Michelle Mbekeani, '14, On Crain's 40 Under 40
Michelle Mbekeani | Crain's Chicago Business
It takes grit and resilience to challenge the values of the institution you work for, day in and day out.
That's Michelle Mbekeani's reality. She embraces it.
It's why in 2018, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx hired the self-described "outsider" who has been publicly critical of the criminal justice system to advise her on addressing its inequities and reforming it. Mbekeani has spoken and written widely about how you can't "reform" a system that is accomplishing what it was designed to do: marginalize and disproportionately incarcerate Black and Brown people. But you can't dismantle a system without understanding it, intimately knowing it from the inside, and then rebuild it for the better. That's in part why she accepted what she calls the "inside job" when Foxx offered it. "In some ways, I had been preaching to the choir," she says of her previous jobs as a civil rights lawyer and social justice advocate.
Mbekeani co-wrote recent legislation prohibiting law enforcement officers from using deception while interrogating suspects under the age of 18. She worked behind the scenes to convince the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police to change their stance from "nay" to "yea" without altering the bill's language or pushing away its core supporters. The bill passed with overwhelming support in both legislative bodies.
Read more at Crain's Chicago Business