EMILY RYO

TECHNOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Visiting Assistant Professor Ángel Díaz homes in on how emerging technology can automate racial discrimination

By Leslie Ridgeway Does technology build and support community or weaken and undermine it? USC Gould School of Law Visiting Assistant Professor Ángel Díaz poses such questions in his scholarship focusing on how social media and other technology intersects with racial discrimination.

Ángel Díaz His research covers everything from regulation of law enforcement surveillance tools such as license plate readers to prevent them from being used for mass surveillance, to content moderation by social media platforms and how profit and growth priorities can lead to the censorship of marginalized communities. Experience in both the public and private sector gives Díaz the foundation from which to conduct his investigations. “I have worked with early stage technology companies to improve their privacy practices, and for public interest organizations advocating for constitutional rights in the digital age; both experiences inform my scholarship and advocacy,” says Díaz, a visiting assistant professor who will be with the USC Gould School of Law for two years.

That background includes serving as lecturer in law at UCLA, counsel in the Liberty & National Security Program at the New York University Brennan Center for Justice and an adjunct professor of clinical law at NYU School of Law, and a technology associate at Gunderson Dettmer LLP. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English and JD from University of California, Berkeley, where he had editing roles at the California Law Review and the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, in addition to working as a legal research and writing teaching assistant.

In his first semester at Gould, Díaz is teaching Race, Social Media and the Law, a seminar course that examines how social media companies create new forms of racial discrimination and perpetuate existing forms. He is inspired by his students’ experiences with social media and their desire to craft practical solutions to address digital discrimination.

“Our class incorporates lessons from critical race theory and movement law, using them to examine social media’s relationship with governments,” Díaz says. “Rather than thinking of social media solely in terms of freedom of speech and privacy, we analyze social media’s role in automating racial stratification through a private bureaucracy that evades public scrutiny.”

While at NYU’s Brennan Center, Díaz authored or co-authored several reports including “Double Standards in Social Media Content Moderation” (2021), “Law Enforcement Access to Smart Devices” (2020), “Automatic License Plate Readers: Legal Status and Policy Recommendations for Law Enforcement Use” (2020), and “New York City Police Department Surveillance Technology” (2019). Díaz has also been cited or quoted in media outlets including Associated Press, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, Bloomberg Law and Univision.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Díaz says he appreciates the opportunity to tackle inequality by connecting theory to practice in his hometown.

“It’s great that USC is in a vibrant place like L.A. with a long history of community organizing and forward-thinking policy interventions,” he says. “I’m proud to help train a new generation of attorneys to continue that legacy and help address the urgent problems confronting our city.”