NJ.com’s Tennyson Donyéa reports
After months of protests across the state and country demanding racial equality, New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver said Thursday it’s time for state officials to “abandon bureaucratic red tape” and pass more far-reaching racial justice policies.
Oliver, a Democrat, made the remarks at an annual meeting for the New Jersey Institute For Social Justice (NJISJ) Thursday evening, where leaders discussed the institution’s goals for the new legislative session, which began on January 14, and is scheduled to run through late January 2022.
“As a state governmental leader, we’ve got to abandon the old ways of going through bureaucratic kinds of experiences. We’ve got to cut out the red tape, cut out the bureaucracy,” Oliver said. “If you want to get something done, I believe, like Nike says, you just do it.”
At the meeting, which was held on Zoom and attended by some state legislators and members of the public, NJISJ leaders put forth the organization’s 2021 “action agenda” for social justice. The group is one of the most vocal advocacy groups for racial justice causes in the state.