opinion
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The WNBA star’s case should galvanize Americans to “use their voices to fight against marijuana prohibition, a policy that’s rooted in racism and homophobia.”
Mikelina Belaineh has worked as an advocate and organizer since they were 18, when they began organizing on behalf of queer and trans students at Texas A&M, which at the time was ranked the least LGBTQ friendly public institution in the country. This is the work that led them to pursuing an education in Law. Since graduating Harvard Law in 2016, Mikelina has spent their career exploring innovative, human centric solutions to Mass Incarceration. Mikelina started their career working with street and gang impacted individuals and communities in Boston. They then went on to do research and Technical assistance work at the Vera Institute of Justice, working with local jurisdictions interested in pursuing evidence based and data driven Jail decarceration strategies. While at Vera, Mikelina’s work and research focused on women in jails, and research was done in partnership with incarcerated womxyn as well as formerly incarcerated womxyn. Mikelina now serves as the Director of Impact at a non-profit advocacy organization called The Last Prisoner Project, which works at the intersection of criminal Justice & cannabis reform. Additionally, Mikelina is a scholar who writes and teaches on intersections of gender, sexuality, gender based violence, and mass incarceration. They have two courses they developed, “Gender: a policed state” & “LGBTQ+ communities & mass incarceration” and are currently working on their first book. Mikelina is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association and received their JD from Harvard Law School. Most recently they have taught their courses at Hofstra University.