I was angry to hear that the most powerful person in our county’s criminal justice system thinks that racial disparities aren’t a problem.

When the ACLU of Oregon launched the “They Report to You” campaign to educate voters about district attorneys, Clackamas County DA John Foote could have embraced the new initiative. After all, a well-respected nonprofit was providing Foote’s constituents with a new tool to help DAs like him improve the criminal justice system.

But instead of seeing an opportunity to engage with voters and help reform our criminal justice system, Foote chose denial. The most powerful man in the Clackamas County criminal justice system wrote that it was “patently false” that people of color are treated worse in our system than white people are.