UVA Law Conference To Explore Racism One Year After Charlottesville Protests
Pulitzer Prize Winner To Deliver Keynote at Paramount Theater
Pulitzer Prize winner James Forman Jr. will headline a conference hosted by the University of Virginia School of Law that will examine racism in the United States. The event marks the one-year anniversary of the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.
Sponsored by UVA Law, the school’s Center for the Study of Race and Law, the Carter G. Woodson Institute and the Virginia Law Review, “One Year After Charlottesville: Replacing the Resurgence of Racism With Reconciliation” will be held Sept. 27-28 and explore the nation’s history of racism, racial violence and white supremacy, and where it stands today through the lens of empirical critical race theory.
“We’re trying to take back the discourse so it’s no longer about giving a voice to white supremacy and nationalism,” said professor Dayna Bowen Matthew ’87, an organizer of the event. “We’re trying to speak for and with people who have been harmed and silenced by hate in all its manifestations.”
James Forman Jr.
Forman, professor of law at Yale Law School, will deliver the keynote on Sept. 27 at 4 p.m. at The Paramount Theater in Charlottesville. He is author of “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America,” which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
UVA President Jim Ryan ’92 will host the event, joining Forman on stage for a discussion and Q&A after Forman’s talk, titled “Claiming Your Power: American Racism, the Alt-Right, and Radical Resistance.”
“Jim adds important context to our ongoing conversation about how we live our values at UVA and indeed in our country,” Ryan said. “His book and his scholarship focus on the unanticipated consequences of often well-meaning actions, and how we can work to recognize and remedy inequity going forward.”
On Sept. 28 in the Law School’s Caplin Pavilion, Dean Risa Goluboff will kick off the conference at 8:30 a.m. with an opening address. Ted Shaw, Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law, will deliver the lunch keynote. Closing remarks will be given by john a. powell (who spells his name lowercase), professor of law and director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California, Berkeley. The day’s events include panels featuring leading scholars from across the country, who will discuss race and the body, policing communities, race and institutions, and social mobility.
The Law School founded the Center for the Study of Race and Law in 2003 to provide opportunities for students, scholars, practitioners and community members to examine and exchange ideas related to race and law through lectures, symposia and scholarship.
Schedule
Thursday, Sept. 27
4-6 p.m.
CONFERENCE KEYNOTE
James Forman Jr., Yale Law School, "Claiming Your Power: American Racism, the Alt-Right, and Radical Resistance"
Author of “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America,” Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
Hosted by President Jim Ryan ’92, University of Virginia. Q&A to follow.
Free. Tickets required for entry.
Paramount Theater
Friday, Sept. 28
Caplin Pavilion, University of Virginia School of Law
7:30-8:15 a.m.
CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
8:15-8:30 a.m.
WELCOME
Vice Dean Leslie Kendrick ’06, University of Virginia School of Law
8:30-9:30 a.m.
OPENING KEYNOTE
Dean Risa Goluboff, University of Virginia School of Law
Introduction by Alex M. Johnson Jr., University of Virginia School of Law
9:30-11 a.m.
PLENARY PANEL 1: THE BODY
Moderator: Dayna Bowen Matthew, University of Virginia School of Law, Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine
Student Moderator: Courtney Davis ’20
Panelists:
- Khiara M. Bridges, Boston University School of Law, Boston University Department of Anthropology
- Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard Law School
- Jonathan Kahn, Mitchell Hamline School of Law
- Terence Keel, University of California, Los Angeles Department of African American Studies and Institute for Society and Genetics
11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m.
PLENARY PANEL 2: POLICING COMMUNITIES
Moderator: Josh Bowers, University of Virginia School of Law
Student Moderator: Robbie Pomeroy ’19
Panelists:
- Jennifer Chacón, University of California, Los Angeles Law School
- Jennifer Lynn Eberhardt, Stanford University Department of Psychology
- Jeffrey A. Fagan, Columbia University Law School, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University
- Laura E. Gómez, University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, UCLA Departments of Sociology and Chicana and Chicano Studies
- Timothy Heaphy '91, University Counsel, University of Virginia
1-2:15 p.m.
LUNCH KEYNOTE
Theodore M. Shaw, University of North Carolina School of Law; Director, Center for Civil Rights
Introduction by Kim Forde-Mazrui, University of Virginia School of Law; Director, Center for the Study of Race and Law
2:15-3:45 p.m.
PLENARY PANEL 3: INSTITUTIONS
Moderator: Osagie Obasogie, University of California, Berkeley Joint Medical Program, School of Public Health
Student Moderator: Zach Ingber ’19
Panelists:
- Claudrena Harold, University of Virginia Corcoran Department of History
- Gregory Mitchell, University of Virginia School of Law
- Gregory Parks, Wake Forest University School of Law
- Victor D. Quintanilla, Indiana University Bloomington, Maurer School of Law
4-5:30 p.m.
PLENARY PANEL 4: SOCIAL MOBILITY
Moderator: Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Boston University School of Law
Student Moderator: Toccara Nelson ’19
Panelists:
- R. Richard Banks, Stanford Law School
- Andrew Kahrl, University of Virginia Corcoran Department of History
- Taeku Lee, Berkeley Law, University of California, Berkeley Political Science Department
- Daria Roithmayr, University of Southern California Gould School of Law
Founded in 1819, the University of Virginia School of Law is the second-oldest continuously operating law school in the nation. Consistently ranked among the top law schools, Virginia is a world-renowned training ground for distinguished lawyers and public servants, instilling in them a commitment to leadership, integrity and community service.
