understand the 14th Amendment. I know it’s hard for you radical, extremist, left wing sgumbags to accept facts over fiction.
How Republicans in the mold of Abraham Lincoln have become DEMOCRATS, and how Democrats in the mold of Jefferson Davis HAVE BECOME REPUBLICANS!
To the anti-Woke, anti Raza hate-monger:
“ …In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a Glory in His Bosom that transfigures you and me.
As he died to make men holy let us die to make men free,
While God is Marching On…”
This Battle Hymn of the Republic was the most popular Union song during the Civil War. Most Republicans of today, ESPECIALLY YOU, would have fought on the side of the Confederacy, to MAINTAIN SLAVERY. Most Democrats of today, would have fought on the side of The Union, to END SLAVERY.
Take your RACIST RANT elsewhere as you BOW before your King Donald.
I see once again i’ve offended your delicate sensibilities which is quite easy to do to a low IQ payaso who lacks the perspicacity to know truth from fiction. blacks in africaca enslaved their fellow african blacks for centuries and then sold them to dark skinned muslims in the middle east who then sold them to the west. The two trips in between have always been conveniently omitted and never talked about by you and your fellow anti White racist poltroons who never miss an opportunity to spin, project, gaslight and rewrite history to make it look like your lowlife crew are the victims. When in fact you’ve always been the antagonistic troublemakers. A scourge on society with your lies and refusal to take responsibility and blame for your unacceptable behavior. As for your mendacious comment about lincoln, abe was a good for nothing fake republican who happened to be hired by the bankers as an agent of change in order to cede back control of the USA to the royal family. The Civil War was intended to bankrupt the USA, as all wars do, and did just that. Not to mention his refusal to follow the US Constitution. I bet your zerobama poster placed strategically on the ceiling above your bed is stained from when you master your own domain to that weak race huckster.
You and your kind are cowards, when you wear KKK hoods, or when you push your hatred of people who don’t look like you, You couldn’t pass a citizenship test if your life depended on it. Obama goes to Heaven; Trump does time in Purgatory, at a minimum.
^^^Triggered Smelly Racist Liberal Gorda Chimosa.^^^
So we know from your self-loathing, racist rant that you are an androgynous, young male Latino who voted for Trump DESPITE his racist attitude and racist actions towards millions of desperate human beings fleeing oppression and violence south of our border. You also have a warped perspective on the roots of slavery, one you use to justify your hatred of any of God’s Children who are not at “white” as you. Play your quien es mas macho juego with someone as despicable as yourself.
misogynist, not androgynous.
“While not involved in the transatlantic slave trade which forcibly brought millions of Africans to the Americas, Abraham Lincoln, at one point, supported efforts to relocate formerly enslaved people. He explored colonization options, including the Caribbean island of Ile-à-Vache, Haiti.
Lincoln’s views on colonization evolved over time. He initially believed that white and Black Americans could not peacefully coexist and that separation was the most expedient means to achieve peace after emancipation. However, attempts to establish a colony on Ile-à-Vache failed due to mismanagement and hardships faced by the colonists, leading to the return of the surviving settlers. This experience, among other factors, contributed to Lincoln’s ultimate abandonment of colonization as a viable solution.
It is important to understand that these colonization efforts, while controversial today, represented a complex aspect of Lincoln’s evolving approach to the issue of slavery and race relations in the United States during the Civil War era.”
You probably don’t even understand or agree with multiple points that you cut and pasted, and you did not cite the source. When you try to insult another person whom you don’t even know, you’ve already lost all credibility, as well as the argument.
battle hymn of the republic only knows how to regurgitate platitudes and talking points that he hears and reads on the main stream media tv and newspaper outlets. Listening and reading so intently with the finger following every word read so that he doesn’t miss any of the propaganda used to brain wash the typical low IQ radical extremist left wing dumbocrat bolshevik fool.
On a good day for them, the late William F. Buckley, William Safire,, and, the more contemporary George Will and Bill Crystal could win an argument or two based on the merits of their presentation. You are not intellectually capable of even grasping at straws, yet you continually embarrass yourself in this forum of ideas, by going low, into the gutter, where, sadly, you allow your mind to stagnate.
Battle Hymn of the Republic is Another Typical Fake Ghetto Hood Rat Anti White Racist Pig Who Only Wishes Someone Would Throw a Green Dildo His Way and hallucinates to images of his coelenterate idol zerobama. If you hateful anti White racist scumbags didn’t have double standards, you wouldn’t have any standards at all.
^^^Triggered Liberal^^^
Assemblywoman Ramirez says she “came to the U.S. from Puerto Rico” when she was eight.
News flash: Puerto Rico IS part of the U.S. and has been for over 100 years, it just isn’t a state.
She is implying Puerto Rico is not part of the U.S. How divisive! And shouldn’t an elected official know better? Even in Hudson County?!
Too much to say with meaningless angles.