Margaretta Wan-Ling Lin

Margaretta has served as a long-time leader in movements for racial justice, healing, and human rights.  She seeks to support students to apply critical thinking and understanding of structural racism, forensics policy analysis, and humanitarian principles to solve public policy challenges. 

Margaretta's applied research and public policy development focus on repairing past policy and planning injustices through transformative community planning and policy design.  Current initiatives include conducting the nation's first impact evaluation study of Fair Chance Housing laws, designing a local policy framework for the right to housing for unhoused residents applying international human rights standards and a statewide policy framework connecting the dots on air quality, transportation, and displacement, and developing a comprehensive countywide re-entry housing plan.  She welcomes interested Goldman students to contact her for mentorship and involvement in her policy research and design efforts.

As a government official, human rights lawyer, and activist, Margaretta’s work has resulted in the passage of national north star public policies and laws including on fair chance housing, foreclosure prevention and mitigation, anti-displacement, bilingual education, special education, economic justice, youth violence prevention, and environmental justice.  She currently serves as the Founding Director of Just Cities, a policy justice organization. 

At the City of Oakland, Margaretta led federal stimulus efforts during the Great Recession, coordinating multi-agency efforts of over $300 million for green energy projects, jobs and other vital public services; created new racial justice policies and institutions; and launched initiatives to prioritize historically neglected neighborhoods including the development of the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone Collaborative with EastSide Arts Alliance.  At the East Bay Community Law Center, Margaretta founded the Community Economic Justice Clinic to train law students in impact lawyering and organizing including on the Oakland Chinatown Pacific Renaissance housing justice struggle.  At Public Advocates, Margaretta served as legal counsel on iconic educational justice cases, Larry P. v. Riles and Zambrano v. OUSD.  In response to racial violence, Margaretta co-founded community institutions for inclusion and belonging--Youth Together, Youth Uprising, and the Skyline H.S. One Land, One People Center. 

Margaretta has a JD and Masters in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley and BA from the University of Virginia.  After law school, she clerked for Judge Hugh Bownes with the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit where, together, they challenged the racially disparate treatment of crack versus cocaine convictions in federal sentencing cases. 

Contact and Office Hours

About

Areas of Expertise

• Transformative Public Policy Design
• Applied and Participatory Public Policy Research
• Racial and Economic Justice in Urban Policies and Plans
• Re-entry Housing and Support
• Housing, Homelessness, and Community Development
• Environmental Justice
• Racial Reconciliation
• Youth Violence Prevention
• Education Equity
• Health Equity
• Transit Equity
• Mindfulness in Law and Public Policy
• Love-based Justice and Public Policy
• Navigating Politics

Curriculum Vitae

Download a PDF (118KB, updated 05-17-2021)

Other Affiliations

• Lecturer, UC Berkeley Department of City and Regional Planning
• Faculty, UC Berkeley Future Histories Lab
• Executive Director, Just Cities

Research

Current Projects

• Fair Chance Housing Law Impact Evaluation Study:  This first in the nation study of fair chance housing laws utilizes participatory and transformative research principles and analyzes the specific benefits and unintended consequences of local laws passed to remove discriminatory housing barriers for people with criminal records, demonstrates the connections between housing stabiity and support systems as anti-recividism strategies, and measures the power of hope in human transformation.
• The Right to Housing Policy Framework Design:  Rooted in international human rights laws and values and utilizing transformative planning with unhoused residents and activists, this project seeks to develop the nation's first set of local laws that make real the human right to adequate and dignified housing for unhoused residents.
• The Right to Clean Air, Housing, and Transportation Statewide Policy Framework:  Rooted in a historic analysis of structural racism in California focused on spatial segregation and environmental discrimination, this project will work with environmental justice grassroots leaders in California communities most impacted by poor air quality.  We seek to collectively analyze the structural roots of today's environmental, housing, and transportation problems and design policy solutions that center the voices and leadership of impacted residents.
• Comprehensive Re-entry Housing Plan for Alameda County:  Utilizing a racial and health equity framework and co-led by formerly incarcerated community researchers, this collaborative of re-entry justice, federal, state, county, and city leaders will develop a comprehensive set of policies and plans for Alameda County that creates a housing roadmap of success and support for residents returning home from mass incarceration.

In the News

Articles and Op-Eds

Media Citations

Courses

List of Courses

Last updated on 08/23/2021