Systems and rules to support social justice

Efforts to achieve social justice often cannot operate outside of pre-existing social structures; accordingly, this article disentangles complexities toward identifying how systems and rules may promote social justice. Drawing upon practitioner experience, data under a case study methodology is highlighted to provide contrasting experiences of equity, diversity, and inclusion within systems. First, engagement with a case of conflict of interest is considered to explore epistemological complexities within systems. Second, a three-year engagement in maintaining and operating a system—intended to provide community mental-health funding—serves as a follow-up reflection. Ten considerations ground the data analysis: transparent communication of objectives and of shortcomings; explicit acknowledgement of rules as reductionist and imperfect; acknowledgement of marginalization via rule-complexity; acknowledgement of the role of individual agents in asserting personal legitimacy; empowering system-agents to empower communities; grounding system-disqualification in explicit rationale; minimizing disqualification-via-sustained-engagement; strategizing open and inclusive process in amending system-errors; minimizing collusion; and considering unintended impacts.